hey os wiz whats ur name anyways? lol ...

No look you dont go about it the way the most big companies with big budgets do. I have had several molds made. the trick is to find a shop the works on an hourly rate, and do all the backend work yourself.

you have your part design in 3d cad already i assume, so if you were using solidworks, you could reverse that part and get the mold design directly off the part. once you have that, you could do 2 things. 1 you could get mastercam, or some other gcode software and write the code your self....OR you can find a company that has a newer HURCO cnc machine. Those machines do not use g-code like a normal machine. you can import models directly, set up a few offsets and the tooling and it goes to work cutting. Now my local machine shop charges $60 per hour. you figure an hour to set up the machine, and 10 hours cutting on the part, and your only at 660 bucks for one mold. thats leaves around a 100 bucks to get the material. steel is cheap. I doubt it would take longer than 10 hours to cut a mold that size. and once it gets done, all you have to do is have the mold ultrasonic cleaned, and MAYBE get it coated if you want, but its basically done. The only real trick is to find out what dimensions the outside of the mold needs to be so it will fit right in the injection machine your using.

we have an SLA printer at school. i have printed dozens of parts on it. YES some parts are very nice, look nice, and last depending on their usage. But the layering that the printer does is an inharently weak concept every one of those layers is a weak spot. the parts are strong across the layers but if you leverage it the right way, they will break. SLS is the much better choice as it melts the material to make a part thats almost 95% dense as a molded part, but the finish is not as smooth and nice as SLA.


SO my out look on it, is that for the cost of your new machine, you could make all your molds. And im not sure about where you are, but over here in America, there is alot of broke people and companies looking for work. Most of them would be glad to do you a small run. sure it might cost you a little more per part, but your talking 2.50 per, instead of 1.75 Hell I had some small plastic gas tanks made at a Roto-Mold company and they didn-t even charge me for the plastic LOL. Anyways, its ur baby, so take any approach you want, but I have had to find ways to get parts made on the cheap, and Every time Ive always been able to do it MUCH cheaper than what these companies are quoting.

BTW, you could also buy a desktop CNC for around 7 grand that could cut your molds for you. it would be slow, but it would work. you could even use aluminum molds for a run that small, just get it DLC coated so it last forever.

I completely understand what you are saying, not unfamiliar with how molds are made However, i personally have not heard of prices that you mention. Perhaps in the US any local shop can machine a mold in a jiffy in 10 hours but in EU and other parts of the world to make a mold to last at least couple thousand runs it requires more than what you mention here.

I am not sure what type of molds you have done personally nor what your school does but out of the 20 years in the business and quite a lot feedback from quotes of tens of manufacturers the realistic prices are not that low.

Definitely if i had a 7000 USD mill (if i can find it that cheap) i could do the molds, polish them, inject the plastic, pain them and do the rest of post processing. Perhaps even, if i had all the time in the world and no obligations towards future customers nor any deadlines or pressure from competitors i could do lots of things but unfortunately not everything is as simple as you describe it.

PS: Not sure if you noticed the Logo on my avatar or read any content on the site but the name is Demetris

In any case i do appreciate your feedback and really respect your perspective on things.

Tell you what, Ill make a deal with you. Send me the 3d design, and Ill shop it around to my guys and get you a price. Process Improvement and product flow is actually what I do for a living, so I can help you out if you like. How many pieces is there to make? i assumed 2 for the main Controller covers, but you said there was more small pieces??

Files are available in the ... "Files" section Although these are for the older version.

If you can manage to find someone to make the molds and at least 20 sets of all parts under the price of 2980 EU (which is what is needed for the 3D printer and material not including the rest of details and the actual budget to exist until the production is complete as well as work on the system - hens the final goal in the IndieGoGo campaign) then i shall be more than happy to discuss it.