Plastic parts are widely used in almost every industry. The most commonly used method for their production is the injection molding. This method has proven good, especially when it comes to big series - hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of pieces. The disadvantage of this method is the need for complex and expensive tooling. The price of a mold can reach tens of thousands of Еuro and time to manufacture it is usually several months. There are other methods for production of plastic parts, suitable for making single copies. Such methods are SLS - Selective Laser Sintering and FDM - Fused Deposition Modeling (known also as fast prototyping with 3D printer). They are available in Bulgaria for about 1 Euro per cm ³, which makes them competitive only for prototyping. What to do if you need a short series of plastic parts (from 10 to 1000 pieces) or can not afford a few months to develop instrumental equipment? SimkoTeh has a technology that with better quality of the finished plastic part than SLS and FDM and close to the injection molding technology. The great advantage is its lack of complex tooling and the ability to use large number of polymers. We can produce for our clients pilot series, while the injection mold equipment is under development (or until they are sure that there is enough demand to be worth investing in expensive tooling) and thus offer them the opportunity to enter the market a few months earlier. It is possible that the nature of the final product does not involve large numbers plastic details, but only a short monthly or yearly series, this is often the case in the electronics industry. The volume output of our technology is lower compared with injection technology, but what does it matter whether a plastic part is produced in 2 seconds or 2 minutes when needed eg 100 pieces? Typically after a few pieces our technology turns more compatitive compared to the fast prototyping technologies with 3D printer - SLS and FDM. Sometimes depending on the size of the workpiece it may turn out that we are more advantageous than SLS and FDM even after the second piece. The chart illustrates in what numbers, approximately, which method is more competitive. Everything, of course, is conditional and depends on the volume and complexity of the plastic detail (the volume of the single detailmatters a lot in the fast prototyping with 3D printer - SLS and FDM, the complexity in manufacturing of tooling for the classic injection molding).
SimkoServices - Processing of plolymers, plastic details
Polymers
SimkoTech produces plastic details from the following polymers:
- ABS
- Polycarbonate
- Polyacetal
- Polypropylene
- Acrylic
- SAN
- PA (Polyamide)
- PBT(Polybutylen terephthalate)
- PUR (Polyurethane)
- PET (Polyethylene terephthalate)
- HDPE (High Density Polyethylene)
- LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene)
- TPE (Thermoplastic Elastomer)
- TPU (Thermoplastic polyurethans)
- LCP (Liquid Cristal Polymer)
- Epoxy resins
- etc