【Vacuum Pressure Forming】Silicone Mold Flip-Flops, Create Your Own Production Line, No Outsourcing Needed!
The essential path of product development: testing, errors, corrections, and how to resolve the testing cycle? Silicone mold flip-flop production, create your own production line, no outsourcing needed! See how Beta Design, a London industrial design firm, does it from scratch:
In product development, prototype design is the most crucial stage, and it often proves more complex than initially imagined, requiring a continuous cycle of testing, errors, corrections, and more testing until the goal is achieved. Typically, testing products involves significant time and cost outsourcing to industrial factories, with repeated testing until the results meet design requirements.
The London industrial design studio "Beta Design" also faced the same challenges in developing footwear, especially given the variety of shoe materials, which necessitated multiple rounds of testing. To replace the traditional outsourced production process, the team used the Mayku Multiplier vacuum pressure forming machine in conjunction with a 3D printer. They established their own production line to develop various shoe styles while considering ergonomic and aesthetic design.
First, design a 3D shoe model and use a Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printer with high-temperature resistant 3D printing filaments such as ABS or HIPS to create reusable templates.
Place the 3D printed flip-flop model into the Multiplier desktop pressure former. Pair it with flexible vacuum forming plastic sheets, start the machine's heating function. Once the specified temperature is reached, the blister sheets soften and sag. Then, press down the handle to begin vacuum forming. The entire process takes only 3 minutes! By simply repeatedly inserting plastic sheets, you can quickly and endlessly replicate flip-flop molds, achieving mass production of identical designs.
The Multiplier desktop pressure former boasts four tons of downward pressure, ensuring a perfect fit with the model, even for objects with 90-degree right-angle edges. After cooling, demolding is effortless. (Click here to see: Fancy chocolate desserts, unlimited replication in 5 minutes!)
(After vacuum forming with the Mayku Multiplier, the inherent elasticity of the sheet material allows for better demolding results.)
To find the most suitable material for flip-flops, Beta Design began testing a wide range of materials. They injected various materials into vacuum-formed shoe molds, demolding them after the material solidified. By repeating this simple process, they could quickly self-produce and arrange all the experimental shoes.
Traditional silicone mold casting is slow and costly, taking "several days" to complete one mold. With the Mayku Multiplier pressure former as their primary tool, the Beta team can complete a mold in "5 minutes." Even if modifications are needed, they can be made and continued immediately, significantly accelerating the company's product development speed.
The Mayku Multiplier pressure former offers industrial-grade quality while maintaining a compact, desktop size, making it suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises and independent creators. It meets the demands for custom part molds and enables batch production in a short time. 3DMART offers more than just 3D printing; contact us today to learn more about the detailed applications of vacuum forming machines.
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