Vacuum Casting and Pre-series

The mould is made from silicone rubber. Typical quantities for pre-series can run up to 25 to 50 copies by using a stereolithography or other material’s master. The materials used for the replicas can be manifold: they can range from traditional injection-moulded thermoplastic resin (e.g. ABS, Nylon, PC, etc.), to soft rubber-like resin or to transparent resin. The printed part can be reused inside another mould to obtain co-moulded objects with two or more different types of materials. For example rubber can be co-moulded with plastic or two plastic resins with different characteristics. These parts have the same finishing that can be obtained with definitive production tools.
Vacuum casting is cost effective and produces characteristics comparable to the final product. For example prototypes can be made transparent, translucent or fully opaque. Therefore the prototypes are often used in marketing at trade fairs to demonstrate and to test desired characteristics. In response to customer reports modifications can still be made in the design process to provide more user friendly solutions.