Rapid injection molders that are actually any good?

Comatose said:

I really need to find a reliable prototype injection molder.

I just lost a month and $17,000 on Xcentric Mold. Without getting into it, not going to ever deal with those chuckleheads again. Can't even produce geometrically correct parts, let alone to tolerance, and want me to pay them to fix errors they admit are in their mold. Well, a bit broke, but these things happen... Um yeah no kidding these things happen, that's why you notice, change the bit and keep working rather than just hoping the customer won't mind a part with holes in it. Then we'll promise a fix in a month, on an original three week turn. Seriously. I've never walked away from a supplier rather than trying to resolve such easy issues before, but not having to deal with these clowns again is worth the price of a car to me, so I'm starting over.

Proto labs are fast and okay for what they are, but they're slaves to their software. If it says they can do something, they'll do it. If it says they can't, they wont. Even super obvious, easy things.

I really do need molded parts and I really do need them in a week or three per design revision. Somebody in this space has to be competent. Prefer domestic, but will go overseas if there's really nobody left. 3d printing isn't an option and the part geometries don't lend themselves well to machined prototypes.

Plenty of guys here and there can do full spec steel molds well, but I need maybe 100 of a part per design cycle, with 5-6 design cycles between first protos and production.

Anybody used someone of this type (other than proto labs, who I respect but don't work for me on this one) they can recommend?

Thanks!

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Comatose said:

I really need to find a reliable prototype injection molder.

...Proto labs are fast and okay for what they are, but they're slaves to their software. If it says they can do something, they'll do it. If it says they can't, they wont. Even super obvious, easy things.... I really do need molded parts and I really do need them in a week or three per design revision.

Based on your desired completed mold timing and if your part is small enough, Protolabs is one of the few players in the niche. A little over a year ago I had an injection molded part quoted by Protolabs and a local prototype house. Protolabs was 3wks and $23K. The local prototype house quoted 6 wks and 40K. I completely understand the frustration dealing with their mold design review software. It took about 7 design days of revising the design, submitting to Protolabs, reviewing their issues, revising the design, repeat, repeat.... Their review process appears to be like peeling an onion - there is always another layer (of issues) underneath. We rarely address the issues raised and not have a new set of issues when resubmitting. It helps if you have an account mgr at Protolabs - a human that you can call, or e-mail. There is a certain amount of hand waiving that they can do and in some instances of teleconferences w/ the account mgr and the tooling egr, we were able to agree to let them revise a local surface (not critical to me) and proceed w/ making the part orderable. One thing to be aware of is that their tooling is aluminum and they do not weld on a tool or insert a pocket to add material. If your design change is to add (matl) to your part they will do a mold mod. If you don't mind your design being touched by a 3rd party, it is my understanding that Protolabs has a/some design egr services that they can recommend that will "correct" your design to make it moldable to their process - I have never used an outside service. More recently I had a similar part, complex w/ lots of ribs / features, it took us 3wks of noodling the part to get it thru the Protolabs process.

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