[JohnSL] And his friends both have injection molding machines. They decided to compare the aluminum molds used with some 3D printed molds usually made with a resin printer. They used two different resins, one on each side of the mold. You can watch a video of the results below.
One half of the mold used ordinary resin while the other side used a resin that was made to hold high temperatures. As you might expect, low-temperature resin does not stand up well to molten plastic. However, the high temperature resin did somewhat better. It is understood, however, that an aluminum mold emits more heat from the plastic which is helpful in the molding process.
Although higher temperatures – and more expensive – resin seems to have a better hold. Of course, it was to test. In real life, you want to use the best resin.
Not surprisingly, resin molds did not last nearly as long as proper molds. After 70 shots, the mold was worn outside of what you want to use. So it’s not necessarily something you want to use to run a real production, but it should be enough for a quick prototype before you go into the cost of making the right mold.
We wonder if there are any other strategies to get better results. A comment from [TheCrafsMan] Suggests that clear resin cures UV better, and it can give better results. In fact, the video has a lot of interesting comments from people who have different experiences trying to do the same thing
If nothing else, it’s always interesting to see the match cut through the aluminum around the 15-minute mark. If you don’t already have an injection molding setup, you can always create one. We have seen multiple designs.