Small batch plastic molding

If I recall they are pretty simple. Radius on the back side with a slot for the tab and a boss on one end for the retaining pin. I can always CAD that up and make them out of Delrin or Aluminum. How many are you thinking?

 

I think Scotty Rock was in the plastics world. Might want to give him a yell.

It’s been decades since I played a bit in that world and how fast it’s changed what I knew is pretty worthless now.

 

I think you would be suprised at the affordability for having them 3D printed. There are quite a few job shops doing that kind of stuff now. I'll find the link to the jobbing site we sometimes shop stuff to when it is more than we want to print in-house. Molding it means getting a tool made, and then getting a bunch done. It is tough to make it work cost-wise unless you are doing thousands of parts typically.

 

Sounds like the perfect thing for 3d printing

 

Is this what you need ?

 

For small batch plastics stuff, a silicone cut mold and a 2 part poured urethane resin is usually pretty cost effective. 3d printed is an option, But probably not usually the best one in this case. I wouldn't trust an expensive transponder to a 3d printed mount..... Ya, I know you COULD print a part that would be strong enough, you just couldn't do it cheaper than other methods, nor fast enough.

Machined is an option, but an expensive one.

It doesn't look like too difficult of a part to mold. Of course some small changes would be required to pour better (vs a part designed for injection), but functionally they would remain the same.

What is the existing price, or last price available for them. Anybody in the GTA Ontario have one I could get hands on?

 

Hey Mongo,

I have a little experience in plastics. Typically, a huge part of the cost is in getting a mold made. Unless the mold failed/totally wore out, somewhere out there should be a mold sitting on a shelf. If you can find it (such that you would not have to get one made) you can probably get a large run of parts made comparatively cheaply.

I would recommend getting in touch with mylaps or amb to see if the mold is available somewhere. If you are lucky, the molding house that made the parts actually owned the mold, and then it would just be a matter of negotiating having a batch made. In some cases the designer actually owns the mold (mylaps/amb) which makes things somewhat more complicated.

Beyond that, it’ll quickly get expensive to have a large quantity (100+) made.

 

Bummer that would have been easy to print in something like Ninjaflex

 

If you could have someone generate a CAD model then save it to STL the advantage would be just print as needed. I would bet many members have 3d printers. If I had one of the old style ones I would be happy to pick at it for the grand total of zero (good news). Bad news is I am in process of getting a new place up in TN so it would not be quick AND it would require some back and forth with you until you get happy with the model. Once you have that it could be WERA property and you could have them made by who ever and where ever.

Drop me a PM if you have any interest.

 

I'll take this a step further..

I was in the molding Industry for several years (battery cases to be specific). My guess is that AMB has those parts molded in China and then assembled somewhere else. Hopefully the mold is still in good shape and it could kick out a small batch.

If AMB owns the mold and has it stateside, I have someone in Georgia that's small enough to run it for you.

 

First step is getting a CAD file of the part. Nothing can really happen until then.

If you're really going for production numbers (50+), you can try this place to make a mold and do a production run. They do printing too. Carbon SLA would probably work.
https://www.protolabs.com/services/injection-molding/

If you can get them for $6 vs $5, I don't think you're going to do much better though, considering the time that would be invested trying to remake them.

I made molds to make fuel tank mounts not long ago. Printed the molds and injected silicone. But I only did 4 molds at a time. Pretty time consuming. Took around 3 weeks to get the 40 or so parts all made after work hours. Urethane would be a bit faster in a silicone mold, and easier to make a bunch of molds. That's still a lot of investment in time, prep, materials, CAD, ect. Not gonna be a $5 part unless someone is super nice, or a small shop does a run of 100.

 

Cast urethane from a silicone mold would be the route I'd go. A former co-worker of mine retired from being a machinist (40+ years) and now does small batch urethane casting for companies, including Alumilite (who makes the stuff). He can 3D print the master if you need him too also, really good guy. PM me if you want his info.

 

Back in the day, when sprint racing with transponders was new, someone on here was machining them out of aluminum. They weren't $5.00 though..

Maybe that CAD file still exists and you could get them made out of a cheaper material?

Scott McKee might remember who was making them.

 

What about these bags? The older and larger transponders we used to use on the race cars would go in the bag. Same concept, ziptie the bag to forks and drop in transponder.