In the early stage of plastic injection mold and part development, the most concerned of our customers is how long does the injection mold manufacture take? In the market, whether it is electronic products, medical products or environmental protection equipment, there will be new generations version every day. Time is money, moreover, time is the life of a company. This is what most entrepreneurs agree with.

How long does it take to manufacture a plastic injection mold? This problem cannot be generalized, we have to consider from the perspective of multiple factors, such as the ease of processing of product structures, customer requirements, product material characteristics, and the MOQ, and the number of cavities.

The lead time of the plastic injection molds come out under rigorous scientific calculations. It is impossible to hand over the head and report the time to the customers. This mainly depends on the complexity of the product structure, size, accuracy, quantity requirements, product performance and so on.

1. Product Structure: it refers to the structural difficulty of the customer to provide samples of plastic parts, generally can be understood as follows: the more complex the shape of plastic parts, the more difficult it is to make molds. Technically speaking, the more the plastic parts are more than the parting surface, the assembly position, the buckle position, the hole position, the more the reinforcement position, the greater the processing difficulty, and the mold making time will be extended accordingly. In general, the more complex the mold structure is, the lower its quality will be, the more difficult it is to process, the more problems there will be, and the slower the final product will come out.

2. Product Size: Yes, the larger the size, the longer lead time of plastic mold manufacturing will be. The corresponding parts processing time will be longer.

3. Product Requirements: Different customers have different requirements for the product. The designed surface is sub-surface or glossy or mirror, which will affect the production lead time of the plastic injection molds.

4. Product Material Properties: We often have special requirements for our products, the requirements for mold steel and processing technology are also different. For example, Lyter Engineering has previously made PC plus ceramic molds, the purpose of adding ceramics is to insulate fireproof, which is generally used in the LED lighting. The requirements for the mold are different. The mold needs to be hardened. After the hardening, the precision grinding machine will do the secondary CNC. The subsequent processing will be more difficult. It will take more time accordingly. Some molds require anti-corrosion or soft rubber molds. The requirements are  different, and the manufacturing process will be more complicated.

5. The Cavity Number of the Mold: that is, how many cavity a set of mold has, and a set of mold can  produce how many products. Depending on the customer's product market demands, there is a big difference between the two products and one product. The lead time will be different as well. Normally, because the new product has not been promoted to the market, the demand for the product is not so large. Under this situation, the multi cavity  injection molds will not need so much, only to guarantee the market supply is enough, it will be cost-effective. Of course, after the market cultivation of the product is mature, the number of cavities of the mold must be increased. It depends on the demand of the market to determine whether to change the number of cavities to feedback the market demand.

Above items are the main factor that determine how long it takes for our plastic injection molds to be manufactured. The general mold manufacturing lead time is around 30-45 days (except for special molds and cases).