Race to 1,000 Parts: 3D Printing vs. Injection Molding

#formlabs #3dprinting #additivemanufacturing #injectionmold

In this video, we revisit our 2024 showdown between the Form 4 3D printer and traditional injection molding, this time using the newly released Form 4L large-format masked stereolithography (MSLA) 3D printer, which offers 4.6x larger build volume.

As the test part, we picked the Form 4 Resin Mixer Latch, a component of the Form 4 Mixer, an accessory that attaches to the Resin Tanks in Formlabs Form 4 Series printers and improves material performance by keeping resin homogenous in the tank during the printing process. For this test, we timed two production operations in a race to 1,000 end-use parts: the actual contract manufacturer in Taiwan using injection molding, and two Form 4L large-format 3D printers.

Watch as we dive into:
👉 Cost comparisons between 3D printing and injection molding
👉 Speed analysis for producing end-use parts
👉 Mechanical properties and post-processing insights for 3D printed parts

Can the blazing speed and flexibility of Form 4L 3D printers redefine manufacturing? Tune in to see the results and find out if 3D printing is ready to dethrone injection molding!

▬ Learn More ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

▬ Socials ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

▬ About Formlabs ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Formlabs is expanding access to digital fabrication, so anyone can make anything. Headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts with offices in Germany, Hungary, Japan, China, and Singapore, Formlabs is the professional 3D printer of choice for engineers, designers, manufacturers, and decision-makers around the globe.

Through a continuous commitment to innovation, Formlabs has become the largest supplier of professional stereolithography (SLA) and selective laser sintering (SLS) 3D printers in the world. Formlabs also develops its own suite of high-performance 3D printing materials that continue to expand the range of applications of additive manufacturing, as well as best-in-class 3D printing software, post-processing tools, and automation solutions.

[noanalyst]

They did a part 2 addressing many earlier questions. That is bold and speaks volumes.

[chrishill]

Lack of colour options is a problem for final parts. If tough 2000 resin was available in black I would use it for a lot of finished applications.

[dkiwi]

Still much weaker, orders of magnitude in fact. Layer lines. Resin is far more expensive. A multi cavity mold can shoot hundreds of parts in less than a minute, and use recycled material. Aluminum molds cost hundreds of dollars only.

[KnowArt]

cool stuff! The future is bright. Can't wait to see what 3d printing is capable of in 10 years

[LibertyEver]

I need to watch more videos about Formlabs part cleaning and post cure. That's what is keeping me from designing parts for resin printing, but I only have experience with consumer grade resin printing where post processing is awful. We need a solution where a build plate is slid into a machine that automatically washes off the excess resin on the build plate, removes the parts from the build plate and drops them into a secondary wash bath to finish removing the uncured resin without scratching the soft resin on the outside of the parts, and preferably UV post cures the parts as they're gently agitated in liquid, then air dries the parts. Once the post processing is automated and the resin and solvent costs are reduced, resin printed parts will absolutely overtake injection molding.

[o_tdiggity]

I noticed that your spreadsheet doesn't include hardware, labor or maintenance costs for the Form machines. If you were to include those, the price per part jumps significantly:

I asked chatgpt to help me here:

Summary of Adjusted Costs:

Form 4L: $11.33 per part for 1, 000 parts.
Form 4: $9.81 per part for 1, 000 parts.

chatgpt prompts:
<send a screenshot of the spreadsheet>
* It seems misleading to me because it doesn't factor in the cost of the Form 4L and Form 4 hardware and equipment and maintenance costs. If you were to factor those into the 1000 parts, how much would it costs per part for Form 4L and Form 4? Also, please include all costs like maintenance and labor.




If the idea was that the hardware/maintenance/labor cost are part of doing business and shouldn't be included, then I would ask what would be the expected cost per Form part if I were to outsource it?

[OneIdeaTooMany]

So if it takes weeks to even begin your production run injection molding a new part, how many 3D printed parts can you put out in that time? 1000 in 6 hours? With a print farm like Slant 3D you could potentially get your volume up pretty high and with 0 upfront costs and no stock.

I think 3D printing should be a stepping stone to injection molded parts. Get the thing out there and in the hands of customers. Sell enough to warrant moving to injection molding.

[X_Studios]

What’s stopping are your 4l not in my shop

[Sciman]

If 3d printing has all these advantages over injection molding, taking all the numbers at face value, are you planning on making the part shown in the video 3d printed going forward? And if not, what would need to change for that to be an option? Being able to say "We use our own machines in production all the time" would be a pretty big confidence booster in the idea of 3dp for manufacturing.

[johnweaver]

Why not buy 30 Saturn4Us for the same price and have 1100in² more surface area? What sets the Formlabs 4BL apart?
Edit: for the record, my question is sincere and not intended to be interpreted in a scarstic manner.

[meslammer]

1:35 - not including 19999$ of 4L tooling and 6599$ of Form 4 from buying your own printers, because you already own them? Okay.

[JulienStone]

Shall we talk about temperature resistance?

[joseph_n]

so is the parts in your machine 3d printed instead of injection molded?

[Fishbone]

This is a fairly terrible comparison. The fact the injection mold wasnt sub gated tells me you didnt know what you were doing. You selected a formlabs material that wouldnt work in any real industrial setting were a PP, PBT, PA66, POM part would be typically spec'd. You ignored post processing time to remove supports, even with cutting two parts off a sprue, that is significantly faster than cutting off 5-6 supports from each of those parts.
Sure, the form4L is impressive with its build volume and speed, but its accuracy pales in comparison to an injection mold and if you measured those parts bsck to cad they would not the same unless you put large tolerances on the to cover the differences.

[anthonywalker]

If it were ultimately practical to 3D print over injection moulding for commercial scale production, we would already have it as commonplace. Same with pin matrix tooling, metal 3D printing etc etc . Practicality is the destroyer of hopes, dreams and “coolness factors”

[drews]

This is a bit dumb frankly... I can't say I've ever seen anyone who's made a bad enough production decision to make a thousand small injection moulded parts as a production run... Given the shut time on a small tool like that you're comparing 3d printing to maybe a half a day of production from a small injection molding machine.
That type of machinery only makes sense at volumes well above 10k parts if for no other reason than because the set up and tear down time on the tooling will be in the ballpark of 4 times your actual production time.
If you want to compare vs injection moulding at least use a week's worth of production on a small machine like that, maybe 25k parts...
Realistically though you run those tools for hundreds of thousands of shots...
This is like saying "a Ferrari is a crappy mobility scooter".

[thepuff]

But I bet the injection molder doesn't charge thousands of dollars to use other external materials 😮

[JeromeDemers]

And soon you will need to add 25% import tariff!

[jamieclarke]

It doesnt really matter how you bias the data, 3d printing is always going to be faster and cheaper for the smaller batch sizes and how many start ups need 1 million parts of anything?

On cheaper resin printers i still strongly dislike the post processing and ive had so many materials fail over time in my applications like outdoor use and underwater. I dont know if a formlabs resin would address that but i prefer FDM

[Z-add]

People still not satisfied with this comparison