Blog
Star Rapid’s blog aims to share our hard earned knowledge on manufacturing and product development. We hope these articles help you to optimize your product design and better understand the world of rapid prototyping, rapid tooling, 3D printing and low-volume manufacturing.
Rapid Prototyping With Polyurethane Vacuum Casting
Many plastic injection molding projects start off by first making a series of rapid prototypes. These are used to further refine the look and feel of the part, to test its functionality, and to improve the design before investing in steel injection mold tools. In this...
A Complete Guide to Overmolding vs Insert Molding
In this article, we discuss insert molding and overmolding, the advantages of each, and the applications they’re best suited for. We hope these manufacturing insights, along with useful design tips, will help you get great results on your next plastic injection...
Manufacturing Cycle Times and How To Improve Them
Every business has a vested interest in carefully monitoring its productivity, especially in a manufacturing environment where repetitive tasks can be standardized and optimized. The most common metrics used for this purpose are manufacturing cycle times, lead times,...
Maintaining Color Consistency in Plastic Injection Molding
The Challenge of Color Consistency Achieving color consistency for large production runs of plastic injection molded parts can be challenging. To do this, it's essential that your supplier maintains careful process control during each stage of manufacturing. One of...
Machine Screw Thread Applications for Product Developers
In part one of this series, we looked at the fundamentals of machine screw thread design. This information is invaluable for engineers and product designers, and it’s also a fascinating look at one of history’s fundamental machine tools. Now that we know something...
What Every Engineer Needs to Know About Machine Screw Thread Design
Machine screw threads, along with many other kinds of threaded fittings, are used around us every day in millions of applications. In fact, they're so ubiquitous that they largely go unnoticed by most of us, and to the inexperienced eye they all look and perform...
Five Rapid Prototyping Solutions For Great Results
Ever since people started making stuff - and then tried to make new and improved stuff - there's been a need for prototypes. They're used for design evaluation, testing, certification, proof-of-concept, crowdfunding campaigns and as bridges to full production. If you...
The Top 4 Surface Treatments for Production Tooling
All manufacturing tools are subject to incredibly harsh working conditions and must withstand a lot of wear and tear. Tools used for plastic injection molding are no exception, where corrosive resins and abrasive fibers, injected under tons of pressure, can quickly...
