Inventor for injection molding designs? Please help!

[Anonymous]

Dear all, I am not very familiar with Inventor but I am able to draw out simple designs for CNC and sheet metal products. My company (a small one) recently needs a design to be made by injection molding but I really have not much idea how to draw the design with inventor. I know the general guidelines. However are there any specialized functions for drawing designs for injection molding? such as adding ribs, bosses and give uniform thickness to the drawing like the "convert to sheet metal" function. Any other suggested materials that I can take reference with will be very helpful, too! Thanks! saldtch

[JamesLovell]

if you have never designed for injection molding befoere you might want to look at somthing like this site:-

http://www.protolabs.co.uk/resources/molding-design-guidelines/

Ive used them a few times for parts/tooling. 

There isnt really a automatic fuction to convert to a plastic part but all the tools you need exist within inventor, you just need to understand the rules and limitations yourself.

[JDMather]

Attach your file here if you can - and others will make suggestions.

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I came across this website before but just didn't and still don't know how to draw these with Inventor. But definitely will dig deeper this time~

[Anonymous]

Thanks! Will surely post here whenever I have something drawn!

[LT.Rusty]

---

@jameslovell4987 wrote:

if you have never designed for injection molding befoere you might want to look at somthing like this site:-

http://www.protolabs.co.uk/resources/molding-design-guidelines/

Ive used them a few times for parts/tooling. 

There isnt really a automatic fuction to convert to a plastic part but all the tools you need exist within inventor, you just need to understand the rules and limitations yourself.

---

More specifically, go here: http://www.protolabs.com/resources/educators  and then request one each of everything listed on that page. 

It's not (quite) as good as a semester-long 100-level class in plastic part design, but it's very close.  I've got all these bits and bobs kicking around my desk, and whenever I get stuck on how to do something I'll pull one of them out and play with it until I figure out how to do what I'm trying to do.

But, yeah - post your parts, and we'll try and help however we can.  Injection molding part design is one of my favorite things to do, and takes up about 75% of my work day.

[Anonymous]

Thanks! But is that available to individuals or companies? Very interesting materials!

[LT.Rusty · Accepted solution]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks! But is that available to individuals or companies? Very interesting materials!

---

Yep.  If you put in your order and then you (truthfully) admit that you're not affiliated with a school or anything, they'll let you get one each of everything.  You can't get multiples unless you're connected to a school in some way.

I got the max of everything to give to my Inventor students in prep for the segment on the tooling suite, but anyone can get one each of whatever.