Should your Product be Injection or Rotational Moulded?

10th July 2023

Rotational moulding is more ideal for larger, hollow products that will require high strength and durability. Injection moulding is more ideal for small, complex products that require precise dimensional accuracy and high-quality finishes.

Which products are Injection or Rotational Moulded?

Products are manufactured using different production methods, the 2 main manufacturing methods are Injection moulding and Rotational Moulding. Below are examples of both Injection moulded and Rotational moulded products.

Injection Moulded products: Medical product, Electrical products, Automotive, Kitchenware, Children’s Toys and Food Grade Packaging.

Rotational moulded products: Garden Products, Furniture, Automotive, Sports, Construction and Household

Asking yourself should your Design be Injection or Rotational Moulded?

If you are asking yourself should my design be Rotational Moulded or Injection Moulded use this guide below to determine the best manufacturing process.

Is your design large? If so, we recommend that your part should be rotational moulded as it will reduce the manufacturing cost as the rotational moulding capacity requirements are a lot larger than injection moulding

Does your product need to be lightweight? If so, we recommend injection moulding as injection moulded parts are more lightweight than rotational moulded parts. This is due to injection moulded parts using a significantly less amount of plastic as the achieving your desired wall thickness is more accurate than rotational moulding.

Are you looking for less Initial costs for your design? If so and your product meets the rotational moulding requirements, we would recommend rotational moulding as this process uses low pressure, meaning that it can use less expensive materials to create the tooling and there is no ejection or in mould cooling required, reducing the cost.

Will your product be used outdoors? If so, we recommend rotational moulding as the parts are manufactured stronger and durable than injection moulded parts.

Is your design complex? If so, we recommend injection moulding as every part of the mould is filled with plastic, allowing the process to manufacture more complex designs.

Is it important that your product is sustainable? If so, we recommend either as excess plastic parts can be reused to manufacture other parts for rotational moulding or injection moulding.

Does your design require a fast turnaround? If so, we recommend Injection moulding as injection moulded parts are faster to manufacture and distribute. This is due to the process using high pressures to increase the production time of parts.

Does your product need to be hardwearing? If so, we recommend rotational moulding as the parts are more durable and stronger.

Materials used of Injection and Rotational Moulding?

Have you decided on the material you want to use for your design to be manufactured but not sure which manufacturing process they can be used for? Use the guide below to see which manufacturing process we recommend.

Injection Moulding

  • Nylon

  • High Density

  • Polyethelene (HDPE)

  • Polycarbonate (PC)

  • Polyprperlyene (PP)

  • Acrylic

  • Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS)

Rotational Moulding

  • Polyvinylchloride (PVC).

  • High Density Polyethelene (HDPE),

  • Low Density, Polyethelene (LDPE)

  • Medium Density Polyethelene (MDPE)

  • Linear Low Density Polyethelene (LLDPE)

  • Nylon

If you have an idea you would like our help with designing for manufacture, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us. We would love to help!

For more information about the Injection Moulding or Rotational Moulding Process there are a few links below :

https://elitecooler.com/blogs/news/rotomolding-vs-injection-molding

https://www.treatstock.co.uk/guide/article/138-rotomolding-vs-injection-molding

https://richfieldsplastics.com/blog/injection-molding-vs-rotational-molding/

If you need more information about if you should injection mould or Rotational mould your part please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

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