Plastic packaging got me here.

[totts]

Hi i work in the thermoforming industry and as jazz said the run times on moulds are very long, not to mention the back work and water cooling of the moulds, but it seems that yours would be a bit simpler how would you be wanting yo run the mould on a machine or by hand, on a manual vacume former?

[DarrenGrant]

I think my reply to irving2008 is stuck waiting for moderator approval, hopefully that will get approved soon.

totts, yes the intention is to run the mould on a manual machine. It appears one of the reasons for the high tooling costs from packaging manufacturers is that they use high speed automatic machines that require aluminium moulds with cooling channels for temperature control. Using a manual process I think the moulds can be a lot simpler. I should be able to use aluminium filled epoxy casting resin for the low volume moulds. Considering that each pocket for a 3mm LED would only be a draw depth of 4mm and perhaps 4mm x 30mm, that is a lot of blisters on a single impression. on a small formech 300 machine that would be over a hundred blisters per impression. So it is only going to take 10 impressions to get 1000 and a resin mould should be good for a good few hundred impressions from what I have read.

I think another reason moulds are expensive is that they are manufactured to very high standards with very smooth finishes that is important when making clear retail blisters that have to look the the part in my case the primary aim is to protect the component so some blemishes are not going to be a big issue.

Now realistically something like an LED I am probably going to have to produce an aluminium mould as it is a popular item but for other less popular shapes I expect an epoxy mould would be adequate.