[Bender]

I need someone who can injection mold small plastic air valve parts. I do not have a mold. I can supply samples of what I need made. Quality is very important since these are holding air. The two pieces nearest to the quarter snap together. Once together the valve can screw open and closed without the two pieces coming apart. A small O ring inside the piece on the bottom keeps it airtight. The complete valve weighs less than 1/4 oz. I need 1000-5000 of these. Samples before a full run would be needed.

[dpryor]

Do you have drawings or would the parts need to be "reverse engineered"?

[Bender]

I don't have drawings but I can supply samples.

[Donkey Hotey]

I doubt you're going to get any quotes from anybody except China and those will be questionable. This is why:

• Where did those valves come from? Obviously SOMEBODY made those valves and making copies of them is bound to cause somebody a bunch of legal trouble.
• I would imagine that one motivation might be that you think you can have them made cheaper than you can buy them. That's very doubtful. There really is no such thing as a "cheap plastic part." If you have a cheap plastic part, it's because a million of them were made. Anything less and it's an expensive plastic part.
• You also need somebody to do the reverse engineering. Just a simple inspection of the parts you pictured assures me that they are deceptively complicated. The fact that they look simple is the genius of the design. Some of those angles are cosmetic, some of them are for air regulation and some of them are just draft angles for the molds. The magic is knowing which is which and hitting the target correctly.
• Since you're offloading the design, I'm sure you're going to hold them responsible for holding tolerances on the finished parts. That means they are going to have to compensate for shrinkage of the material in the mold, selection of material for your application, function of the final product, etc. It might take two or three molds before the final production molds and process can achieve the fit and tolerance you're looking for. Somebody is going to have to pay for all that engineering and mold work and it ain't gonna be cheap.

I'm going to throw out a shoot-from-the-hip price from some past experience in this area. You'd be looking at around $20-30K in development costs and getting the molds made (somebody is going to post that I'm optimistic too). At 5000 parts, the cheapest per-unit cost I could imagine would be $6 each. That's best-case scenario. In the quantities you're talking about, I'd bet $20-30 per valve is more likely.

Bottom line is that in those quantities, you could probably make machined aluminum valves with o-ring seals for the same or less money.

What is keeping you from just buying them from whoever obviously made them in the first place?

[Bender]

The valves came from Earth; your on the moon

[mactec54]

Bender

What's on the inside of the screw on piece, is this a one time thing or just the first order, I would like to get one to see what is needed

[Donkey Hotey]

The valves came from Earth; your on the moon

I'll eagerly watch this thread, waiting for you to post your successful results.
(see, that works both ways)

[3D Accuracy]

Hello Bender:

If you still need to have these parts made please contact me directly and I'll help you out.

Have a terrific day!
Robert
3D Accuracy
[email protected]
www.3d-accuracy.com