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Vapor Polishing Versus Manual Polishing Plastics: Vaporizing the Mystery

Have you dismissed the idea of CNC machining a plastic part because you’re worried about the time, dexterity, and patience required to hand-sand the part? Still, there’s something to be said for the satisfaction of a pristine surface after removing the imperfections with a piece of sandpaper. If you’re looking for ways to smooth CNC […]

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How Fictiv Can Help Electrical Companies Source Highly Designed Parts

The Challenge: Meeting Design Expectations of Consumers From dimmers and light switch plates to chargers and more, aesthetics plays a big role in purchase decisions in the electrical products market. In the age of smart homes, more homeowners are opting for technology — like home security system command panels, smart thermostats, doorbell cameras and window […]

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What is Vapor Smoothing of MJF 3D Printed Parts?

Do you love the customizability, speed, ease, and simplicity you get with 3D printing but dislike the roughness of the resulting parts? Well, there are a few common finishing methods to smooth out 3D printed parts, to give you a pleasing aesthetic, along with the production benefits mentioned above.  One of the common types of […]

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Injection Molding for Electrical Components: Improving Speed and Design

How Sourcing Injection Molding Through Fictiv Can Give Electrical Companies a Competitive Advantage You might not know it, but many electric parts that you find around the house or in stores today are manufactured with plastic parts using an injection molding process. Some of these products include wire caps, motor housings, power strips, plugs and […]

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SPI Guidelines for Injection Mold Surface Finish

SPI guidelines provide injection molders and product designers with a standard way to describe the surface finish of molded plastic parts. These guidelines were defined by the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI), a U.S.-based trade association that’s now known as the Plastics Industry Association (PIA, or PLASTICS). By providing a “common language” for surface […]

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Thermoplastics vs. Thermoset Plastics: Material Properties Overview

Thermoplastics and thermoset plastics are classes of polymers used in injection molding, CNC machining, 3D printing, and urethane casting. Like elastomers, another class of polymer, thermoplastics and thermosets both consist of long, repeating chains of molecules. Under a microscope, the structure of a thermoplastic resembles a railroad track while a thermoset material looks like a […]

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Everything You Need to Know About STEP Files

As an engineer, you probably have experience opening, reviewing, creating, or editing STEP files. During my freshman year at Rose-Hulman, I sat in a class with 30 other students who all seemed to have an enormous amount of knowledge about 3D modeling. Meanwhile, I had never created nor even opened one before, so the first […]

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Production CNC Machining

Introduction The concept of and applications for Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machining are mainstream in modern manufacturing and are used to make products in a range of sizes & varying dimensions. However, production CNC machining is volume-dependent.  Mastering CNC production entails learning how to efficiently utilize a CNC machine to produce large quantities of components. […]

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 Jigs vs Fixtures: An Overview

Jigs and fixtures are frequently utilized in CNC machining to ensure precision, accuracy, and quality of CNC machined components. These are both types of engineered tooling designed to hold things in place during machining. The ability to hold things in place makes jigs and fixtures workholders for CNC machining. While both of these terms are […]

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How to Build a BOM

Chefs create recipes. Hardware Engineers create BOMs (Bill of Materials) and SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). The BOM is an ingredient list for building your product, and the SOP is the set of instructions on how to build it. In this article, we’ll explain how to construct an excellent ingredients list that will help you clearly […]