Is Your Product Designed with Both Soft and Hard Components?
Many modern products today combine rigid plastics with soft-touch materials to improve usability, comfort, and functionality. Think of power tools with rubber grips, consumer electronics with tactile buttons, medical devices with soft interfaces, or industrial equipment with protective seals. Traditionally, validating these designs meant producing multiple parts, assembling them manually, or investing in prototype tooling before knowing if the design would work and can be both time-consuming and expensive.
What if you could prototype soft and rigid areas all in one simultaneous print for realistic design verification? That's where Stratasys PolyJet changes the product development process. Learn more below.
Validate Designs Earlier. Reduce Tooling Risks.
Instead of waiting weeks for prototype tooling, design teams can validate concepts within days, helping reduce development risk and avoid costly mould modifications later.
Whether you're designing:
- Consumer electronics with soft-touch buttons
- Household appliances with overmoulded handles
- Medical devices requiring ergonomic grips
- Industrial products with seals, gaskets, dampers
- Interior components for aerospace, automotive, rail and transportation
Multi-material PolyJet technology enables businesses and teams to evaluate these pain points much earlier in the development cycle:
- User experience and ergonomics i.e. does the grip feel comfortable?
- Assembly and fit i.e. will the parts assemble properly?
- Soft-touch functionality i.e. does the surface finishing enhance the tactile appeal and comfort?
- Product aesthetics i.e. is the design reflecting exact shapes, textures, and CMF simulation?
- Interaction of components i.e. does the seal compress correctly?
How Multi-Material Prototyping Supports Injection Mould Product Development?
Unlike conventional prototypes that focus only on form, Stratasys PolyJet allows teams to evaluate multiple aspects of product performance simultaneously.
With engineering materials such as:
- Agilus30™ for rubber-like flexibility
- ToughONE™ for functional components requiring improved toughness
- Vero™ Family materials for rigid structures in multiple colours
- Digital Materials™ to simulate different Shore hardness
- Full-Colour materials for highly realistic prototypes for aesthetics and stakeholder presentations
- Transparent materials for fluid flow visualisation and clear components
Product designers can create realistic prototypes that better represent production intent by identifying design issues before investing in injection mould tooling, businesses can:
- Reduce development costs
- Develop faster path from concept to production without compromising quality
- Improve collaboration between design, engineering and marketing
- Build greater confidence before production
How to achieve a prototype without waiting weeks for injection mould tooling?
Instead of creating separate rigid and soft components, PolyJet digitally combines materials to produce prototypes that closely replicate the appearance, texture, and functionality of the final manufactured product. As product development cycles continue to shorten, manufacturers need faster ways to validate designs without compromising quality. Multi-material Polyjet 3D printing by Stratasys has become an essential tool for :
- Consumer product manufacturers
- Industrial design consultancies
- Product development and R&D teams
- Medical device companies
- Electronics manufacturers
- Injection moulding companies
- OEMs developing next-generation products
Why Businesses Work with Creatz3D
At Creatz3D, we do more than provide industrial 3D printing technology - we help businesses identify the right application, material, and workflow to achieve successful outcomes.
Our specialists support customers with:
- Application-focused consultation
- Material selection and PolyJet expertise
- Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM)
- On-demand PolyJet printing services
- Technology implementation and technical support
See why we're trusted among multiple industries since year 2012.
Talk to our additive manufacturing experts today to explore all the strategic options to help you focus on what matters most to you.
