Thermoforming is an alternative and, even more frequently, a complement to other technologies for transforming plastics.
It is an established leader in the light packaging sector because of its ability to produce very thin, low-cost containers with relatively economical equipment.
In the mass production of articles it must compete with injection molding, which offers certain technical and economic advantages over thermoforming despite high equipment costs.
The technical limits of thermoforming are the inability to produce full bodies or add material. This means that one part of the sheet is formed into reliefs that correspond to the cavities on the other side of the sheet and the need to have shapes at the unmolding corners that are more or less accentuated in relations to the stretching height to be obtained at that point. Producing complex parts is sometimes impossible.
In regard to costs, the additional step of producing the film or sheet, as well as the commercial processing costs lead to a difference is the cost per piece between items with equal characteristics produced by thermoforming and injection molding.
The cost advantage of a thermoformed product, which is due to lower equipment costs (1/10 the cost of injection-molding equipment), is inversely proportional to the number of pieces to be produced with the same mold. Limited piece-runs, especially of medium to large size, are more economically produced by thermoforming. For large piece-runs, especially of small pieces, the advantage is totally on the side of injection molding.
The production of large pieces (about 1 m² and larger) is another story in which the cost of the equipment and the size of the presses necessary for producing them, once again tips the balance towards thermoforming.
Protective Mask
Corner Piece
Large Format Tray
Light Tray
Blister
Clam Shell Packs