Punching and press forming plastic sheet

You're not likely to get the neat conical-to-flat transition by pressing cold. PVC forms easily when heated, and a two-part forming punch and die would get you the basic shape.

Commercial vacuum-forming setups for PVC use simple electric heaters and, often, plaster male dies, with no punch, and produce quite complex shapes.

It is possible to do this at home, but making the heater, rigging the vaccum pump, etc., would eat up a lot of your profits for just a few hundred parts.

Larry Jaques fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

So... you only read the first line with the grin after it? What about the plastics comments, Larry?

Lloyd

Sarcasm is just another fine service I offer.

I don't know a thing about extruding or pressing hot plastic, so I abstained from the conversation on that level.

Vacuum forming is something I hadn't thought of - that's another option.

I'm not too fussed about having a sharp transition from the angle to the flat. I just want them uniform and tidy looking.

================= While the size is at the upper limit for large hobby machines, it might be worthwhile to evaluate 3D printing to produce to need. Looks like a fairly simple design. This would set you up for many other similar projects/prototypes and would allow easy customization.

one possible machine

machine in action

download free control software for evaluation at

Yeah the thought of that crossed my mind, I thought they make take waaaaay to long to be made. It's 5" diameter x 1" tall.

If this runs unattended, and you only need a few or one at a time this would not seem to be a problem, even if takes an hour or more per part.

While the actual generation of the part may take some time, there is little to no set-up, other than loading the program and possibly switching filiment. With vacuum or hot forming, the set-up/prep (heating the sheet) will be much longer and tooling (which you will have to make) in addition to being expensive and dedicated, will be occupy a lot of space even when it is not being used.

Also any changes will require reworking the tooling, for example, when the customer asks you "please make the OD 2.5 mm bigger, and while your at it, could you add some ribs for additional support, and add our logo, and we need three tomorrow."

All good points.

I was at an electronics shop a few weeks back. They had a range of thing made by a 3d printer that they sell. I was impressed by the strength but the finish was still a bit poor - clearly layered etc. I'm not sure how the plastic would cope with full time sun and weather exposure either.

Vacuum forming or pressing with heat would be fine but for the lugs, which would come out sloppy and weak. Also, with VF the parts would have to be trimmed. Could the lugs be a separate part?

Yep, I can use separate spacers for the bosses.

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