Metal CNC Milling⏵
Expedited Injection Molding ⏵

6 Ways to Optimize a Quote for RevPart Engineers

Written by RevPart

When you request a quote from RevPart, your uploaded files are reviewed by one of our highly skilled engineers. They take every aspect of your design into consideration as they decide how RevPart can best help you. If you’re ready to send in a design, there are a few things you can do to optimize a quote for our engineers:

designer’s desk / photo by Ania Mendrek
designer’s desk / photo by Ania Mendrek

1. Review our design guidelines.

We offer several different services, so read our guidelines to make sure your design will fit in our machines.

2. Read up about the differences between our methods.

We offer 3D printing, CNC machining, and prototype molding, so make sure you’re requesting the right method for your design. This will save both you and our engineers wasted time. Start out with the right kind of quote request: send us an email if you’re having trouble choosing.

3. Save your design as the correct file type.

When you’re requesting a 3D product, we need to be able to see your drawing in 3D. Upload your quote as one of the following file types: + Stereolithography (.STL) + IGES (.IGS) + STEP (.STP) + SolidWorks (.SLDPRT) + PTC Creo (.PRT) + Parasolid (.X_T or .X_B) + AutoCAD (.DWG, 3D only) + Autodesk Inventor (.ITP) + Compressed folders (.ZIP)) that contain any combination of the above file types

4. Make sure that your designs exceed our minimum requirements.

3D printing is limited by the time of machine and material used, but a general guide is that all of your features should be bigger than .020” CNC machining is limited by the shape of your object (for instance, we can’t make a hollow sphere using this method). For this reason, wall thicknesses shouldn’t be smaller than .020” or 0.5mm. Prototype molds are milled out of metal to create a short-run mold for your part. We can add textures and words to the mold as it’s being created so your plastic part will exactly meet your standards. Typical wall thickness should be between .012” and .250”. If you have ribbing in your design, they shouldn’t be thicker than 60% of the main body. If you’re adding text, the word height shouldn’t be smaller than 1.5mm and should have a depth between .002” and -0.015”

5. Know how long to wait for the quote.

This depends on the complexity of your design and how many people are in line ahead of you, but you can expect to only wait up to 24 hours for a quote on 3D printing or CNC machining services, or 48 hours for prototype molds. If you’ve read through this post and have optimized your quote for us, we can get your price for you faster.

6. Know your lead times.

3D printing will take 4-14 days. CNC machining will take 4-14 days. Prototype molds will take 15 days to build with an additional 2-5 days to create your parts. Add 2-3 days to this time if you mold requires texture.   Is your design ready? Start the quoting process now.

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Click the link to download our free Ebook on Design Guidelines for Injection Molding