Posts

What Is Speed Worth? The Hidden Cost of Tooling and Inventory (Free Calculator)

Image
After I shared my break-even calculator, I realized it only tells half the story. Piece price is the easy number to compare. What doesn't show up on a quote is everything else: weeks waiting on a mold, cash tied up in tooling and minimum orders, boxes of stock on a shelf, and parts you scrap when the design changes. With HP Multi Jet Fusion you buy on demand. No tooling, no upfront cost, no warehouse. You order what you need, when you need it. So I built a second calculator to put a number on that. What Is Speed Worth? Tooling vs On-Demand Calculator Click any box and type in your own numbers. This one isn't about piece price. It shows what waiting on a mold, buying big batches and holding stock really cost you. Your product Parts you sell per month Profit per product sold ($) Design changes per year Cost to hold inventory (% of value per year) HP Multi Jet Fusion, on demand Price per part ($) Weeks to first parts Parts per order (order as you need them) Inje...
Post a Comment
Read more

MJF vs Injection Molding: Find Your Break-Even (Free Calculator)

Image
"When does injection molding beat 3D printing?" I get asked that every week, and my last post on it started a great debate in the comments. Some said the break-even is 1,000 parts, some said 10,000, and some said hundreds of thousands. The honest answer: it depends on your part, your quotes and how often your design changes. So I built a calculator. Plug in your real numbers and see where HP Multi Jet Fusion stops making sense and a mold starts paying off. MJF vs Injection Molding: Break-Even Calculator Click any box and type in the numbers from your own quotes. Results and the chart update as you type. The starting numbers are only an example. HP Multi Jet Fusion (no tooling) Price per part ($) Lead time to first parts (weeks) Injection molding Mold / tooling cost ($) Price per part ($) Mold change cost per design revision ($) Lead time to first parts (weeks) Your program Parts per year Years in production Design revisions over the program Break-even ...
Post a Comment
Read more

HP Multi Jet Fusion in 2026: Why Automotive, Medical, and Consumer Brands Quietly Shifted Production to MJF

Image
HP Multi Jet Fusion is now running real end-use production for BMW, Volkswagen, GM, and Nike. That sentence would have been impossible to write in 2016 when HP launched the Jet Fusion 4200. In 2026, MJF is quietly becoming the polymer AM workhorse that service bureaus and OEMs reach for when the economics of injection molding stop making sense. Here is an honest 2026 breakdown of why MJF won, where it fits, and when it beats both traditional SLS and injection molding. How Multi Jet Fusion actually works MJF uses a different chemistry than traditional SLS. Instead of a laser fusing nylon powder point by point, MJF deposits two agents onto the powder bed: a fusing agent that absorbs infrared energy, and a detailing agent that controls edges and feature definition. An infrared heat source then fuses the powder across the entire layer at once, wherever the fusing agent was applied. The practical result is dramatic. A traditional SLS laser traces every cross section point by poin...
Post a Comment
Read more