In manufacturing and design, a mockup, or mock-up, is a scale or full-size model of a design or device, used for teaching, demonstration, design evaluation, promotion, and other purposes. A mockup is a prototype if it provides at least part of the functionality of a system and enables testing of a design. 3D printing technology has already been widely applied in making a mock-up sample, let’s see what are the advantages of the combination.
Inspection of appearance design
The 3D printed mock-up sample is not only visible but also touchable. It can directly reflect the designer’s creativity in the form of physical objects, so there is no more worry about bad production with nice blueprints. Therefore, a printed mock-up sample is essential in the R&D process of a new product.
Inspection of structural design
As the mock-up sample can be assembled, it can intuitively reflect whether the structure is reasonable or not, and the difficulty of installation, so as to find out problems and solve them as soon as possible.
Avoid the risk of directly opening the mold
Due to the high cost of mold manufacturing, the large-size mold is worth hundreds or thousands. If the unreasonable structure or other problems are found during open molding, the loss can be huge. The 3D printed mock-up sample can avoid this kind of loss and reduce the risk of mold opening.
Advance the product launch time
Because the mock-up sample can be printed fastly, you can use it for advertising before the mold is developed. Even in the early stage of production and sales preparations, the mock-up sample can really work, and can also help you occupy the market as early as possible.
