company news about Key Trend: The shift toward bezel-less and foldable smartphones is accelerating demand for custom molds for touch-sensit

Metal 3D printing (additive manufacturing) is revolutionizing mobile button mold development, slashing prototyping cycles and lowering costs for low-volume runs.

Traditional CNC-machined button molds take 4–6 weeks to prototype; 3D-printed molds (using materials like stainless steel 316L and titanium alloy) can be produced in 7–10 days—a 75% reduction. Companies like Stratasys and EOS are leading the charge with printers that achieve ±0.05mm precision, sufficient for mobile button cavities (typically 5*3mm to 8*4mm).

Major mold makers are combining 3D printing with CNC finishing for mass-production molds. For example, Heya Precision recently used EOS M 290 3D printers to create the core of a volume button mold, then refined the cavity surface with diamond polishing (Ra ≤0.008μm) via CNC. The result: prototype costs dropped by 60%, and the mold met the 300,000-cycle lifespan requirement for a mid-range smartphone brand.

3D printing is also enabling localized mold production. “We now 3D-print button mold prototypes in our Vietnam facility for Southeast Asian mobile assemblers, cutting shipping time from 2 weeks to 3 days," notes Zhang Mei, supply chain manager at a Hong Kong-based mold firm.

A 2024 survey by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers found that 65% of mobile mold manufacturers now use 3D printing for prototyping, up from 30% in 2022. High-volume production adoption remains at 15% but is expected to hit 30% by 2027.