Latest articles

Sharp edges are beautiful: light glinting off these clean lines as a product rotates through space, music swelling dramatically in the background of a commercial. Edges are precise. Edges are distinct. Edges are horrible for injection molding. A general rule of injection molding is: Radius all edges. What do you do if your design calls […]

The advent of CAD systems, additive manufacturing, and CNC machining has made the design and manufacture of complex part designs almost routine. Engineers today are being asked to design parts that will probably be exposed to many different factors, including extreme weather, chemicals, bodily fluids, high stress/high load, impact, and other elements and situations that […]

Before the days of CNC, machinists made parts purely based on 2D drawings. We’ve come a long way since then, and now the drawing is much less important to the process of actually cutting material, thanks to precise 3D modeling and CAM programs. That said, drawings are still a great way to call out special […]

The Product Requirements Document (PRD) is a familiar term to many engineers. We get this document from a product manager in one form or another, and it tells us what to build but not how to build it. But let’s face it, it’s probably better that way. We engineers hate being told how to implement an idea — that’s […]

One of the most important considerations when designing parts for 3D printing is the wall thickness. While 3D printing makes prototyping easier than ever—not only in terms of cost and speed, but also in regards to DFM (design for manufacturing), you can’t disregard DFM completely. A design might be (barely) producible by 3D printing, but […]

In the world of plastics, there are a lot of different options for a designer to choose from. There are so many plastic materials, in fact, that the process of selecting the proper 3D printing plastics for prototyping and subsequent manufacturing plastics for production may seem intimidating. This article seeks to clarify the main types of plastic materials […]

Ability Now Bay Area provides education, health and wellness, and technology support to adults with disabilities.  When the COVID crisis hit, Ability Now Bay Area (ANBA) faced a daunting challenge adapting to the new reality since most of their classes were in-person. Essential to any plans was the need to provide PPE (personal protective equipment) […]

Discover the latest information from the Fictiv Logistics Team to ensure your orders arrive in time to meet your project deadlines.

In this article we will be focusing on building an understanding of Monte Carlo methodology, establishing a framework for analysis that can be applied to a variety of problems, and applying this framework on a common statistical tolerance analysis problem that mechanical engineers are likely to face often.

When we shared our last international logistics update on October 1, we announced that overseas orders placed on the Fictiv platform are now being delivered within 3-5 days, and this continues to be the case. Orders with a value under $800 are subject to express Customs clearance, and in general, they are being delivered within […]