Mould Cost Calculator

Before you download | quick feedback?

This tool is in a controlled beta, and your feedback directly shapes what we fix next. Takes 30 seconds.

Please describe only the component type | no customer, company or project names.

Terms of Use

Who operates this: VEROQEN™ is a product/brand developed and operated by Hongyi JIG Rapid Technologies. References to "Veroqen™" below mean Hongyi JIG Rapid Technologies, operating under the VEROQEN™ brand | Veroqen™ is not a separate legal entity.

Status: Veroqen™ Mould Cost Calculator is in Controlled Beta, made available to a limited, invited group of users via an access code. It is not a public commercial product yet.

What this tool is: An engineering estimation tool that calculates an indicative mould cost from the shot size, part, steel and machine details you enter, combined with Veroqen™'s own standard reference tables (margin, plate thickness, tool-life recommendations, manufacturing-cost factors). It is a decision-support estimate for budgetary planning | not a formal quotation, and not a substitute for drawing review and toolmaker sign-off.

Accuracy: Results depend entirely on the accuracy of what you type in (steel rates, dimensions, cavitation, machine selection) and on reference data that can go out of date (steel prices fluctuate daily; machine and factor tables are periodically revised). We do not guarantee that any figure shown will match an actual supplier quotation.

No liability: Hongyi JIG Rapid Technologies (operating as Veroqen™) is not liable for business, purchasing, or investment decisions made solely on this tool's output. Use it as one input among several, not as the sole basis for a commercial commitment.

Access code: Your Beta access code is personal to your invite batch | please don't share it publicly. It is a soft access control, not a security mechanism, and may change between Beta batches.

Contact: Questions about these terms | hello@veroqen.com.

Privacy Policy

This tool runs entirely in your browser. It is a static, client-side calculator with no backend server | the shot size, material, steel and machine details you type in are used only to compute your result on your own device and are never transmitted to Veroqen™, Hongyi JIG, or any third party automatically.

What is stored locally: Two small flags are saved in your browser's local storage, on your device only | whether you've entered the Beta access code, and whether you've already submitted the feedback prompt. Nothing else is saved between visits, and nothing is synced to a server.

Feedback form: If you submit the feedback popup, it opens your own email app with a pre-filled message addressed to hello@veroqen.com | you choose whether to actually send it. We only receive what you send via that email, nothing is captured automatically.

PDF reports: Reports are generated and rendered locally in your browser (via your browser's own print/save function) | Veroqen™ does not receive a copy unless you choose to share it with us.

No cookies, no trackers, no analytics are used on this tool in its current Beta form.

Refund & Cancellation Policy

Current Beta: Access to this tool during Controlled Beta is by invite and access code only | there is no payment or subscription involved, so no refund is applicable at this stage.

When paid access launches: Since a generated report is a digital deliverable (not a physical good), once a report has been successfully generated it is generally considered delivered. A refund will be considered only if the tool produced a materially incorrect result due to an error on our side (e.g. a broken calculation, not a difference of engineering judgement or a change in your own input assumptions).

How to request one: Email hello@veroqen.com with your Report ID (shown on every generated report) and a description of the issue | we'll review and respond within a reasonable time.

How Veroqen™ Calculates | Methodology & Limitations

Mould size from shot size: Mould block size is derived from your Shot Size (X, Y, Z) plus a side margin. That margin is looked up automatically from Hongyi's own "Mould Quality Standard & DOP Agreement" reference table (matched to the smallest documented row that covers your shot size), and can be manually overridden.

Steel weight & cost: Plate weights are computed from the mould block dimensions and each plate's material density, then priced using the steel rate you enter (or a suggested rate ratio, for grades we have real market-price evidence for). Core/Cavity and Base/Housing are costed separately since they're typically different steel families.

Steel grade recommendation: Suggested grades are ranked by a tool-life tier matched to your expected production volume and part requirements (e.g. corrosion resistance, surface finish) | this is engineering guidance, not a rigid rule; your own toolmaker's judgement should override it where they differ.

Manufacturing Cost (Quick Estimate): Calculated as Steel Cost + Slide/Lifter and Guide-Pillar hardware, multiplied by an Industry × Complexity factor. This factor table is a starting engineering-judgement estimate, not yet back-tested against a large set of historical mould costs | you can always override the factor directly once you have your own benchmark data.

Manufacturing Cost (Detailed Costing): Built up as a line-item table (EDM electrodes, trial material, checking fixtures, etc.) that you fill in directly, for cases where you already have itemised cost information.

Machine Geometric Fit: Checks mould-base-vs-platen geometry and shot-weight ratio only. It does not validate clamp force, injection pressure, plasticizing capacity, screw size or fill time | confirm full process suitability with your process engineer.

Known limitations (being actively worked on): (1) The Core/Cavity vs Base/Housing weight-split assumption hasn't yet been validated against a large sample of real historical moulds. (2) The Quick Estimate industry/complexity factor table hasn't yet been back-tested against historical mould cost records. Until both are validated against real data, treat every result as an indicative estimate for planning | not a guaranteed figure.

Report ID & Engine Version: Every report shows a unique Report ID (identifies that specific report) and an Engine Version (identifies which version of the calculation logic produced it). There is no backend database in this Beta | we can only match a Report ID back to your inputs and result if you share the PDF/report itself with us.

Cavity Layout Guide | Canvas, Runners & Mould Base

Canvas controls: "Fit to Screen" fits everything (layout/tie-bar/mould-base) back into view, and also auto-fits whenever a new layout/preset is applied. Use the zoom buttons to zoom in/out manually. "Runner Gate Position" chooses whether the runner connects at each cavity's nearest edge (side gate) or at the cavity's centre (direct/pin gate).

Runner network: reaches every cavity | 1, 3, 7, or any other count, none skipped | using the two real named runner topologies. When cavities are roughly equidistant from the sprue (checked automatically), a Radial/Star layout is used (equal spokes, naturally balanced, like PDF Fig 7-24); otherwise a Fishbone/Herringbone layout is used (one main trunk + row branches + short per-cavity drops | naturally unbalanced but the standard, most efficient layout for many/uneven cavities). Since a Fishbone run is naturally unbalanced, and a Family Mold can't be length-balanced anyway (the parts are different shapes), it is instead balanced the real way | by runner diameter: each cavity's final drop is drawn thicker for a bigger-volume part and thinner for a smaller one (the exact diameter still needs mould-flow simulation | this is a schematic direction, not a calculated value). Every bend/junction gets a round joint | real runner design never uses sharp corners (flow hang-up, pressure spikes).

Dragging & alignment: Drag boxes with the mouse | golden guide-lines appear as you get close to alignment, and the gap distance in mm is shown. Red border/gap = overlap or less than the recommended spacing.

What the colours mean: The thick dark-brown line = runner (simplified single-line style). Blue-tinted rectangle with a dot grid = the machine's Die Platen (full plate size + a schematic mould-mounting bolt-hole pattern, shown once a machine model with platen data is selected) | this, the tie-bar posts, the mounting-hole grid and the dimension lines are all part of the machine and never rotate. Dark round posts at its corners = the 4 tie bars; blue dashed outline = Tie-Bar Clear Span (the actual usable opening between the tie bars | your mould base must fit inside this, not the platen); red dimension lines = "Dist. between tie bar H/V", exactly like a real machine's platen drawing. Golden-tinted dashed rectangle = Suggested Mould Base | this, and everything inside it (cavities, guide pillars, clamp marks etc.), belongs to the mould and rotates together as a rigid body when you click "Rotate Layout 90°" | including which pair of edges physically carries the clamp slots.

Rotating the layout: Use "Rotate Layout 90°" to turn the whole cavity layout | since on a real machine the two clamps/tie-bar columns always sit left and right as you face it, rotating lets you match your layout's longer side to whichever tie-bar direction is actually wider.

Inside the mould-base rectangle (standard top-view convention): solid circles = Guide Pillar/Bushing (visible from top); dashed circles = Return Pin (hidden, below the parting line); dashed strips (sides) = Spacer/Support Rail (hidden); dashed rectangle in the middle = Ejector Plate outline (hidden); double line (on the edges) = Clamping Slot area. This follows the standard hidden-line drafting convention (solid=visible, dashed=hidden) | confirm exact position/size from your actual mould-base drawing/LKM catalog.

Standard mould housing (scales with part/mould size): as the part gets bigger, the whole housing scales together | Side Margin (from Hongyi's own documented table), Guide Pillar diameter, Return Pin diameter (≈0.8× the guide pillar, per standard practice), and Locating Ring diameter (nearest standard size). The Tie-Bar Diameter (machine side, not stored in the ERP) is auto-estimated from the tie-bar span but is directly editable | enter the real value from your machine's spec sheet and the platen drawing updates to match.

Beyond 1300mm (the confirmed standard 2-plate mould-base catalog limit), the tool flags the mould base as needing custom fabrication rather than pretending a rounded number is a catalog size.

Cavity Spacing, Standard Layouts & Side Margin

Spacing formula: spacing = min(60, max(20, min(0.12×max(L,W), 40), 0.50×Depth))

Standard Layouts are taken from the PDF ("Part & Mold Design" guide, Figure 7-24 "Spoked Runners" | 8-cavity circular, and Figure 7-25 "Naturally Balanced Runners" | row/branch pattern). Grid options are auto-generated from the divisors of the current cavity-count.

Side Margin is auto-set from Hongyi's own "Mould Quality Standard & DOP Agreement" (Section 4.2, "Injection Mould Size Evaluation Based on Short Size Parameters" table) | it looks up the smallest documented row that covers your current shot size (X1/Y1/Z) and applies that row's Column M value automatically, so the margin always matches the documented company standard rather than a guess. You can still override it manually (typing a value stops the auto-update); click "↺ Use Standard" to go back to the table value.