Creating packaging for products with a lot of separate parts can get quite complicated. You want to ensure a nice presentation of the individual parts, but you also need to make sure everything is secured in place.

This can lead to complicated shapes in your packaging which can be hard to vacuum form. There are a few things to keep in mind while designing the packaging, so you can avoid uneven thickness across the packaging, tears in your shape or webbing at the edges.

Try these tips for optimal vacuum forming:

• 3D shape angles
• 3D shape depth
• Air holes
• The right materials
• Vacuum former settings

In the video below you can see how we followed these best practices to vacuum form an example of complex packaging for a toy.

Files

• STL file

Machines

• 3D printer
• MY YARD vacuum former

Materials

• PET sheet, 0.5 mm
• HIPS sheet, 1.0 mm