As a Product Designer, what if you add a material in your arsenal of materials, that allowed you to do things that no other material would let you do? What if that miracle material let you solve a problem, a difficult problem, in a way that you hadn’t even thought of before? Well, my name is Victor, and I’m a Product Designer, and I’ve worked with such a material.
That material is called PopFoam. And PopFoam is an injection molded EVA closed cell foam. It’s super durable, super lightweight, tough, it’s waterproof, it’s even chemical-resistant. You may already be familiar with EVA foam. It’s used in a lot of different applications. It’s used on the bottom of shoes, it’s used in sporting equipment. It’s used on boats, even on medical devices. Today, I want to show you a specific example of PopFoam in action on a real product.
In front of me, I have a high tech back support, designed using PopFoam. Now PopFoam made it possible to create a complete outer shell on this product, wrapping around this plastic substrate. Now the beauty of injection molded foam, is that it allows you to mold really complex forms and shapes. Really, the only limitation to what kind of shapes you can mold are the ones in your own imagination. And if you want to get really crisp, detailed textures, well you can do that too.
You can see on the side of the product, there’s a very deep heavy texture, in contrast with a much smoother texture in the center section. PopFoam comes in a lot of durometers, from super, super soft, to really, really hard. And you can get the exact durometer that you want in between that range. And you can pick what works exactly for your specific application.
But one of the truly greatest features about this miracle material is its ability to mold undercuts. I want to show you over here the inside of this part over here, and you can see how deep these undercuts really are. Because PopFoam expands out of the mold and then cools and shrinks down to its final size, it’s very easy to mold those deep undercuts. And fixed sections, you can mold fixed sections as well. We all know from our plastic days, that fixed sections are a no-no, because they cause sinks and blemishes on the aesthetic surface. But not with PopFoam. You can mold incredibly fixed sections, and not have any external blemishes on the outside of your product.
PopFoam is super tough, super durable. It’s water-resistant, it floats. It’s even chemical-resistant. It has so many applications. I challenge you to go to their website, www.PopFoam.com. Download their white paper, request a free sample, and see what you can do with this miracle material.
Until next time, this is Victor. Keep designing cool stuff.
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