CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
30 March 2005
Product News
Cimatron Releases New Stand-Alone Electrode Solution
Cimatron Limited announced a Stand-Alone Electrode Solution to support toolmakers through the entire process of designing, documenting and manufacturing electrodes, used in Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM). The new competitively priced configuration is currently available with Cimatron E 6.0.
As part of the machining process, EDM electrodes are often used when milling is not possible or in order to achieve better surface quality. Electrode design, documentation and machining require a large, varied set of CAD and CAM tools. The process is time consuming with many repetitive tasks, making it an ideal area to seek efficiencies and cost savings through the use of automation and customized tools.
Cimatron's Stand-Alone Electrode solution is a software package that manages the entire process from design to manufacture, while eliminating the need to employ other software. Based on Cimatron's Quick Electrode application, the package includes all the necessary tools for defining the EDM burning area, extracting the electrode shape, automatic documentation and machining, all optimized for electrodes. By carefully selecting all the necessary tools, while excluding other non-essential CAD/CAM features, Cimatron is able to offer the most cost-effective and complete solution to any electrode design and manufacturing need.
Starting at the geometry creation of the electrode, the design template can receive any burning area shape and automatically create the complete electrode geometry. Other customized tools are used to create smooth extensions from the burning areas to the top of the electrode, and for optimized blank and holder usage. The system also provides dedicated drawing templates and rules, which allow users to create complete drawings in a single click of a button. Cimatron's rich NC template capabilities are available with automatic selection of machining strategy according to the shape of the electrode. Moreover, Cimatron's integrative solution saves time by ensuring that data created when designing the electrodes can later be used when programming the electrode machining.
"The Stand-Alone Electrode solution was developed in response to our many customers who approached us about developing a more cost-effective bundle of all the functions needed for designing and manufacturing electrodes, without other non-essential CAD/CAM functionality," said Zvika Naggan, president and CEO of Cimatron. "The result is a stand-alone application at a very competitive price, which offers everything necessary for electrode design and manufacturing while eliminating the need to change software in the middle of the process."
"Electrodes and work pieces are automatically loaded day and night, and our EDM machines are used 7,200 hours per year," explained Cimatron customer, Nico Van Wijnen, of Van Wijnen Molds, The Netherlands. "We cannot manufacture quality electrodes this fast without Cimatron's Electrode Solution."
The Electrode Solution is available in two configurations: 'Electrode Solution', which covers the complete process of designing and documenting (drafting) electrodes; and 'Electrode Pro Solution', which adds 2 and 3-axis milling and simulation for electrodes.
For more information about Cimatron's Electrode Solution, please visit http://www.cimatron.com .
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