CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

25 February 2005

Company News

Delcam to Hold Free "3D Mould Design" Workshop at PDM Show

Delcam will hold a free workshop on "3D Mould Design" during the opening day of the Plastics Design & Moulding Exhibition to be held in Telford, UK, from 12th to 14th April. This will highlight the advantages designers of injection mould tools can gain by moving from processes based on traditional two-dimensional drawings to new methods based on three-dimensional computer models.

Many toolmakers still manufacture moulds using a two-stream system, where the core and cavity are designed and manufactured by one team using three-dimensional methods and the components making up the rest of the mould are produced by a second group using two-dimensional drawing and machining techniques. With Delcam's PS-Moldmaker software, the whole mould can be developed entirely in three dimensions by a single team using a single software system.

While moving to three-dimensional design may offer some time savings in the creation of the mould design, much more significant improvements can be made through eliminating mistakes during both design and manufacture. Realistic representations of the individual components and computer simulations of the mould's operation will help ensure that the mould will operate as expected. At the same time, the automation of routine and repetitive operations will minimize calculation errors, while the use of computer models is less prone to errors in dimensions and positions than using drawings.

The company will also demonstrate how the built-in intelligence within its PS-Moldmaker mould design software can make the design process both faster and more efficient. It allows the software to recommend, at every stage, suitable standard component sizes from the catalogues of a range of manufacturers. This automated approach is much faster than searching catalogues manually and ensures that non-standard components are only used when absolutely necessary.

The software also incorporates full knowledge of each component, its function and its relationship to other components. If, for example, an ejector pin is placed in the model, the necessary clearance holes are added to all plates through which it passes but a sealing-fit hole placed in the die block. If the ejector pin is moved or deleted at a later stage, all the associated holes are moved or deleted accordingly.

As well as speeding the design process and helping to avoid mistakes, the system's intelligence means that it can cope with design changes much more effectively than systems based purely on parametric methods. With the associative, parametric approach, changes are managed through strict mathematical relationships. This means that any alterations to the design will often result in components with non-standard sizes. These need to be made to order, and so are more expensive and take longer to acquire than standard components.

With PS-Moldmaker, in contrast, the software will recommend the nearest standard size that can accommodate the change and so ensure that standard components can be used as far as possible. This reduces the overall cost and time to produce the tool and also maintains the user's control over the design.

In cases where non-standard components or mechanisms cannot be avoided, for example, with larger or more complex moulds, PowerSHAPE can be used to produce a model of the required part. Alternatively, the automated processes within PS-Moldmaker can be exited at any stage so that manual adjustment can be made to the design of an existing part with PowerSHAPE. In either case, the new component or assembly can be added to the user's personal catalogue for use in future designs.

Once the design has been finalized, direct links from PS-Moldmaker to Delcam's PowerMILL CAM software ensure highly reliable machining of both holes and pockets. Company-specific templates can be established to provide automated feature-based machining that takes full account of the machine tools available and the preferred manufacturing methods.

In addition, the PowerINSPECT inspection software can be used to verify each component as it is produced, allowing any problems to be resolved immediately and so ensuring that the final assembly of the mould proceeds smoothly.

 

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