Any prog die designers using SW?

I'm a toolmaker who has a passing (2 semesters in community college)
interest in SW. Lately, I've been curious if it's practical/worthwhile to
design an entire prog die in SW. I've seen advertisements for 3DQuicktool,
but have never tried it. Does anyone design their entire tool in SW? Or, is
it more suited for designing certain elements, without doing the entire die?
I have played around and modeled a few forming cams, so I understand the
benefits of ensuring that complex mating parts won't crash as the tool goes
through its stroke. An ex-coworker of mine sent me a jpeg of a tool that he
did in SW, but it was only a screenshot without any details. Unfortunately,
I have since lost contact with him. Just wondering....... Thanks, Mark

 

4 years ago I worked for a place that made automotive stampings. Most
of our prog die vendors used SW.

Whether you use SW or not, it's a good idea to develop parametric 3D
modelling skills. Not necessarily SW. Learn one and you can learn
the rest.

 

Yes, there lots of tool designers using SW. We have been since
SW2003.

There are add-ins for helping with the tool design in SW.

http://www.logopress3.com/en/index.php

http://www.3dquicktools.com/

We do not use either of those add-ins, just core SolidWorks for our
tool designs. SolidWorks is a great design tool for dies. Any of the
3D parametric modeling pacakges would work also.

Cheers,

Anna
www.solidmuse.com