injection mold designer using solidworks

I've been using cadkey 2D for designing product, mold assemblies, and mold
inserts since 1996. Our largest mold frame is a t-series dme mold 15 X 18 ,
two cavity. I will be switching to a 3D software, which one I do not know.
that's why I'm looking and trying to get some questions answered.
1] what was it like to switch over to SW. The time frame, converting old
files that you already had over to SW.
2] how long before you seen that you were using part/assembly/drawing files
from SW in a reasonable amount of time.
3] how about revisions, i know with 2D it takes forever in a days age to do
revisions.
4] can you use variblies instead of actual dimensions in excel that will
control a given shape. example say i have a standard block with a length,
width, and height. i will use this block alot for certain products. the
length may change or the height. can i set the length to X and the height to
Y and than input any numbers to get what i want?
5] the most important question. the thought process in a mold design. i have
a product and place it in a blank mold frame and than place all my eject
pins, support pillars, springs, runner system, ect. i need to know if i can
still start out with creating an assembly to view to make sure that
everything is fine and than detail all components/inserts/mold frame later.
I know that SW works in a sketch world first, than create to final part. I'm
just not sure how?

I guess the most important thing to me is how to start a mold design,
because it seem difficult with SW. If you could add any input of how you
would go about doing this please let me know.

Thanks

 

MoldWoks/SplitWorks

 

Get a Demo of the TopSolid Mold product. The surfacing abilities are
excellent and the mold libraries are very complete.
The solid modeling technology is well integrated and much more powerful than
SW. Good luck in your search.

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
Portland
www.machiningsolution.com

 

I have heard of Top Solid's name, but very little else, though I noted
their website noted having 15,000 seats sold worldwide.

Can you provide a proverbial Engineers Outline to the features and
facts regarding the program, such that some form of comparison with
other solid modelers can be made on key features along with hardware
requirements and possibly speed comparisons, since claims are made
about Top Solid perfomance?

I love SolidWorks (2003 anyway), but also use Ashlar (mostly on my
Mac) and I would not discount Top Solid if it actually makes mold
design run faster.

Many Thanks - Bo Clawson