Mold Design Help

I am trying to design a four cavity mold that has a cavity and core. I
used the mold tools to generate the tooling split. Can I use the model
that has the tooling split to cut the cavities?

Thank you.

 

Are you talking about CNC'ing the cavities based off the model with the
surface split?

Sure you can.

Personally I dont use the SW mold creation tools as I do it by other means
but you should be able to STEP or Parasolid it out for yer toolpath
generation.

HTH
Bing

 

I hear ya on that!
And according to to what you stated, then they will NEVER learn.

Sometimes I wonder where they get these ideas for automatic
core/cavity/slide generators from. All of the ones that I have seen so far
are so cumbersome to work with, have really no legitimate logic behind them
and in no way resemble how I split my tools of which I think I am following
basic engineering guidelines.
The same ones engineers have folowed for years.
I really do wonder where SW Corp came up with these so called tools from
cause they surely are wasting their time in that department.

You dont sound like one although I have been called that on numerous
occasions.

Luckily not for my designs. Not yet anyways. <g>

Bing

 

I am very curious if SW04 put in a "mold" tool feature to allow me to
put a zero thickness "shutoff" on holes in parts where core pins shut
off on the opposite side of the mold so I can generate both sides of
the cavity from one scaled up part without using configurations and
manually generated 'plugs' for each cut configuration?

Anyone tried the mold features yet? Anyone have a feature list?

Later - Bo

 

Your elitist feathers are showing. The mold design automation tools
some companies are selling are being used to speed up mold design, not
to raise your IQ. If you don't know how to design mold tools,
automation will not help you much. These tools automate tasks, they do
not make design automatic, and yes, they really do work.

That's a beautiful sentiment.


Tools like MoldWorks/SplitWorks (and others like Faceworks, IMold, etc)
are used by real world mold designers to make real world molds faster
than you can do it manually.

The new mold tools in SolidWorks are disappointing. I think here their
philosophy of introducing half baked features with the intention of
making them useful later on just diminishes their credibility over the
short run. They say they have not attempted to recreate any of the
partner products, but the new functions at least in intention do exactly
what Splitworks and FaceWorks are supposed to do. The good news for the
partners is that these tools are not useful for production mold design
(they simply don't work for the intended purpose). I haven't used the
new tools on anything complex because I didn't have luck with even the
simple things.


matt

 

"Also, every time I post something about surfaces being difficult to up-date
I get an e-mail from a guy at R&B who says that SplitWorks can indeed solve
this problem for me. Some day perhaps I can get somebody to show me how that
works. I keep trying and something always causes my surfaces not to knit
back up after bringing in the new version. I have spent hours trying to
chase down problems like that and in the end have to go back and use my
manual method. How productive is that?"

It sounds so unproductive that I would get someone like VX, Cocreate or
think3 to come out and demo how they would do it in their package and then
post here exactly where the problem lies in SolidWorks.

Don't you think that after all these years that you should be able to do
this easily and in an intuitive manner if SolidWorks / SplitWorks could do
it ? How come others using SplitWorks don't post that this is no problem ?

Something seems very wrong to me... then again I could just blame you...
but at this point even I can't do that. ;>)

Elitist ??? The king of hack and whack ???

LOL

jon

 

How about Alibre? I got alot of their cd's lately.

Have you ever designed a mold?
Do you even know what they are?

Yea something seems wrong to me too. That the home let you out on yer own so
early.

That says it all!

Bing

 

jk:

How are you updating the customer data? Are you using the "edit
definition" on the imported feature? That's probably the method they're
talking about, and in theory it should work. I've found that the
associativity works nice on changes to native parts, but haven't done it on
imported parts.

matt.

 

We have been using SplitWorks to do benchmarks and help customers with
there parts for the past year - and (subjectively speaking, since we
develop the software) - I have been able to complete every project
given.
This doesn't mean that the software is perfect or that it can solve
any splitting project - however - if you send us a part to be split
(not just some pathological case) then we will split it for you and
show you the results.
Try us!

 

"This doesn't mean that the software is perfect or that it
can solve any splitting project - however - if you send us a
part to be split (not just some pathological case) then we
will split it for you and show you the results."

"doesn't mean the software is prefect" sure seems to me like
a euphemism for:

SolidWorks has *glaring core fundamental problems* with how it
handles imported non native geometry.

Sorry, but what you wrote above just does not make a lot of
sense to me and I don't think one has to be a moldmaker to
understand that something is very wrong with this picture.

If what I wrote above is not the case, why would sending you
files or expecting a user to jump through tons of hoops to
get the needed results be necessary ???

SolidWorks is suppose to be intuitive easy to use software
isn't it ? Does what your suggesting sound like it's easy and
intuitive to do ?

Should a SolidWorks user count on a third party vendor like
RMB to straighten out core SolidWorks problems like how
SolidWorks treats imported non native geometry ???

jon

 

What is up with you with yer non-native geometry crap lately?
You spew this junk here and in other forums.

So what? You cant even take a native model and do anything with it much less
a non-native model.
Designed any molds lately JB?

I been splitting molds for years now in SW and I dont have a problem at all
with either native or non- native models.

The only issue I have is that their splitting tools are not what I would
use. But, I can split whatever I want with the *core* SW functions. I dont
need all the extra functions, but some may. You obviously do not have a need
for them as you are not a mold designer so why dont you just shut the hell
up and let people talk about what they know and do for a living!

I thought we were commenting on SW mold creation tools not some BS about
non-native geometry.

I've used Splitworks and I think its a good start but I split my molds a
different way. I've even talked to them and they are nice people.

You are on another PR offensive. You and yer non-native geometry BS
buzzwords!

And I thought you were getting better.

Bing

 

He just doesnt know when to keep his mouth shut about things he doesnt even
have a clue about.

Bing

 

"I think here their philosophy of introducing half baked
features with the intention of making them useful later on
just diminishes their credibility over the short run."

What choice does Solidworks Corp. have as SolidWorks was
incorrectly conceived as just a solid modeler from day one.
Compare this with the hybrid approach adopted from day one
by think3, VX, UG, etc.

The amount of changes need in SolidWorks to now become a
seamless, unified, hybrid modeler are massive and are made
more so by the fact that SolidWorks Corp. waited too long to
allow something as basic as disjoint solids. At this point,
many more people are now seeing how much more work really
needs to be done to SolidWorks. This is especially true as
SolidWorks Corp. is now attempting to increase market share
to a much broader user base than their ill-conceived
concept of being a just a tool for "main stream" designers.

"They say they have not attempted to recreate any of the
partner products, but the new functions at least in
intention do exactly what Splitworks and FaceWorks are
supposed to do."

Based on this and more perhaps the real question one should
be asking is *why* is SolidWorks Corp. doing this ???

IMO it's because:

Imported non-native surface geometry are still being treated
like illegal aliens without the rights that native surface
geometry have. More than even this is now a glaring major problem
with SolidWorks. As a stop gap measure, SolidWorks Corp. is
trying to come up with half baked solutions because it's
much easier to do this than fix what needs to really be fixed.
Imported surface geometry needs to be given full citizen
status in SolidWorks. Until this happens all we will see are
tools that are not intuitive and don't work very well
because the real problem lies in the core approach to how
imported non-native geometry is dealt with by SolidWorks.
IMO, this should have been the major focus of SolidWorks 2004
just like disjoint solids should have been dealt with many
years before they were finally supported by SolidWorks 2003.

Similarly, even with prismatic solids, FeatureWorks should
not be the only tool given to a SolidWorks user to deal
with "dumb" imported solids. This one tool approach does
not work for many, many users and in many, many situations
in the real world.

SolidEdge made some radical changes and now clearly leads
SolidWorks at surfacing. Perhaps what we need is for EDS PLM
Solutions to show the same kind of leadership in dealing
with non-native geometry because it's more than obvious
after all these years that SolidWorks Corp. in unwilling to
do what is necessary until they are motivated to do so by
another competitor.

I'd suggest that if Autodesk wanted to restore some of their
completely lost credibility that they take the lead in this
area with Inventor.

jon

 

"More than even this is now a glaring major problem
with SolidWorks."

Should be:

More than ever this is now a glaring major problem
with SolidWorks."


jon

 

It should be as simple as RMB on an imported feature, Edit Definition, and
browse to a new imported file type.

Yeah, I can see that being a problem. I haven't tested that to see how it
works.

Yeah, this happens nicely. Add a couple of features, and it automatically
analyzes the new faces and puts them in the appropriate folders, and they
go to the knit surfaces, etc... If you have custom folders for side cores,
I don't think this would work.

I think that would have to be the edit definition on an imported feature.


Good Luck,

matt