Moldmakers in today’s competitive environment are called upon many times to be more than skilled professionals at building quality tooling for a customer. Because they are asked at times to be a plastics expert (“What shrink should we use?”), process technician (“What mold temperatures do we need to run and how fast?”) and automation inventor [...]
Molders are constantly looking for ways to produce consistent, high-quality parts while maximizing output and uptime. One of the best ways to achieve this is through the use of an effectively engineered mold base. […]
EDMing thin ribs is a difficult application. High-speed machining of the elec-trodes has made it possible to fabricate these electrodes from grades that are not capable of maintaining the detail in the cavity. […]
High-speed machining centers have made it possible to machine intricate detail into almost any grade of graphite, a task that would have been impossible using manual or CNC machining equipment. […]
The physical properties of each grade of graphite determine the ranking within classifications. The properties that influence performance are particle size, flexural strength and shore hardness. […]
The graphite industry is constantly striving to produce higher quality grades. Graphite materials have continued to evolve along with the other aspects of the EDM industry, […]
Graphite is the material of choice for the majority of EDM electrodes produced today in the United States. Selecting the best grade of graphite for a particular application can be difficult if the differences between graphite grades are not understood. […]
Although a number of CAM systems have implemented or are implementing KBM, the level of automation and input required from customers varies. A CAM system may require a high level of front-end effort by users to embed their machining practices and rules. Some may require computer programming skills and the setup of custom databases and [...]
An important factor of KBM(knowledge-based machining)is retaining the design knowledge and information already inherent in a CAD model and using that information’s power. […]
Feature-based CAM systems provide a standard set of machinable features using common shop terms such as slot, groove, pocket, hole, side or face. To further improve automation and machining productivity, […]