When designing cooling channels for a mold, the mold designer is frequently looking at deep-draw sections of a molded part and attempting to get as much heat as possible out of these areas. They tend to be the hottest of the hot-spots in most molds. […]
Mold cycle time tends to be driven primarily by the length of time it takes to cool the plastic material until the part can be ejected from the mold. The sections of the molded part that take the longest to cool are the hot-spots. […]
Polypthalamide, an engineering thermoplastic, is a member of the nylon family with excellent high temperature properties (heat deflection temperature of 280oC and a continuous use temperature of 170oC). […]
More mold work going overseas may bring manufacturing cost savings, but it opens up the possibility of intellectual property (IP) being compromised. Fortunately there are ways to protect IP—some more efficient than others. This article will discuss how to best protect your shop’s IP. […]
Recent years have seen a number of articles on the benefits of closer integration of CAD and CAM. Of course, integrated CAD/CAM systems from a single company have been available since 1972. […]
The secret of hard milling has been around for awhile. The problem is that people often don’t want to accept the requirements because of the necessary investment. You can’t take any shortcuts and expect to get results. […]
These all meet the dictionary definition of “optimization”. However, one of the fastest ways for a moldmaker to achieve a dramatic improvement in efficiency and reduce NC program cycle time is to automatically optimize their NC program feedrates. […]
Some CAM vendors refer to optimized software as the software best suited for the types of machines, processes or parts being programmed. […]
Digital prototyping gives designers and engineers the ability to virtually explore a complete product before it is built—so they can design, visualize and simulate products from the conceptual design phase through the manufacturing process. By using a digital prototype, users access real-world performance of a design with less reliance on costly physical prototypes. [...]
In the hard milling process there are a number of concerns. For example, a build-up of heat during the cutting process can cause premature tool wear, trapped/welded chips, spindle growth, spindle/cutter vibration and part piece rigidity. […]