Many of you have probably heard of self-venting or gas permeable mold steel, but are not totally familiar with it. Gas permeable mold steel is a sintered, pre-hardened to 35 HRc material with porosity in the range of 20 to 30 percent by volume. A system of interconnected micron-sized pores is dispersed throughout the material. [...]
During the concept phase of a new project the option of selecting a stack mold is often overlooked because many mold designers are unfamiliar with the technology. Compared to a regular, single-face injection mold, stack molds can virtually double the output of an injection molding machine by distributing the plastic melt into two separate mold [...]
A purchase order has been promised by the customer for weeks, and finally the green light has been given to the mold design team. No sooner has the design started and the shop foreman is asking when steel can be ordered, […]
The era of robotic automation’s reputation as an expensive, over complicated technology is gone. In recent years many small to medium-sized companies have turned to automation in order to compete with low-cost sourcing. […]
Recent advancements in industrial PC CNC controls have opened a new technology path to improved speed, accuracy, surface finish, flexibility and convenience for moldmaking, along with greater value. Here is a review of some of the features of the next generation controls you should consider when investigating your next PC CNC control purchase. [...]
CATIA is widely used throughout the engineering industry, especially in the automotive and aerospace sectors. CATIA V4, CATIA V5, Pro/ENGINEER, NX (formerly Unigraphics), and SolidWorks are the dominant systems. […]
CATIA (Computer Aided Three-dimensional Interactive Application) is a multi-platform CAD/CAM/CAE commercial software suite developed by the French company Dassault Systemes and marketed worldwide by IBM. Written in the C++ programming language, CATIA is the cornerstone of the Dassault Systemes product lifecycle management software suite. The software was created in the late 1970s and early 1980s [...]
screen shot captured from a SolidWorks top-down design approach.SolidWorks is a parasolid-based solid modeler, and utilizes a parametric feature-based approach to create models and assemblies. […]
SolidWorks is a 3D mechanical CAD (computer-aided design) program that runs on Microsoft Windows and was developed by Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corp., a subsidiary of Dassault Systèmes, S. A. (Vélizy, France). SolidWorks is currently used by over 3.4 million engineers and designers at more than 100,000 companies worldwide. […]
With the release of Mastercam X (10), the application became a true Windows-based application, as opposed to one ported over from DOS. It also represented a fundamental shift in the way the application was configured. […]