The most recent and growing family of inserts are square, helical shapes for improved economy and performance. These new square insert geometries combine the helical cutting edge on all four edges with an additional wiper on one of the extremities to perform for 90′ sidewall milling operations. […]
For multifunction operations in machining small slots and shapes, various companies offer a single endmill body on which various interchangeable heads can be mounted. The versatility of the system allows shoulder milling, slot milling, small surface face milling, profiling, drilling, chamfering and ramp down operations. […]
For the machining of dies and molds, a very wide selection of cutting tools is necessary. As an example of a complicated shape requiring a large variety of cutting tools, you might observe the lower part of a mounted mold for injection molding of an electronics panel part,The mold requires facing of large and small [...]
To adequately analyze the situation, three scenarios were considered as they applied to the machining community: (1) a decrease in cutting tool cost, (2) an increase in cutting tool life and (3) an increase in cutting tool cost coupled with the resulting increase in productivity. In the first situation, a 30 percent discount was taken [...]
Two-dimensional/3-D mold design is probably the most popular way of designing a mold today – you can have control over the appearance of the flat 2-D design, the speed of the initial layout, and the precise geometry and functionality of the 3-D solid model. Many customers today provide a 3-D solid model to the mold [...]
3-D mold design is fully parametric; only time and the ability of the designer can limit what can be accomplished in this area. […]
Two-dimensional mold design is the computer-generated equivalent of a board drawing – otherwise known as stick drawings. The advantage of 2-D over board drawings is that the geometry should be correct, rather than just close – so if you need to scale any geometry accurately, […]
While STEP-NC is in its earliest phases and moving at a steady pace, there are a variety of its components that can be explored by the moldmaking industry. In the long run, manufacturers will have a choice as to how they provide STEP-NC data to their machine tools. […]
Visualize this e-capable manufacturing scenario. A job shop downloads a 3-D model in the STEP file format from a website. The STEP file provides direct input (STEP-NC) for the machine tool – product information such as geometry, features, machining steps and toolpaths. […]
In a nutshell, STEP defines a standard for CAD product design data including geometry, topology, tolerances, relationships, attributes, assemblies, configuration and more. STEP-NC is an extension of STEP that annotates product design information with manufacturing information such as tooling, stock, manufacturing features and process sequence. […]