Engineering Change chook

[thoskins]

Hidy Ho Neighbors,

This is my first post. I have been reading alot of the information that you guys are putting in here. It has been very informative and helpful.

 

 

The work that we do is for General Motors. We build Die Cast Aluminum Tranmission Dies. One half of the die can weigh as much as 30,000 lbs.

Now the fella's at GM don't seem to be happy with their own work because they're changing there models all the time. The problem is that alot of our files have as many as 500 operations in them. And when they start throwing engineering changes at us it upsets the apple cart more often than not. We'll end up using two or three files to machine a Die.

 

My question is this....

 

Is it possible to create a chook to do boolean functions on surfaces. By this I mean to create a bounding box as it were around the surfaces and geometry that you want, and either keep or delete everything inside or outside the box.

 

Now I know you cam trim surfaces to planes and geometry but I need something that can work easily. Some of the guys here are fairly proficiant at making toolplaths, but when it comes to making surfaces and modifying models they start backing away from the table.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

T.Hoskins

Bedford Machine & Tool

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Wel if you have a good water tight surface model, you can create a solid out of it, then you can do this to the changed model, and so a Boolean Operation on it to see the changes.

 

You looking for something along those lines???

[thoskins]

We don't have solids.

We're using 9.1 sp2 mr0304 mill level 3

[crazy^millman]

with 500 operation 1 engineering change would pay for about 20 seats of soilds. Talk to the higher up and tell them it is dollars and sense. They can keep may 10 to 20 times the dollars to get it done it they can save the 10 to 20 times dollars ot make money up to them.

 

Might look at Moldplus Also is kicks major But.

[Mike Whitten CAD/CAM Contractors]

Solids is very powerful and a big help! All of our parts that we make aren't even close to what you are describing and we would not even think of doing without it.

 

Maybe it would be possible to get it? I believe that it would really open the doors for you on a lot of things.

 

Mike

[Chris Rizzo]

quote:

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with 500 operation 1 engineering change would pay for about 20 seats of soilds. Talk to the higher up and tell them it is dollars and sense.

---

hahahaha I hav'nt heard the "dollars and SENSE pun" before, Ron!!

 

I'll have to remember that one for our designer who is very fond of "Design changes"

[RandyN]

Check out the mold plus chook, you can make a rectangle and split what is inside and outside the box, and save the result to another file or whatever you want to do to it, all in one or two clicks.

[mross]

I couldn't live without my seat of solids.

Sounds like you need to do some convincing.

 

Our designer sounds like he came out of the same mold as cmr's designer. Always changing stuff.

 

BTW: welcome to the forum thoskins.

[thoskins]

Thanks for the response guy's.

The only problem is that our local Mastercam Dealer told the higher ups that we didn't need solids. I have spoke to them a couple of times myself and they told me the same thing.

There response was that when you modify a solid that all of the toolpaths that are created on it become dirty. Hence you have to regenerate them. He also told me that using solids would slow down my processing time because the files are bigger. I know using solids to do boolean functions would be a heck of a lot easier but I really don't think I can convince management to make the transition to solids. sounds like I'm just SOL.

[Mike Whitten CAD/CAM Contractors]

thoskins,

 

Print out a few threads including this one and show them. They invented soids for a reason! I don't understand why the dealer said these things? I could go on and on but I am sure you will spark some interest with some others so.. just wait and listen.

 

Don't feel to bad, remember you work in a machine shop! I always have simalar things happen to me in machine shops.

 

Mike

[Scott Bond]

thoskins,

 

I am not convinced the dealer would say that solids wouldn't apply to this type of project.

Would it be possible to have anothet talk with your dealer with the specific question you asked us here? Or show him a copy of this thread.

[Roger Peterson]

There is a surface compare chook written by either cimco integration or camaix that will compare your models for you.

 

 

HTH

[Roger Peterson]

It is camaix and here is the link:

 

csurf