Mold help

[GBP]

New to MasterCam and trying to get ahead before training with our reseller. To date we have used a wax mill that mills the actual 3D item but now have bought a Haas OM2 to create molds for injection. I imported my 3D in IGES format and so far so good. My question is does MC have a feature to make life easy to create a 2 piece mold from my file that is millable without me having to create a new model? That is really all I need. By the way I purchased X3 level 3 plus solids.

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Is the iges of the mold already split?

[GBP]

No its not.

[iowajim62]

Moldplus addon for MC is what I would check into.

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If you know where your parting lines are it wont be too bad.

 

I use SolidEdge Mold Tooling. It makes it easy!

 

Do you have Mold Plus for MCAM? I've never used Mold Plus so I dont know if it's comparable to SE Mold Tooling or not, (I'm sure it's more affordable) but maybe some of the 'ol timers here can help you out if you have/plan on having Mold Plus.

 

IMO You need something other than MCAM for designing molds. I'm not saying MCAM wont do it, but there are simpler ways.

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GBP,

I just looked at your website and see now what you are doing. Thats gonna be pretty cool once you get it all worked out.

 

Good Luck

[GBP]

So I buy MCAM and upgrade to level 3 with solids under the impression this will be easy and now I need an another addon. Why am I not surprised? Any idea if this can be done easily with another program I have like Solidworks or Rhino? Sounds like I should have bought Mold Plus or SolidEdge instead of the upgrades to MCAM.

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You said you imported your iges.....who created the iges and with what software, Solidworks?

[GBP]

Used a product by Gemvision called Matrix VI that is basically a rhino skin specifically for jewelry. So basically its rhino.

[GBP]

Oh and my designer created it.

[Ron Branch @ 5th Axis]

If you have a solid and will parting the ring right in Half should be very easy. You will need 3 copies of the solid. 2 Solids one for each half of the solid and one solid just to keep so you know what you are making. Make your solid solids of the halves. Then use bounding box to make a center point. That becomes your split line. Now put the one copy of the right to Solid Boolean remove from the bottom half and then do the same for the 2nd solid for the top half. Now you have an upper and lower mold cavities.

 

HTH

[iowajim62]

GBP,

Here's an article about the Segway and the estimated 70% time savings using Moldplus addon with MCam and Solids.

http://www.mastercam.com/SuccessStories/Mo.../articles4.aspx

[Trevor Bailey]

since you have solidworks, why did you not use that? SW has the add-on for mold making also, so as you see, mastercam is not the only one that offers add-ons. you will need the L3 capability in mastercam.

 

you may want to get your designer up to speed with SW and then import the "complete" file into mastercam.

 

just a thought for you.

[BernieT]

GBD

 

My jeweler friend here in Ventura has Rhino/Matrix and a revo machine. I can put you in touch with him if you are interested.

 

Rhino has very good techniques for splitting surfaces, I would consider splitting your model in Rhino before importing into Mastercam.

 

HTH

 

.

[GBP]

If the ring is just a simple plain band I can split like you say but a ring with prongs or some pendants i will need a 3 piece or more mold. Also, I was hoping to mill a groove, pin, or dog bone to help the mold pieces lock together and hoped there was something in MCAM to do this. Maybe MoldPlus is what I need. Thanks for all the help. Any idea what MoldPlus costs?

 

Also, Bernie thanks for the offer to speak with your friend but as for Matrix and our Revo we have no issues.

[Jayson Kramer]

I have used Moldplus for over ten years for mold splitting great tool.