Another solidworks question O\T

[mold100]

Is anyones designengineering using solidworks to design complete molds?I know it isnt as strong as pro-e, catia, or UG.But I am wondering how well it does do on fairly complex 3d shaped molds. Thanks

in advance.

[Trevor Bailey]

There is a friend of mine that uses SW & MC. Obviously SW to design with. He does pretty complex stuff. You may give him a call. The company name is AIM Plastics. I don't have his number off hand, but they are located in El Cajon, CA.

 

He is a really nice guy. I don't think he would mind you asking him questions. His name is Jason McDonald.

 

[ 11-11-2002, 02:50 PM: Message edited by: Trevor Bailey ]

[kwolf]

I'm a user of SW. I had some problems in designing mold parts in previous versions but now that SW has multi body support in part mode it is very easier to design and design molds in SW. However creating some complex parting surfaces has difficulties.

[Anbu Lingappan - Moldplus SA]

Hi

 

Mold Design using Solidworks is possible through a few solutions.

 

One of them is IMOLD for Solidworks. It is a complete Mold Design solution developed for the Solidworks platform.

 

Visit them at www.imold.com

 

Regarding the reliability and power, the new version of SW 2003 is much better. They provide more power in their surfacing tools, but still not as powerful as what Mastercam has to offer for surfacing tools. As you know, complex mold designs require good surfacing tools and SW is finally realizing it and working on it.

 

The ability to do multiple bodies is also a benefit that they have just provided in SW2003. Makes it easier for those users not familiar with creating assemblies to add parts, but in the end, you will need assembly designs for the molds since SW does not have layers/levels. The mold design solution described will create the assemblies automatically for you and more...

 

Regards

 

Anbu

[Accu-Molder]

We use sw for design only thing we've had trouble with is if the customers solid part file is bad it can create lots of problems. Mastercam reads parasolids well. All of our molds are complex 3-d surfaces and also some are very small.

[lynnz]

I use SW for creating 3d molds all the time. For the most part, it goes fairly well. Some Pro-e files from customers can give me a few headaches, but it seems I always get the job done. If it is a native SW part file to start with, the job seems to go flawlessly.

 

Lynnz

[Roger Peterson]

I have designed a few simple molds in SolidWorks, some with 3D parting lines and simple cams. Worked well for what I did. I played with IMOLD and once the mold base was created it was hard to make changes to plate layout. This was several years ago and I'm sure they have made major improvements. I have seen people mutch better than I with SolidWorks do some very complex parting surfaces and mold layout. SolidWorks also comes with some of the major brand name mold bases already layed out.