Dlevy,
Not from the drawings.. directly from the 3D model. Of course, if your outsourcing your CNC work you'll want to include a "control" drawing that shows critical tolerances.
I've designed and built many fairly complex plastic injection molds and prototypes without a single drawing. It's very fast and accurate if you have control over all the processes. The outside tool houses we use "HAVE" to accept 3D models to qualify as vendors. The ones that truley utillize all of the advantages of 3D data do a much better job.
Regards
Mark
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Hey! Thanks. I was wondering if people were *actually* manufacturing from
> the drawings.
>
> >
> > Ok.. but a serious answer will take allot more time than I have right now.
> >
> > Basically solid models allow you to do most of the de-bugging of a design
> > before you ever build a physical model. It also supplys you with 3D data > for
> > CNC programming, analysis, rendering, animation, etc. For instance, I > bring
> > SW models directly into Mastercam for CNC programming. This saves a ton of
> > time, and is a lot less prone to error than older methods.
> >
> > I've built allot of very complex machines designed in 2D Autocad. There > was
> > allways a LOT of rework. It's just too hard to see things in a 2D layout,
> > especially if the design is complex. With solids, you just don't see much
> of
> > that.
> >
> > There's ALOT more to it than this, maybe someone else can chime in. > >
> >
> > Mark
>
>