Hello, I may be in the wrong newsgroup. I am new to our company`s engineering lab. Engineering tech. So am doing a little homework on my own. We are re-desiging a injection molded plastic part. The person that does our cad drawings has sent me the cad file via e-mail and I am sending it to the company that does our injection molding. They in turn are going to convert that file to a pro/e file and send it back to me. I then will send that file to a company that makes the solid model of it so I can check it out to see if it is right. Is solidworks the program that makes the solid model? If not could you point me in the right direction. Thanks.....Dan. other contact is snipped-for-privacy@eosmfg.com.
When you say drawing I assume you mean 2D, either paper or Autocad-like file? And you send this 2D file to the mold house ?
Both Solidworks and Pro-E are solid modeling systems. Your mold maker will construct a 3D solid model to design a mold around, all of which will be done in solids. He will then generate the CNC code to cut the various parts, cores/cavities, directly from the 3D models.
As far as the last part, I'm confused. After the mold maker constructs the Pro-E model, you have your solid model. It wouuld be very difficult though to tell whether it's right or wrong without having a solid modelling system to analyze it with.
It's pretty much standard operating proceedure these days to do all of your design work on solids upfront. This usually includes a complete solid assembly of the entire device so you can tell how (and how well) all the components fit together.
When you go from 2D directly to the mold house, you lose control of your design. Lots of expensive re-work is almost guaranteed. What your describing to me is the way things were done fifteen years ago, This was when 3D CAD systems were very expensive, and not all companies could afford them.
Solidworks is about $4000.00. A similar 3D CAD system fifteen years ago would cost $30,000.00 for software, and $25,000.00 for a UNIX machine to run it on. You really need to get current here. Price isn't an issue anymore.
When you design in solids, all you have to do is send the 3D solid model to the mold maker, and your done.
I assume when you say a Solid model you mean a Rapid Prototype, in that case most of the out sourced RP shops will want a model in either IGES or STL. Solidworks can export both of these, and so can pro/e.
Most RP printers will have their own software, for example
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uses a bit of software called catalyst that processes STL models.
What software do you have?
On and asside, really wish I could afford a 3d printer, I really want to to use that 'Print 3D' menu option! ;-)
Stephen, The Print3D button is a utility to send files to an RP vendor and get quotes, or have the models built. If you want to try it, go ahead - I don't think there is an obligation to buy.
If what you are asking is, "can SolidWorks create the *.stl file for the Rapid Prototype (RP) machine," the answer is yes. But you could also get the people sending you the Pro-E file to save as stl file and forward that to the RP service.
Damm, should really read the manual! I allways assumed that was there if you had a printer directly connected! I like the ideal of drawing something and having it 'appear', kind of makes think we a bit closer to Star Trek :-)
I have exported the files manually the couple of times I have used a RP service....
Basically that is what I was asking. Our company doesn`t do any computer generated drawings. We have an `outside source` that does it for us. I know what I said in the first post is very confusing. Our `outside source` only has easycad
2 Dimension drawing software. I won`t confuse anyone further by describing how we do things...I guess we should move up into the 21st. century. Thanks for the replies. Dan.
mmmm... We just received our Dimension printer 2 days ago. It's been running non-stop since.
Absolutely fantastic so far!!!!!!! wiht a finish straight out of the machine that was substantially better than I had expected. The support material peels off in a few seconds leaving you wiht the part ready to use.
Their documentation was a bit on the sucky to non-existent side though. No problems for an engineer to figure it all out, but I know a few industrial designers that would struggle with the instructions... :-)
We bought one about 4 months ago. After setting it up on the network, I just loaded the Catalyst software on all the ID's machines. It took about 15 minutes to show them set up and run a model.
I agree, the documentation was a bit sketchy, but there really wasn't that much to it.
I have to pass by it on the way to the bathroom or kitchen. Seems like it's always crankin. By the way, we had our first service call yesterday. The support material won't load. It looked to me like the sensor that starts the feed rollers isn't working. They're bringing a whole new feed assembly on Monday (under warrenty)
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