problems with complex mold shutoff surfaces 1

[IzRey]

Hello,
I am desigining a mold using solid works. I know that the mold tools function is supposed to make it easy but the shutoff surfaces option cannot handle the surface I need. So, I made my own shutoff surface using the surface tools. Now that I have the surfaces I can't figure out how to use those surfaces to actually get the tool to split. I would appreciate any help that someone could offer me. Thanks,

-IzRey

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

You only mention the shut-off surfaces. Did you create the Parting Lines & Parting Surfaces also? In particular did you knit all those surfaces properly? Did you prepare for the Tooling Split?

All of the above needs to be done before you can apply the Tooling Split.

Check out the SW Online "Mold Design" Tutorial & use it as a procedural checklist.



Helpful SW websites every user should be aware of faq559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions faq559-1091

 

[Theophilus]

The tutorial mentions it, but it's a bit of a hack. I'll try to reproduce the solution by memory.

You say you have your shut-off surface created, right. This will show up in your Surface Bodies folder as one of the surfaces. Make sure it's a single surface--knit it to make it so, if necessary.

From the Surface Bodies folder, drag the shut off surface you created into the mold shut-off folder. Everything will now work as you need it to. You need to drag the surface from the Feature tree, and not from the graphics window.

Try it and let me know if I forgot anything.


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[IzRey]

I have the parting line, split surface, etc..... Everything is good but the shutoff surfaces. There are a few throughout the part. Only one is giving me the problem. When I have gone to look in the mold folder with the core and cavity subfolders it looks like, when I use the "shutoff surfaces" tool that it creates two surfaces each one that I define, i.e. one to go in the core folder and one to go into the cavity folder. When I copy my surface into one folder the other doesn't have it and I THINK that it is causing the tooling split to fail. I hope that makes sense.

 

[Theophilus]

Well, you cannot have two shut-off surfaces for the same region. You'll need to make sure the auto-created shut off surface in that region is not created (while creating that feature, tell SW not to generate a shut-off for that particular hole).

Then continue with my instructions above and it will work fine. (I just went through this on some parts I designed and then designed the injection mold for the parts. Worked great.)


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[rfus]

You can't always rely on the mold tools to be a magic bullet.

Don't knit surfaces when you first create the shut off surfaces. Closely inspect all the surfaces in just the core folder and in just the cavity folder. Color them green and red respectively or whatever you want and inspect them with one another and with your parting surface. Knit these together after your inspection and if you get a failure to knit surfaces you know you have a problem. You may want to go back to your solid and use the check tool.

 

[IzRey]

It's still not working, can Post a picture on here to show you what it looks like??

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

How Can I Show An Image In A Post faq559-1100


Helpful SW websites every user should be aware of faq559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions faq559-1091

 

[Theophilus]

Did you remove the duplicate surface? If so, make sure your manually-created surface completely plugs the hole in that area and that there are no other open holes in the part.

If you read through all the related pages on this topic in Help, you'll find an explanation on how to patch the hole manually without problems (which is what I did to solve this problem).

Unless there's a problem with your geometry, this should work just fine. (I did this in SW 2005.)


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[IzRey]

thanks i'll try that out and see what i can come up with

 

[IzRey]

I still can't get this thing to work, it is probably something very simple. I'm pretty sure my hand made shutoff surface is geometrically O.K. because I could knit all of the surfaces together. But when I drag it into the cavity folder and then try to do a tooling split it doesn't it says that it can't knit the surfaces.... I'm not sure where the problem sould be. If you have any other advice I would appreciate it.

 

[Theophilus]

OK, I think you just mentioned your mistake. You don't want your shut-off surface in the cavity folder at all. You want it in the shut-off surfaces folder. Check it out and I think you'll find it (I'll double-check my mold file to make sure I'm giving you proper advice--if not, I'll repost.)


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[Theophilus]

In reviewing the files I created, I actually recreated my parting surface instead of a hole shut-off surface. So the hack was inserting the parting surface I made into the Parting Surface Bodies folder inside the Surface Bodies folder.

If you check the Help files carefully on this subject, I believe you'll find how to make your own shut-off surface. I think you would pick your shut-off surface during the Tooling Split feature to make everything separate.

If this is still a problem, you can check FAQ559-1177 (thanks to CorBlimeyLimey) to post a file on the Internet for download and other help. Please do not post your email address in this forum.


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[IzRey]

thanks

 

[IzRey]

Do you have to knit the parting surfaces together???(i.e. the parting surface where the mold splits and the surface that I made)

 

[Theophilus]

You probably do need to do that so the split operation can work properly. Since I actually created the whole surface before (and not just the shut-off surfaces) I haven't tried that yet. But if any holes are seen in the parting surfaces, it won't work--so a knit seems like the only option.

Try it and see if it works then.


Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

 

[IzRey]

I just want to let you know I finally got it to work. The way I did was by creating a duplicate shutoff surface (like the shutoff tool does) I was able to do this by using the offset surface command and setting the distance to zero. When you do it this way it isn't as much of a Hack as it is bypassing the shutoff command to do it on your own. With the two copies of my shutoff surface I put one in the core folder and the other in the cavity folder. And that put everything together for me. Thanks to everyone for their help. I really appreciate it.