Nearly Automated Mold Toolmaking Process is Created
Pioneers have developed a nearly automatic manufacturing process chain for injection and blow mold tooling with conformal cooling channels that runs virtually unbroken from design to finished product.
Posted: August 30, 2010
GF AgieCharmilles (Lincolnshire, IL) has partnered with EOS (Novi, MI) and will demonstrate a nearly automatic process chain for creating injection and blow mold tooling with conformal cooling channels. The two companies will conduct the demonstration at IMTS 2010 in the GF AgieCharmilles booth, No. S-8754.
This breakthrough manufacturing process chain is one that runs virtually unbroken from design to finished product. Machines used in the process are networked together and operate from the same 3D CAD model data from start-to-finish to increase accuracy and reduce set-up times.
?Our technologies are a perfect fit for moldmaking, and the transfer between our systems is unique,? says Gisbert Ledvon, business development manager at GF AgieCharmilles U.S.
During the demonstration, an EOSINT M 270 direct metal laser-sintering system (DMLS) will create a steel mold for a plastic, blow-molded golf ball, complete with conformal cooling channels and the fixturing needed for all successive stages of machining. This mold will then move through a secondary process chain that includes a HSM 400U LP high-speed milling machine, an FO 350MS die sinking EDM, and a Cut20P wire EDM. The wire EDM cuts off the fixturing, the HSM 400ULP will cut the parting lines for a flash-free (no leakage) surface, and leave the mold ready for production use.
A significant advantage of DMLS is that, in one operation, it produces a near-net part that is ready for secondary finishing. Single fixturing is then used for all secondary operations to reduce manual benchworking and generate surface finishes accurate to within three to five microns. The process minimizes scrap by eliminating many of the progressive operations involved in subtractive toolmaking processes that start with a block of raw material.
?By joining with EOS, we have established a complete process chain, available globally, that provides the same high accuracy GF AgieCharmilles is known for, and creates tools with a minimum of oversight and greatly reduced material waste, manufacturing time, and manual labor,? says Ledvon. ?It?s better for the environment, and it?s excellent for the bottom line. The conformal-cooled molds we can manufacture offer enormous advantages.?
Conformal-cooled molds are already in use and have enabled high-end manufacturers to reduce part-production cycle times 17 to 20 percent and, in some cases, as high as 45 percent. The DMLS-manufactured molds improve product quality and promote longer tool life, and the optimized cooling increases the efficiency of the whole molding process as well. For large-volume production, the resulting time and cost savings?as well as carbon footprint reduction?are considerable.
?We?ve documented years of success stories from customers who benefited by using DMLS to create molds that employ conformal cooling channels,? says Andy Snow, regional sales director EOS of North America. ?Our partnership with one of the world?s leading suppliers of toolmaking equipment demonstrates how accepted these molds have become, and it enables manufacturers with high-volume injection and blow molding to implement our technology and reap substantial time and cost savings.?
GF AgieCharmilles and EOS will also hold a joint press conference Tuesday, September 13, 2010 at 8:30am in room S-501A at IMTS.
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