Design cooling channels in the mold. This process begins with a user sketch of the channels and ends with the addition of cooling items to the channels. Cooling Part and Cooling Channel features are created. See the Cooling Tips.
Important: The cooling channel is created only in components that are assigned to the active assembly.
The MoldDesign Guide extends to display the steps used to design the cooling tunnels.
These steps are as follows:
|
|
Parallel Plane: Create a parallel datum plane to be used for designing a cooling system. |
|
|
Inclined Plane: Create an inclined datum plane to be used for designing a cooling system. |
|
|
Sketch: Sketch the cooling lines which define the positions of the cooling channels. |
|
|
Line: Define the cooling cycle using cooling lines. |
|
|
Cooling Channel: Create the cooling channels around the sketched lines. |
|
|
Add Item: Add cooling items to the cooling channels. |
When entering any of the Cooling functions for the first time, per assembly, MoldDesign automatically creates a Cooling Part in the activated assembly. This cooling part contains all the cooling features, such as datums, sketches and cooling channels.
The cooling part behaves as a standard Cimatron E part that was created in the assembly environment. Note that MoldDesign creates only one cooling part per assembly. The Cooling Part can contain many cooling objects.
When creating the cooling channel, MoldDesign automatically analyzes which components will be cut and uses the cooling part as the cutting object. Note that this cutting operation takes place in the assembly environment and is based on the Assembly Cut operation.
Within every part that is cut by the Cooling Part, a standard Cut feature is created.
Using an existing cooling sketch as a reference (useful for the creation of similar channels in parallel planes): Activate the cooling part, pick the cooling sketch and select Show Sketch in the popup menu (right mouse click).
3D cooling channels: You can create regular a 3D composite curve in the required cooling part, then activate the Cooling Channel (to create the channels) in the relevant assembly and select the composite curve as the cooling sketch.
Instance: Design the cooling in one instance only. The channel will be created in all instances. If you want to design a different cooling channel for each instance, use the “save as” option before adding them to the assembly.
