moldplus power demo v9

7/29/2019 Moldplus Power Demo v9

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Moldplus Power Demo!( METRIC )

NOTE : This document is only meant for Resellers and is not to be used as a learning tool. The Applications guide is designed to serve the purpose of learning Moldplus.

In order to show the power of Moldplus and the new features (especially Electrode Maker), this guideshould walk you through a quick 10 minute demo or less!!!

Please follow the directions as indicated if you are not familiar with all the modules.

Make sure you have done the proper Moldplus installation. The files referred to here can be found inthe MCAM8\MILL\MC8\Moldplus_Examples_MMfolder. Please NOTE THAT THE FILES REFERENCED HERE ARE UPDATED MC8 files.

SECTION 1 – Draft Angle Analysis

Moldplus offers very powerful tools for analyzing parts for undercut surfaces, etc. With 1 click of the mouse, you should be able to demonstrate that Moldplus will analyze the part andautomatically trim the undercut surfaces and place them in different colors and levels. You canexplain that this feature alone will help them from machining prototypes then realizing that themold cannot be pulled apart because there are undercut surfaces. To do this:

Step 1: Load the door_mm.mc8 file.

Explanation: You can show this Door part in the Top view and mention that it is not easy todetermine if there are undercut surfaces or not.

Step 2: Launch Moldplus. (ALT-C, type or select Moldplus.dll from the list)

Step 3: Click on Draft Angle, Settings, the following Window will be displayed. Make sure youset the values as indicated below (change the levels for Yellow and Red to the indicated)



Explanation: You can explain the features here. The green +3 degrees is the normal analysisangle and that any surface at 3 degrees or above will get marked as green. The “In Between” willmark the surfaces in between 0 degrees and 3 degrees as Yellow. These surfaces can either bemachined with the Undercut surfaces or the surfaces at 3 degrees or above. The level is set to 3for the Yellow surfaces. All the undercut surfaces will be marked to Red, trimmed and placed inLevel 5.

Step 4: Click on OK , from the main Draft Angle menu, verify that the Cplane is set to Top andclick on Do It. The following will be the result.

Step 5: Zoom into this corner and show the results. You can explain that the surfaces aretrimmed and marked according to the settings.

Step 6: To show that they are trimmed and moved to different levels, you can click on ALT-Z

to bring up the Mastercam Level Manager. Disable Level 2 (the surface geometry level).Click OK . You will only notice that the In between and Undercut surfaces are displayed.

You can explain that the other geometry is just BAD DESIGN!!!

Explanation: You can then explain that the user has 2 options. The user can (1) decide tomachine the surfaces as undercut surfaces and use them in the mold as sliders OR (2) rotate thepart to a desired angle to eliminate the undercuts. If you wish to show the rotate option, do this:

Step 7: Enable Level 2 again. Click on Undo/Redo button. This will restore the originalgeometry so that the user can either analyze using a different angle or rotate and analyzeagain. To rotate, we first need to set the Cplane to Side. Click on Cplane and set it to

Side. Then, click on Xform, Rotate, All, Surfaces, Done. For point of rotation, click



on the Blue point found on the right side lower corner. And enter the following angle of –11.5 degrees in the prompt for the angle.

Click on OK . The part will be rotated by –11.5 degrees.

Step 8: Now, set the Cplane to Top again and launch Moldplus, Draft Angle and Do It. You will notice that the corner where you found the undercut surfaces is completely gone!

This completes the Draft Angle Analysis Demo.

SECTION 2 – Creating Parting Lines, 3D Part Edges and 2D Part Edges.

Moldplus allows the quick creation of Parting Lines, 3D part edges and 2d projected part edges. All these are helpful to complete a mold design (for example, creating Run-offs to mold edges).

Step 1: Load the partfile door_mm.mc8 again

Step 2: Launch Moldplus, click on Parting, Partlines, make sure the Cplane is set to Top. Verify the direction, if the arrow is pointing downwards, click on CP Norm to set the directionnormal to the construction plane. The angle as default is set to 3 degees. Click on Do All. You

will notice that the parting lines are created at all the regions at 3 degrees. This is similar to theDraft Angle Analysis, except that it is better to do the Draft Angle Analysis if you plan to alsotrim the surfaces. You can create more draft angles at other angles too if you so desire.

Step 3: Click on Undo All to get rid of all the Parting lines for the next step.



You can now show how easy it is to create the 3D parting edges of molds. This is very useful where you need these edges to create run-offs to the mold edges. Instead of creating all themold edges of all the surfaces, this is a huge time saver.

Step 4: Click on Backup till you get to the Moldplus Main Menu. From there, click onEdges, 3D Edges and then verify the Settings. The default settings are usually good.

You can explain that Splines will be created on all the edges. Click on Part Edges. You

will notice that all the exterior and interior parting edges are created in 1 click!

Step 5: You can also explain that this feature will quickly tell you if there are inconsistencies/gaps between surfaces. For example, zooming in on the top right corner, shows theedges created where a gap exists. Useful to determine the cleanliness of the surfacemodel! Zoom into this section and explain the edges here.

The exterior edges can be used to create the run-off surfaces easily using the Moldplus Partsurf menu.

You can also create 2D projected curves for easy 2D machining or quick contouring orpocketing to remove excess material on the exterior or interior areas before surface machining.

Step 6: From the Edges menu, click on 2D Project, Settings, explain that the projected edgescan automatically be created as Arcs and lines rather than splines. Make sure the Settings pageis as follows:



Step 7: Click on OK . Change the Mastercam Color to 1 (Dark Blue) and click on Part Edges. You will notice the following result.

All the dark blue curves are lines and arcs representing the 2D projected curves for the part.Using this quick contouring or pocketing can be done, or whatever else the user wishes to do.

Step 8: Click on Undo to remove the curves once you have showed them. The 3D curves willbe used for the next section.

This completes the creation of the parting lines, 3D edges and 2D projected edges. Youcan also do those for single surfaces or get all the edges of all the surfaces if desired.

SECTION 3 – Creation of Parting Surfaces – Manual and Automatic

This section will cover the creation of Parting surfaces / runoffs to Mold edges using the manualmethod or the automatic methods.

Step 1: Using the same door_mm.mc8 file that contains the 3D part edges created in theprevious section, we will create the mold edges for just 1 side. From the Moldplus main menu,click on Parting, Partsurf , click on Mold edge and click on the lower left edge of the mold.

You are immediately presented with the following menu.

Select this edge



Step 2: If you use the default selection of Edgesurf, then the edge closest to where you pick willhave a surface extension created to the indicated edge. If you use the Surf+Edge option, youcan click on the surface and then indicate the edge to create from. Click on Surf + Edge, andzoom into the part in this area and click on the edge indicated. The following will be theresult.

You can go about creating each individually OR, use the Chain option to make life easier.

Step 3: Undo the surface just created. Click on Chain Curv , Chain Partial, zoom into thefollowing corner and click on this edge shown in the left diagram for the chain start position.Next, zoom out and click the edge here to indicate the chain end position.

Chain Start Position Chain End Position

The following will be the result of the parting surfaces created to the mold edge.

Pick this surface

Pick this edge

Resultant surface



We can now move on to show how easy it is to create the parting surface edges at an angle. Youcan either show the same side that was created to show the angular edge creation.

Step 4: Activate Level 5. On the right corner, there is a plane created with a 15 degree Zinclination. Click on Cplane from the secondary menu and using the Entity option, select the Xaxis and Y axis as indicated. The resultant plane will be displayed as below. Click on Save.

This will set the new Construction plane.

Step 5: Change the color to Blue (9). Repeat Step 3 by chaining the same section that wasused. The following will be the result. The parting surfaces will be created at the 15 degreeangle. Notice the Red surfaces are perpendicular to the Top plane and the Blue surfaces are atthe angle.

Isometric View Side View

This shows how easy it is to create the edges of the mold. You can do the other sides if you wish and then use the corner to fill them OR move on to creating the Auto Partsurf instead thatdoes the whole process in a few clicks!

Step 6: Load the door_mm.mc8 file again so that it is clean of all the parting edges and surfacescreated in the last sections.

Step 7: Click on Parting, Partsurf , Auto, then click on Settings and leave the settings atdefault. As a default, the 3D edges will automatically get created, giving the user the flexibility tomanually fix or create parting surfaces at a later stage.

Step 8: Click on Stock Lim and click on any edge of the mold boundary. As a default, chainis selected. You can explain that the mold edges are not limited to rectangular boundaries andthat you can use any closed contour (notice that this contour has fillets on the corners). Oncethe boundary is chained, you then have 2 options to create the parting surfaces.



Step 9: Click on Create 1, the parting surfaces are created automatically for the part. You willautomatically prompted with a window stating that if Create1 didn’t create the surfaces correctly,Undo and use the Create2 option. These are 2 separate algorithms, therefore the user has 2possibilities to create the parting surfaces. In this case, it is a good result. You can shade it andshow it if you like. This is it!!! 1 click, you are done!

This completes this section. There will be cases where the Auto Part surf does not function well. In those cases, simply use the manual parting surface method. Using a combination in theend will give the user the best of both worlds! Big time savings!

SECTION 4 – Solid Separation

Solid Separation to separate core and cavity entities is a very powerful tool of Moldplus and would mean night and day for anyone having to separate core and cavity entities manually.

Step 1: Load the case_mm.mc8 file. You can click on the Statistic button and show that thereare 478 trimmed surfaces that need to be separated.

Step 2: Launch Moldplus, click on SolidSep and click on Settings and make sure the settingsare set as below:

Explanation: You can explain the Settings a bit and mention that we don’t consider which isCore and which is Cavity since end users orient the part in different ways. Therefore, the upper

Surface model with 478surfaces



surfaces CP Z+ will be pulled apart by the specified Z distance for the CP Z+ (250 mm in thiscase) and moved to Level 2 and changed to color green (10). The CP Z- surfaces will stay in thecurrent location and have its properties changed to Level 3 and color 9. The Vertical surfaces,straddle surfaces (any surface that straddles/ goes beyond the parting line) and unknown surfaces

will be marked in the specified colors, moved to level 4 and moved by a Z distance of theundecided surfaces by 125 mm. The rest of the setting can be left alone. You can explain thatthe Pre split Straddle surfaces will split all the straddle surfaces at the parting line before

separation. Click on Done when explaining the settings.

Step 3: Click on Do It. You are prompted with the dialog that gives the user a warning that theproperties of the surfaces will be changed. This is a friendly warning! Click on OK . Theseparation takes place within a few seconds and the following will the presented.

You can explain that the surfaces are now split and displayed according to the settings. Noticethat the vertical surfaces are displayed in the middle (Z of 125mm). You can easily move all the

vertical surfaces to the Top or Bottom using the Move Undef. Menu.

Step 4: Click on Move Undef . The default selection will be the Vertical surfaces and thelocation is set to Bottom. Click on To Top.

Step 5: Click on MultiSel, All Surfaces, you will notice that all surfaces get selected, do not worry. Only the Yellow / vertical surfaces will be affected. Click on Done. All the vertical

surfaces will be moved to the top. You are done. Click on Done from this menu. Click onOpen/Close to return all the surfaces to the original Z heights. You are done with theseparation part.



Now, you can show easy it is to create the mold edges to the part. There is a pre-created levelthat has the mold edges created (Level 10)

Step 6: Click on ALT-Z, then click on Levels used, turn off Level 3 and enable Level 10. Youshould see the following:

Step 7: Click on Parting, Partsurf , Auto, Stock Lim and chain the stock boundary shown.

Step 8: Click on Create2 (not Create1). This will create the mold edges extensions. If you usedCreate1, there is a possibility that the edges have one or 2 extra ones. Simply Undo and useCreate2. The following should be the result.



You can complete the separation and the parting surfaces creation in this manner. In a matterof minutes, you have demonstrated some powerful time saving tools that could help payfor the package in 1 click!

SECTION 5 – Powerful Trimming Functionality

This section will cover the powerful trimming features of Moldplus. Within a few minutes, youshould be able to demonstrate the power of Moldplus trimming tools for Mastercam.

ZONE SPLIT

Step 1: Load the case_mm.mc8 file.

Explanation: You can explain that we will assume that this is a large mold and we need to splitthis model into 3 different sections from the side view. Using Moldplus you can easily split thesurface model into 3 separate zones and change the properties such as colors and levels.

Step 2: Switch the model to the Side View and using ALT-Z, activate Level 11 which is alsonames the Zone Split boundary. You should now see this.

Step 3: Launch Moldplus, Cut_and_Slice, Zone Split, click on Settings and make sure theSettings are set as below. You can explain that the trimmed/second zone will be moved to Level2 and changed to color Red. The other surfaces/first zone will be left with the original colorsand on the original level (setting 0). Click on OK after verifying this.

Step 4: From the Zone Split menu, click on Do It. You are prompted for the contour entities . Theseare the dividing curves. In the wireframe, these are the 2 blue line segments. The last curveselected will have a green arrow displayed. Click on each of these and then click on Done.



Step 5: You are now prompted for the First Zone. This is the Zone that you want to leave inthe original color or level. Click above the first dividing line (you can also click below the lastdividing line).

The surfaces are trimmed and the result is displayed as follows. The right image shows the

result with Level 2 turned off .

Explanation: You can use the above function to also make quick inserts. All you have to do isdefine a contour and chain the contour as the contour and use the Zone Split or Zone Deletefunction to get rid of the contour. The Door_mm.mc8 is a good example to demonstrate theinsert creation. Mold-makers look for tools such as these to quickly trim out a certain area of themold to repair or modify.

PLANE TRIM and ZONE DELETE

Step 1: Load the door_mm.mc8 file. Switch to the Top View . We will first show easy it is touse the Plane Trimming feature.

Select dividingcurves (blue linesegments)

Select here for First Zone



Step 2: Launch Moldplus, Cut_and_Slice, Plane Trim. Click on Direction. Click onSide(X) to select the Side plane to base the trimming to be normal to. Click on Esc key toreturn to the Plane Trim menu.

Step 3: Click on All Surfs. You are now prompted to indicate a point of reference to use fortrimming all the surfaces. Click on a location as shown . You don’t need to pick a certainpoint. Simply sketch a point. You will be prompted to indicate the Side to keep. Click on theleft side for the side to keep.

The following will be the result of the plane trimming.

You can perform other plane trimming operations in this manner. We will now quickly demonstrate how the Zone Delete function works.

Step 4: Activate Level 8. You will see a blue contour to represent the boundaries for either aZone Split or Zone delete operation. We will now use this for a Zone Delete operation.

Point selectedindicated by redpoint. Select this

side to keep.



Step 5: From the Cut_and_Slice menu, click on Zone Delete. You are prompted for thecontour to use for the chaining boundary. Click anywhere on the Blue contour. It willautomatically be chained. Click on Done from the Chain selection menu. You are prompted forthe Side to Keep. Click outside the contour. The surfaces will be trimmed and all interiorsurfaces deleted!

Select outside the blue contour. Result of Zone Delete.

The Zone Delete and Zone Split are great tools for trimming and making of quick inserts.

This concludes the trimming functionality demonstration of Moldplus. You can also show theZig Zag function if preferred, but the above options will give the user a very good idea of thepower of Moldplus trimming.

SECTION 6 – Untrimming Surfaces

Moldplus offers powerful untrimming tools that allow the closure of open and closed gaps intrimmed surfaces. This is a huge time savings tool that allows the user to either fill the hole orun-trim the hole. For machining purposes and toolpath calculation, untrimming the surfaces tothe specified boundaries is more important for faster toolpath calculation. The user is given theoption to do both.

Step 1: Load the O_ELEC_1.MC8 file. We will demonstrate how easy it is to fill open gaps,closed holes and create surface offsets in multiple directions.

You can first demonstrate the filling of open gaps. Zoom into this corner.



Step 2: Launch Moldplus, ElectrodeMKR , Close Trims. The first option on the menu isOpen Gap. Click on it. You will be prompted to select a new surface to fill the gap or split theloop for. The options on the menu will be Fill Gap, Remove Gap or Both Options. The defaultshould be Fill Gap. This is good for demonstrating the Untrim option.

Step 3: Shade surfaces for a better display ( ALT-S ). Click on the surface indicated first. Then

click on the Points UV Point 1 and then UV Point 2. You can click anywhere close to thecorner. The corner will automatically get selected as long as you are close to the corner. You donot have to worry about being precisely on the corner.

The above fill surface will be the result of the Open Gap un-trimming.

Step 4: You can also do the entire set of open edges by clicking the starting and ending edges.Reselect the surface and then specify the edges for filling.

Explanation: Within 2 clicks you have shown how easy it is to fill open gaps. You can alsoexplain that for machining purposes, you might want to remove the gaps by making it all into 1single surface rather than a surface with several fills.

Step 5: You can demonstrate the ease of using the Closed Holes option to remove all thetrimming of closed holes. Look at the surface to the right. From the Close Trims menu, click on Closed Hole. The default setting should be Fill Holes. Click on any Hole on the trimmedsurface. The hole will immediately get covered.

2. Select the surfaceedges indicated by UVPoint 1 and 2 asindicated to define the

fill boundary.

1. Select this surface

Select edge 1 here.

Select edge 2 here.



Step 6: Now click anywhere outside the surface. All the closed holes are filled with 1 click.

The closed hole can be any form or shape.

The above demonstrates the power of filling open gaps and closed holes.

We will now move on to demonstrate the Edge Offset creation feature. With one click, you cancreate edge offsets in all directions, tangential to the surface curvature and by a specifieddistance. You can explain that this is great for electrode machining or in cases where you needto generate toolpaths that start at a tangential distance away from the real surface to machine.

Step 7: Load the O_ELEC_1.MC8 file again without saving the changes you made to it.

Zoom into the surface that has all the open gaps. This is a classic example where you need tostart the tool away from the surface by creating offset surfaces.

Step 8: Launch Moldplus, ElectrodeMKR , Close Trims, click on Edge Offset, verify that theOffset val. is set to 0.8 mm. Simply click on the surface. The following will be the result.Offset surfaces are created tangential to the surface in all directions by the specified distance.

Now that we have demonstrated the power of Electrode untrimming, we can show how easy it isto fill a cavity with a few clicks to prepare for machining.

Step 9: Load the O_ELEC_3.MC8 file. This cavity has multiple surfaces that have acombination of open gaps, closed holes and gaps between the surfaces. The next feature, Merge

Brother will show how easy it is to fill or remove the gaps in 1 click for the surfaces.

Click on anyhole. The

hole is filled.

Click outsidesurface to fill all

holes

Offset surfacescreated in alldirections(indicated by Redcolor .



Step 10: From the Close Trims menu, click on Merge Broth. You can leave the defaultsettings to Fill Gaps. Click on these 2 surfaces to create surface fills for.

This is not ideal for machining purposes. Therefore we will use the other option, the RemoveGap option to untrim the rest of the surfaces.

Step 11: Click on Remove Gap and then click on the rest of the surfaces in any order that youfind easy. With a matter of few clicks (should be exactly 9 surfaces), the whole model should beuntrimmed. Showing the interior of the surface model by rotating it, you can display the fills and

the untrimmed surfaces.

This concludes the demonstration of the Surface Untrimming options. This module is aHUGE time saver for surface modelers.

SECTION 7 – Electrode Maker

This section will cover Moldplus Electrode Maker. There is far more automation and usercontrol built in to isolating electrodes and generating textual and visual HTML reports in this

Click on these 2 surfaceswith the Fill Gaps option.

Using the RemoveGap option, you caneasily fill the rest of the surface model!



version. The steps outlined will allow you to demonstrate Electrode Maker in a matter of few minutes without having to explain all the details of the Settings and the process.

Step 1: Load the O_ELEC_4.MC8. You can explain that we will isolate a few electrodes outof this model.

Step 2: Launch Moldplus, ElectrodeMKR , click on Job Setup.

Explantion: You can explain that the first tab (Files/Location) is to select the Data paths forsaving the identified electrodes to, the database where the standard electrodes are saved to andthe electrode holder directory. MAKE SURE THAT THE MOLDPLUS_JOB_123 FOLDER IS EMPTY. We will use this directory as the Job Directory for the demonstration.(A quick indicator for this is whether the “View JobList” button is active or not. If it is active, itmeans the directory is NOT empty. If it is grayed out, it means that there is no JobList.txt fileand that it is probably empty. If you fail to empty this folder, then you might have differentresults from the demonstration.

Step 3: Click on the Options Tab.

Explanation: You can explain that this Tab controls most of the electrode maker parameters for

auto centering the inserted electrode so that the XY values are rounded off for easy burn hole



location, set the XY and Z offsets for the identified electrode, automatically manage the levelsand hiding of the electrodes, perform the collision test so that the holder never hits the part, etc.

You don’t need to explain all the options here, but you can pass the cursor over 1 or 2 items andlet the tooltips do the explanation.

Step 4: Click on the Machine Settings tab.

Explanation: You can explain that you can set up several machines for manufacturing electrodes and each machine can have upto 4 different operations to be performed on the

electrodes. Choose the following machine from the list. If this does not exist on your system,create the following machine and operations.



Once you have quickly explained the 3 tabs for the Job Setup, ( most of the default settings arefine ), you can move on to inserting and identifying electrodes. Click on OK to close the JobSettings dialog.

Step 5: Click on Auto Insert. The system prepares the part for collision testing . We willnow identify a rib to insert an electrode for. By clicking on any surface that is related to the firstrib displayed, the whole rib is selected and the electrode list is immediately presented for

insertion. Please note that this automatic selection, without entering the Isol Geom menu will allow you to select 1 set of reference geometry immediately. To select more than 1 set of reference geometries, you need to click on Isol Geom, select the geometry and then click on Done to get the Electrode Insert menu.

Make sure you click on one of the vertical surfaces for electrode reference geometry selection.If the whole model gets selected, simply close the Electrode List window, click on Undo andstart over.

As soon as the Rib is selected, the Electrode List is presented. The Standard electrodes found in the database are displayed in the order of minimum volume of stock needed to manufacture this electrode. If astandard is not found in the database, there will be nothing listed. You can explain that theelectrode maker always recommends the smallest stock size for manufacturing the electrodes andlists them in the order of using the minimal amount of stock needed.

Select this facefor the rib.

Selectionresult. 1click, wholerib isselected



In the above case, for the Rib, there are 4 standard electrodes that can be used. Notice the volume percentage indicates the minimal stock size.

Step 6: Select the first standard, the FC9_124_70. Highlight and click on OK . The electrodeis inserted. You can show the different views of Mastercam to indicate that the electrode iscentered to the reference geometry, it clears the part with the holder.

Isometric View Top View Front View

You are now presented with a new menu that limits you to Trim2Elec, MoveElec, Save or Undo.

Step 7: Click on Save to show the next dialog and the process. The following dialog ispresented with a name automatically started for the electrode called ELECT_1. It also promptsto save to Level 20. The machine chosen is what you had chosen in the Job Setup.

Step 8: Click on OK . The electrode and reference geometry will be saved to the external file and to Level 20and 21 of the main part file and then hidden . The following message will be presented and thegeometry will be presented as follows:



You have done the first electrode! You are immediately presented with the Auto InsertElectrode menu again. This time, you can do an angular electrode. To do this make sure of thefollowing. Make sure the Angle Fit is set to Y in the Auto Insert Menu.

Step 9: Click on the following surface to select the reference geometry. The result of theselection will be as follows:

Step 10: The Electrode List is immediately presented again.

Select this

surface.

Selection

result.Referencegeometryselected



Please note that the list may not display all the electrodes displayed here. But the first 3 are all that matter.

Step 11: Select the first electrode from the list FC10_23_60. Highlight and click on OK . Thefollowing electrode will be inserted and at an angle for optimal stock usage.

Isometric View Top View Side View

Notice from the Top View, the optimal angle that the electrode is rotated to for minimal stock usage.

Step 12: Click on Save from the menu. The electrode will be saved to Level 22 and into theexternal file.

We will now do the isolation of a rib and create a new non-standard electrode to demonstrate theease of this function.

Step 13: Click on the vertical surface of the succeeding Rib (from the first rib already done),to select the geometry from the menu. The following should be the result.

Step 14: When the Electrode List is displayed, click on

Second rib selectedto make 3rd

electrodeby clicking on

vertical surface



Explanation: The following dialog screen is displayed. Explain that the minimal stock dimensions are displayed, along with the recommended stock sizes for the new standard. Theuser can define whether the electrode is Copper or Graphite, specify whether it is Flat, Square orRound, the minimal electrode length is calculated based on the set parameters in the Job Setuppage. When you say, Add it to Standards, it will name the electrode with the sizes and using thenaming for FC – for Flat Copper, followed by the thickness, width and height.

Set the parameters as define above. The only change made to the default display of the dialog was the minimal height was changed to 71mm instead of the recommended 70.

Step 16: Click on OK . Moldplus will prompt you to choose a holder. Select the following holder from this dialog. Notice that using the Mastercam File Get menu, you can preview theelectrode holder before attaching it to the electrode.

Step 17: Select the 70X70X30MM.MC8 file for the electrode holder. Click on Open. Theelectrode is attached to the new standard we just created and inserted into the geometry. Thefollowing will be the result.



Now, we will demonstrate 1 other item. The Trim2Elec feature.

Step 18: Click on Trim2Elec from the menu. The geometry from the part that surrounds theselected reference geometry but also contained within the inserted standard electrode isautomatically trimmed to the standard electrode boundary. The resultant red geometry is thetrimmed geometry that will be saved with the standard electrode. The following will the result.

Isometric View Top View (Notice the trimmed surfaces are red)

Step 19: You can now click on Save to save the electrode. Notice that the trimmed geometry was only a set of duplicate surfaces and the original surfaces are still intact.

You have now demonstrated the ease of isolating and inserting electrodes. We will now moveon to viewing the electrodes done so far.

Step 20: Click on Backup to take you back to the main Electrode Maker menu. From here,click on ElecDisplay. The following menu is presented.

From here, you can look at all the electrodes that have been isolated so far.



Step 21: Click anywhere on the geometry. Immediately all the reference geometries that werehidden will be displayed. The geometry will probably first disappear and then reappear with thereference geometries displayed (the reference geometries will be displayed in the result(magenta)color. This is a quick way to visualize the work done so far . You could also have clicked on Show Ref from the menu to get the same result.

You can now view all the inserted electrodes by clicking on the Show Elec in the menu, or click on any specific reference geometry that is in magenta color to see the corresponding electrode.

We will do the latter.

Step 22: Click on the first rib that is displayed in the magenta color.

The first electrode is immediately displayed. You do not have to click on Levels and the Level Manager to display the electrodes. This menu does it all!

We will now create the Automatic surface extensions for this electrode towards the holder.

Step 23: From the same ElecDisplay menu, click on AutoExtend. The following will be the

result.

Isometric View Side View

Click on thissurface.



Explanation: You can explain that the electrode reference geometry’s back surfaces areextended to the Dark Blue point that is the distance specified in the Job Setup for the Back Zextend from the lowest Z point. A flat surface is then created automatically to indicate the guardplane.

Step 24: Click on Show Part to see the part in relations to the electrode while in the Side View. You will notice that the surface extensions clear the part and good for manufacturing the

electrode.

Electrode displayed in reference to the original part. Auto extended surfaces clear part

Having demonstrated the easy viewing and verification of the Electrode Display, you can moveon to the next step, which is generating the HTML Report. The Job List can be optionally shown to display all the details of the electrode.

Step 25: Click on Clear All, then Click on Show Part. The following should be displayed onthe screen.

We will now show how easy it is to generate a HTML Report of the electrodes identified so far. This is a powerful and useful tool that will provide the Electrode Maker with both visualinformation as well as textual information for manufacturing the electrodes and reinserting them.

Step 26: Click on HTML Report from the main Moldplus Electrode Maker menu. The

following dialog is displayed. Without having to explain all the details, you can quickly explain



that all the electrodes identified are listed in the Electrode list option. We will automatically capture the images for all the electrodes for the specified Views, Top, Side and Isometric.

Step 27: Click on

Moldplus will automatically capture all the electrode images for each electrode with Top, Side and Isometric Views.The Masterpiece will also be captured for the ISO view to show the electrode in relations to the whole part.

The following should be the result of the display when all the images are captured. When theELECT_1 is highlighted as shown, the corresponding images will be displayed.

Now we can move on to selecting all the text that will be displayed within the HTML Report.



Step 28: Click on the HTML Settings Tab. The following should be the display. All the itemsare checked on the list. The items can be reordered if desired and only selected items can beoutput if preferred.

Step 29: Leave the default settings and simply click on View HTML. The HTML Report willbe presented with the following details. The information presented here is only for 1 electrode.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date, Time02/19/2002 00:23:50

MC8 file of originD:\MCAM8\MILL\MC8\MOLDPLUS_EXAMPLES_MM\0_ELEC_4.MC8

Job nameMoldplus_Job_123Job directoryD:\Mcam8\Mill\MC8\Moldplus_Job_123\



Electrode NameELECT_1

MC8 file of OriginD:\MCAM8\MILL\MC8\MOLDPLUS_EXAMPLES_MM\0_ELEC_4.MC8

Electrode FilenameD:\Mcam8\Mill\MC8\Moldplus_Job_123\ELECT_1.mc8Level in part file20

Level NameS: ELECT_1MachineCharmille

OperationRough_Heavy: Gap=0.0300Rough_Light: Gap=0.0200

Finish_Heavy: Gap=0.0100Finish_Light: Gap=0.0050



Minimum Electrode DimensionsX=117.2269 Y=2.6531 Z=69.2555 Standard UsedFC9_124_70

Standard DimensionsX=124.0000 Y=9.0000 Z=70.0000 A=90.0000 Electrode TypeFlatMaterial TypeCopper

Electrode Lowest Z point3.9624Nominal PositionX=117.8877 Y=0.0000 Z=70.9624 A=90.0000

Comment

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The above is just an excerpt of the HTML report. Without doing any settings changes, you caneasily generate and display the report. All the information relevant to the electrode is listed inthe report.

This concludes the HTML report demo. Click on Close to close the HTML Report dialog. We will now show the final part of the demo, which is preparing an electrode for machining.

Step 30: Open the Moldplus_Job_123 folder and open the ELECT_2.MC8 file. The following electrode and geometry should be presented.

Notice that the electrode needs to be rotated and translated to origin for machining purposes.

Step 31: From the ElectrodeMKR menu, click on Prep Elec. Click on OK to the promptdialog. Click on Translate, Make sure the UseRedPt has the arrow pointing to it. This is thehighest point of the electrode stock that you need to move to Z0. This is normally what lostelectrode makers want to do.

Step 32: Click on To Origin. The following will be the result. Notice that the red point is now

at 0,0,0. Then click on Rotate, By Origin, The right hand side will be the result.

Translate toOrigin(Use RedPt)

Rotate ByOrigin



Step 33: Now switch to the Top View . Since this electrode was isolated and inserted with anangle fit, we need to rotate one of the edges back to 0 degrees. To do this, from the sameRotate menu, click on HrzAngle and select one of the edges to rotate to Horizontal or 0degrees. The following will be the result.

Real quick, we have translated and rotated and positioned the part for machining. The last thing left is the Ext2Cont option for this electrode.

Step 34: Click on Iso View and from the Prep Elec menu, click on Ext2Cont. The following should be the result.

The electrode is now ready for machining!

This concludes the Moldplus Demo! For any further details on the product, please refer tothe on-line help or the soon to be completed Applications Guide.

Any questions, comments or suggestions, please email [email protected]

Select this red edge for

rotation to 0 degrees

Electrode rotated back

to 0 degrees

mailto:[email protected]

moldplus power demo v9

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