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Today, Trueline carries six seats each of SolidWorks and Logopress3.
“Logopress3 is easier to learn and more stable than our previous die- design software,” Christopherson reports. “It breaks the design down into smaller pieces, making it more man- ageable for the designer. Also, the new software offers a real advantage for new designers. If they have a good SolidWorks background, they can take off with Logopress3 right away, even before training. We now design dies with much greater detail in about 70 percent of the time it used to take us in 2D, with fewer mistakes.”
After adding Logopress3, Christo- pherson and his team had another major problem to tackle: the amount of time spent on CAM programming.
“At the time we had four program- mers along with three CNC mills and two CNC lathes.” Christopherson recalls. “Back then, 3D milling entailed only about three to four percent of our work and even so, 2.5-axis program- ming always was our big bottleneck.”
Trueline added SolidWorks-based CAMWorks software, which is both fea- ture-based (with feature recognition) and rules-based. The team found that it could easily customize Logopress3 to integrate with the new CAM software to automate 2.5-axis CNC programming.
For example, when inserting a cat- alog component, Logopress3 auto- matically and simultaneously cuts all holes in all the related plates for this component. The hole sizes that it cuts are user-definable within the soft- ware’s spreadsheets. Trueline has developed predefined decimal values and added instructions for these val- ues, which allow the rules-based CAM software to automatically determine what steps to take to machine each hole. Today, the company employs one programmer for four CNC mills and three CNC lathes. Should this pro- grammer fall behind, one or more die designers easily can assist with pro- gramming. Automation inherent in the software makes this possible, along with the fact that the CAM software runs inside of the same SolidWorks
interface as the die-design software. Trueline recently added contract- molding services and found that mold designers could make good use of Logopress3 for tasks common to both die and mold design. Nowhere is this more evident than in the integration of the company’s CAM software and die-design software. Today, reports Christopherson, the entire group of die designers, mold designers and their CNC programmer work together as a cohesive team due in large part to the organization that the software
provides.
Accurate Die Design Software: www.diedesignsoftware.com
Unique Solution for Precision-Stamped Link
Penn United Technologies, Cabot, PA, specializes in metal stamping, car- bide manufacturing and precision tool and die design. A recent customer approached the company with an opportunity to manufacture a preci- sion-stamped link, to be made from 0.022-in.-thick Type 301 quarter-hard stainless steel. The link, a two-piece design, would join a flat beam and cylindrical stud (Fig. 1). Potential join- ing solutions included press-fit and laser welding.
Engineers quickly identified a number
Fig. 1—A two-piece part design presented numerous manufacturability issues. Devising a new solution necessitated the use of simulation software to prove it out.
Die-Design and Simulation
22 MetalForming/April 2018
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