Mold Tools - Cavity
You
can create simple molds using the Cavity
tool. Creating a mold using the Cavity
tool requires the following items:
Design
parts - The parts that you want to mold.
A mold
base - The part that holds the cavity feature of the design part.
An interim
assembly - The assembly in which the cavity is created.
Derived
component parts - The parts that become the halves of the mold after you
cut them.
You combine the design parts
and mold base in the interim assembly. Then, you create a cavity feature
in the context of the interim assembly. This relates the mold base to
the design part in the event that the design part changes shape.
To create more
complex molds, use the tools and techniques presented in Mold Design.
To create a cavity in the mold base:
Insert the design parts and the mold base into
an interim assembly.
In the assembly window, select the mold base,
and click Edit Component on the Assembly toolbar.
You are editing the part, not the assembly.
The changes you make are reflected in the original part file of the mold
base. If you do not want to affect the original mold base, use Save
As in the mold base part document to save it with a different name
for use in each new mold assembly. Otherwise, the original mold base includes
the cavity you are about to insert.
Click Cavity
on the Mold Tools toolbar, or click Insert,
Mold, Cavity.
In the PropertyManager, under Design
Components, select the design parts from the FeatureManager design
tree.
Under Scale Parameters:
Select
the point about which scaling occurs for Scale
about.
Component Centroids. Scales the cavity
for each part about its own centroid.
Component Origins. Scales the cavity
for each part about its own origin.
Mold Base Origin. Scales the cavity
for each part about the origin of the mold base part.
Coordinate System. Scales the cavity
for each part about the selected coordinate system.
Enter
the scaling factor in Scaling %.
A positive value expands the cavity, a negative value shrinks the cavity.
See Scaling
Factor.
Uniform
scaling. Select Uniform scaling,
and enter a value to scale in all directions.
Non-uniform
scaling. Clear Uniform scaling,
and enter a scaling value for the X,
Y, and Z
directions.
Click OK .
A cavity in the shape of the design part
is created in the mold base part. The cavity size reflects the scaling
factor you specified.
Any changes you make to
the design part automatically update the cavity in the mold base, as long
as the update path is available. See also External References.
TIPS:
Use the Split
tool to separate the mold base part into two pieces.
You cannot edit mold features within an assembly.