Week 8 - Challenge 2 - Switch Bezel Design
Week 8 - Challenge 3 - Switch Bezel Design
Aim: Create the Switch Bezel Plastic component through the given Class-A surface
Theory
Tooling Axis - Tooling Axis is the direction in which the component will be ejecting after the molding process is completed. The rules of selecting an optimum direction of tooling axis for any particular component is as follows
• The direction of the tooling axis should be clearing the maximum number of portions of the component once the molding process is completed.
• The direction of the tooling axis should be selected such that the number of side cores required should be minimum, as inserting side cores causes a rise in production cost.
Drafting - Draft is the inclination given to any particular plastic component's cavity walls in order to achieve easy ejection, once the process is completed
• Consider that the draft angle between the plastic component and the core is zero.
• When the molten plastic inside the cavity cools. it sticks to the walls of the core
• During such zero draft condition, the ejection of the plastic component causes friction between them which might bring damage to both the core and the component
• This damage further leads to inefficiency in the production & also affects the product's surface finish.
• Hence, a minimum of % to 1 deg draft is provided to help in releasing the component
• However 3 deg draft is widely accepted as a norm in the industry
Prerequisites before creating the tooling axis and performing draft analysis-
• Ensure that the Class A surface imported should be a single surface.
• This can be checked using the Boundary tool in the Operation Toolbar
• If the surfaces are disassembled, join them using Join command which is also found in the Operation toolbar
Creating any component from Class A Surface (Overview) -
• Decide a suitable tooling axis direction and create the Tooling Axis.
• Perform Draft analysis for analyzing whether the drafts on the component follow the industry standards
• Create another surface ( B Surface ) offset to the Class-A Surface. The offset distance should be equal to the thickness of the component
• Create a C- Surface 'Sweeping the boundary of Class-A -Surface along the Tooling Axis.
• Trim Class-A surface with B-Surface and C Surface to create a closed surface.
• Finally create the solid part from this surface to obtain the desired component.
Procedure
Troubleshooting the problems in the imported Class-A Surface:
• The Class A Surface was disassembled when imported which violates the rules for proceeding further.
• Use join Command from the Operations Toolbar to join these surfaces together
Creation of Tooling Axis:
• The Tooling axis was decided along Z- Direction considering its selection rules mentioned above.
• Next we created an axis system along a suitable point according to the boundary and design of the component ensuring the rules of selection tooling axis direction are not violated.
• Here we have an unciosed pocket which has to be cleared along the tooling direction.
• Hence we create a sketch line bisecting two opposite faces of the pocket and another sketch line at a certain angle to the one remaining face (say 3 deg ) which can be changed according to the draft analysis report.
• Bisect the two lines in order to create the Tooling Axis.
Creation of B Surface:
• To simplify the process, we extracted the simpler surfaces using the Extract Tool in Operations Toolbar
• The extracted surface offset is created with offset distance equal to the thickness of the component
• Further we untrim the offset surfaces using Untrim Tool and extend them to a certain suitable value using Extrapolate intersect each other
• Using the Trim Tool we trim them to a single continuous surface.
• Finally we provide necessary fillets and the B-Surface is created.
Creation of C Surface:
