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Tool Die-Namics Inc.

Progressive Metal Stamping Dies

Tool Die-Namics use EdgeCAM and SolidWorks to design and manufacture progressive metal-stamping dies in the competitive automotive tooling market.

Company: Tool Die-Namics Inc.

Location: Pickering, Ontario

Industry: Progressive Die design & Manufacture

Products used: SolidWorks


Goals

  • Replace existing CAM system with a more proficient product
  • Cut programming time and minimize scrap and rework
  • Automate programming/processing capabilities for tooling base plates, including rapidly programming complex intersecting pockets and holes. 
  • Move up to advanced 3D rough- and finish-milling with adaptive feed rates and high-speed transitions from one cutter path to the next.  Plunge-roughing for holes and pockets, and effective cusp control.  (Cusps are microscopic scallops and ridges left between machining passes.)
  • Adapt feature recognition capabilities to automatically identify pockets, contours, bosses, counterbores, countersinks, chamfers, overlapping / intersection pockets, and pockets with multiple openings.

 

Results

  • With the introduction of EdgeCAM and SolidWorks Tool Die-Namics now has a 20% increase in CNC machine tool spindle time, or machine utilization.

  • A corresponding 20% increase in throughput, in the number of jobs that go across the CNC machines.

  • 10% cut in overtime, thanks to more efficient processing. Speeding up programming, so metal cutting (the most time-consuming part of toolmaking) starts sooner.

  • Reduced programming errors, which means less scrap and rework, cost savings that go straight to the bottom line.

  • Running more components on the CNC machines rather than on manual mills. Production is faster and CNC’s consistently tight tolerances speed up die assembly.

  • Reduced grinding and hand polishing since CNC surface finishes are “a lot better” than what could be achieved with the previous package.

 

A big benefit of EdgeCAM is its ability to recognize similar features from one part to the next.  That often lets me use the same programs for multiple blocks or sections of a die. Even though the parts are different I can apply the same machining strategy.  That’s where the time-to-program savings are.

Darryl Cake, Programmer, Tool Die-Namics Inc.


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Example

High Speed Roughing

Tool Die-Namics use SolidWorks and EdgeCAM software for the design and manufacture of their parts

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Example

Machine part in a fixture

A Progressive Die that produces 2 parts per hit, designed in SolidWorks by Tool Die-Namics Inc.

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