Electrode software ‘triggers’ revolution at British toolmaker

Case study Electrode software ‘triggers’ revolution at British toolmaker

02.08.2013Editor: Eric Culp

A software package for EDM has helped a UK-based mould-making shop drastically cut the time required for electrode design and production, and the company could soon be using more products from the program’s supplier.

Related Companies

Vero Software Limited

AMETEK GmbH Division Creaform Deutschland

Meusburger Georg GmbH & Co. KG

The software reportedly gives the precision tooling shop the confidence that its electrodes will be 100% accurate.
(Source: Vero Software)

Alliance Tooling, Leicester, has reported that the combination of a new Sodick EDM AG60L spark eroder and Vero Software’s dedicated electrode design module Visi Electrode has completely revolutionised the production of the UK shop’s copper electrodes.

Program a boon to mould making

Luke Parsons, Alliance’s managing director, cited an example of a mould the company made for the trigger of a household cleaning spray. “We needed 10 different electrodes for the tool, which, previously, would have taken 10 hours to create. Each electrode used to take an hour to model, but Visi Electrode has reduced our design time by 80%, with each electrode now taking less than 10 minutes to produce.”

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The software package is said to have reduced the design time for this trigger for a household cleaning spray bottle by 80%.

The tool shop said it can machine electrodes in batches of four by linking individual programs together

The shop decided to upgrade while building a mould for a drug dispensing component that required a large number of electrodes and a short production window.

Gallery with 6 images

Toolmaker Ian Jarvis says the software has made his job considerably easier. “Once I’d made a few changes to the fillet rads on the trigger mould I simply clicked on the faces I wanted to spark and enclosed them with a 3D boundary. They were immediately extracted from the tooling model, providing a quick and simple way to arrive at the required electrode geometry.” More complex areas are said to be extracted just as easily using a graphical face selection.

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