Need Some Help/Advice

[BoLanders]

I am 18 and just started working at plastic injection molding company and my boss approached me and asked it I knew anything about CAD/CAM and I replied yes. I have used fusion quite a bit but not done any cnc work like they do in the shop. Long story short I need to learn about taking a file from solidworks and cutting the model out of metal to make a form on their cnc mill. Where should I start and what are good resources to learn from? Any help would be appreciated.

[awerby]

So the idea is to make something out of metal that can be used to burn into a mold block with an EDM machine? Or did you want to make the mold itself out of metal? Did you need to use the native Solidworks file format, or can you work with meshes exported from Solidworks?

[BoLanders]

The mold itself would be made of metal. I believe they have an edm machine but don't use it anymore. I don't know anything about the process for taking a solidworks file and creating a tool path for a cnc mill.

[awerby]

If you've got Fusion, it has CAM capabilities. I'd suggest reading whatever help files or tutorials are available, and starting with something very simple. There are also CAM programs that plug into Solidworks and give you CAM functionality without having to export, if that's the hangup. If they're willing to spend some money on that, let me know; we sell a program like that: Visual CAD/CAM from Mecsoft . Molds can be quite intricate, so you'll probably need the Pro version, which will give you a lot of re-machining strategies to get good surfaces with a minimum of tool marks. Even so, they might still need some hand finishing.

ProtoLabs has some good information on the design and production of molds for plastic injection, if you're looking for study materials: https://www.protolabs.com/resources/design-tips/

[BoLanders]

Thank you for your advice. I've learned so much already. I've used your link and found some helpful tutorials on youtube to learn from. Thanks again.