CLIENT CASE STUDIES

About the Company

Established in 1962, MECANOPLASTICA S.A., Spain, is a leading company in designing and manufacturing medium to large sized injection and compression moulds.

They specialise in high added value and high performance moulds, supplying the most prestigious European companies in the automobile sector, as well as in computer equipment, electric equipment, furniture and other trades.

Requirements

Mecanoplastica were looking for one CAM software package that would suit all of their needs, when manufacturing big, heavy moulds for the automotive industry.

Working with very large model part files could be a problem at times. Other CAM software packages they had tried were not able to handle the mass of information; they had problems when loading the parts and also with the calculation of the toolpaths. A core side assembly (heavy IGES file >300 Mb), with lots of parts in it (as in the picture above), was too much to handle and calculation time took too long; sometimes toolpaths would take a whole weekend to calculate.

Results from Purchasing NCG CAM

Mecanoplastica had worked with TULCAM software in the past, which was an earlier version of NCG CAM rebranded for Portugal and Spain many years ago. They decided to return to that interface because it is very friendly and easy to use.

• With NCG CAM, it is now possible to work with complex geometries and get the toolpaths to machine mould cavities and cores at a reasonable time. Calculation times compared to other software can be approximately 15% faster with NCG CAM, but often it was not possible for others to calculate the large parts at all!
• NCG CAM gives better results with some machining strategies; especially with the roughing.
• The response from the NCG CAM Technical Support Team is very fast, ensuring minimum downtime on the shop-floor at any time.