Moldplus Saves Mastercam Users Lots of Time

When manufacturers are looking for a powerful suite of time- and money-saving solutions, they can turn to Moldplus SA for help in reducing the time required to prepare parts, molds, or tools. Founded in 1993, it was the first company to develop integrated add-on products uniquely designed to complement the CAD tools provided by Mastercam.

The initiative to develop the successful Mastercam C-Hook SDK allowed Moldplus to create advanced CAD tools for mold creation and surface manipulation. Later, their advanced CAD and 5-axis path generation tools were developed due to market demand in Europe, Asia, and North America.

Headquartered in Switzerland, the company’s offerings function exclusively with Mastercam Design, Mill, Lathe, Wire, and Router products. Used in industries such as aerospace, automotive, racing, medical, and more, Moldplus strives to get its customers’ designs completed and manufactured faster using their software solutions.

These solutions include tools for preparing parts for manufacturing. “Moldplus provides the user with numerous surface extension functions and surface manipulation tools such as trimming and un-trimming. Our powerful mold preparation tool (core/cavity separation) that is still unique more than 25 years after its initial development, drove many Mastercam sales in the 90s,” said Anbu Lingappan, Business Development Manager, Moldplus.

Another product line that has been widely used is the one-click 5-axis curve and drill path creation tools. It provides easy-to-use control for manipulating all the path parameters including full interactive editing of the path’s point positions and vectors at any time.

“Additionally, Moldplus produced the first direct CATIA translator available for Mastercam in 1997 and continued developing a complete suite of CAD import tools from a wide range of CAD systems,” Lingappan said. “Moldplus CAD import products include CAD tree details, manufacturing notes, MBD data, and more. They are industry unique due to their features and benefits offered to the Mastercam end-user who wants to manufacture parts quickly and without the need for CAD drawings.”

 

These tools are developed to function seamlessly in Mastercam and provide major time savings to its customers. These radically reduce the processing time required to prepare parts for manufacturing. This combination of functionality and reduced processing time helps customers optimize their manufacturing.

“What would previously take hours or days of manual preparation can be done automatically in minutes using Moldplus,” said Lingappan.

Mastercam users have begun to rely on these products to aid in their productivity and also save time and money. For example, 5-axis edge or contour machining is easier in Mastercam when taking advantage of Moldplus’ offerings. They can be more efficient when doing 5-axis milling, 5-axis laser cutting, and 5-axis routing. Customers can even take advantage of advanced robotic trimming solutions.

One customer, Dynamic Plastics, turned to Moldplus five years ago when they needed to optimize their manufacturing process. Once they began using the software, it paid for itself after just one job. And for the complex jobs, it provided them a time savings up to 70%. Moldplus allows them to design quicker, machine quicker, and get finished parts to their customers quicker.

“[Other] Mastercam clients have also learned to depend on Moldplus to become more efficient in today’s competitive markets by using products like their automatic electrode-creator, plate fixture creator, mold design tools, advanced surface creation/modification, and our advanced/independent CAD import translators,” Lingappan said.

Because of the long partnership of Moldplus and Mastercam, the relationship has long benefited the manufacturing industry, and they “continue to help Mastercam increase their client base because our advanced tools are only available in Mastercam,” Lingappan explained.

This symbiotic relationship has been and continues to be constructive for everyone involved including Moldplus, Mastercam, and the Mastercam distribution network. For example, in the 1990s, Moldplus Core/Cavity separation drove a large amount of Mastercam multi-surface machining sales into the mold/tooling fabrication market. Also, ProDrill (a Mastercam product) was developed by Moldplus. These directly address Mastercam user’s needs for feature-based drilling.

For more information on Moldplus and other Mastercam partner products, please click the button below.