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Case Study / Software By Sherry L. Baranek Penn State Erie, The Behrend College���one of four academic institutions in the nation with an accredited Plastics Engineering Program���has found the VISI Machining software from Vero International, Inc. (Wixom, MI) to play a vital role in helping students learn CNC machining quickly to develop high-end NC programs for core and cavity work���particularly in their Rapid Commercialization class. This class follows the Rapid Prototyping class and teaches students how to get a product to market, from concept to a design model, to tooling manufacturing and molding, and finally to completed, assembled and decorated parts. Approximately five years ago, Jon Meckley, Chair of the Plastics Department, came across VISI while looking for a new machining system for the Penn State Behrend Plastics Lab to replace its previous one���which had proven too difficult for the students to use. Features he sought in a new system were ease-of-use for the students, but also depth-of-function for creating the high-end toolpaths necessary to machine sophisticated mold core and cavity work. ���We settled pretty quickly on VISI,��� Meckley recalls. ���Compass Technologies, our local VISI-Series dealer, came in to talk to the faculty about VISI-Flow for mold fill analysis. During the discussion we learned of VISI���s machining program. We asked for a demo, which they gave to us.��� After conducting some Internet R&D; on other packages, Meckley decided VISI would be the best program for his students to get introduced to the world of machining���and still turn out a quality product because of its ease of use. Programming Ease ���The student program in the Lab is all about teaching students the entire process of bringing a plastic product design to market���from part design and verification, to tool design, tool build, and product manufacturing,��� Meckley notes. ���The inability to create the correct toolpaths in our previous system detracted from our ability to educate students on how to properly create a toolpath as we illustrated the process of bringing a product from art to part. Every once in a while the old system would cut things off where it shouldn���t or just put 20 MoldMaking Technology March 2013 Photo courtesy of Jonathan Meckley. Taking the Guesswork Out of Complex Machining Processes Students in the Rapid Commercialization class gather with some middle school students from a local school for an on-campus car race. The cars��� molds were machined with VISI-Machining from Vero International, Inc. extra unnecessary moves in the NC programs. I wanted a system that would do it correctly. ���The product our students design and manufacture is a toy racecar���made using a two-plate mold that consists of a standardized mold base with front loadable inserts,��� Meckley explains. ���The students face mount their inserts in a mold base in an injection molding machine at the end of the semester and make a car or two.��� The class, a technical elective, is divided into three parts: Roughing, Semi-Finishing and Finishing. First, Meckley���s students do all of the design work in Pro/Engineer. Then, using Promold, create the 3D models for the mold inserts. After giving the students a basic education on how to program a CNC machine to cut the inserts the students are given one instruction���the maximum speed limit of the cutter, so as to not break the milling cutter. ���But, other than that, the VISI software is designed to protect the students from ever gouging���provided the parameters are properly programmed���the steel into the core and cavity surfaces that define the inserts,��� Meckley states. ���Students are able to try many different types of toolpaths for roughing, semi-finishing and finishing the inserts until they have found the best ones that yield a smooth finished surface to the inserts within the least amount of run time. ���Roughing with VISI is easy,��� Meckley continues. ���You just put the speeds, feeds and parameters in correctly, and VISI does the rest. If the students have plugged in the wrong information then when they start machining they���re able to see their mistakes quickly and fix them.���