Soap Molds

MasterCam Soap Mold PowerPoint Presentation

Narrative:
Today, thousands of products we use, have their origins in the molding process. Everything from consumer electronics cases, plastic and glass containers, and vehicle components such as tires, engine blocks and transmission cases, to name a few, are manufactured using mold making technologies. In fact, nearly all plastic products are produced using a mold. Molding processes are capable of producing thousands of items with complex cross sections, from a single mold.
You are on a product design team responsible for producing the mold for a new line of bar soap. The mold may be a one or two-piece design. Students must plan on investing more time for two-piece designs. Two-piece molds must have adequate sprue and gate features as well as two registration pins. Refer to the soap mold process power point tutorial for an introduction on these concepts. The mold cavity must have positive draft angles in the range of 8 – 10 degrees to allow the product to release from the mold.
All users, both teachers and students, should realize the increased time demands of two- piece molds versus a single piece mold in regard to part production cycles.
Your team must brainstorm, discuss and then produce a dimensioned, multi-view sketch of the product as well as the mold, that will be attached to the final printout.

Concepts:
Teamwork, Extrude, Fillet, Chamfer, Draft Angle, Work Plane, Parting Line, Part Split, Mass Properties, Density, Volume, Surface Area, Mold, Mold Cavity, Sprue, Gate, Registration Pins, CAM, Spindle Speed, Feed Rate, Tool Path, Roughing Cycle, Finish Cycle, Creating CNC code, Ball End Mill, Operations Manager, Tool Path Simulation, Verification, Posting Code, Tool Library, Tool Length Offsets, Fixturing Stock, Robotic Parts handling, Milling Machine Setup, Part Production, Mold Release Agent

Geometric Requirements:
The mold will be cut from a 1” x 3” x 5” machineable wax or Butter-Board machineable plastic block.
Observe the following guidelines for overall size:
The mold cavity size for a one piece mold to produce a single bar must be .750” x 2.400” x 4.000”.
The mold cavity size for a two piece, single bar mold must be .550” x 2.400” x 4.000” for each half of the mold.
The mold cavity size for a two piece, double bar mold must be .550” x 1.500” x 2.250” for each half of the mold.
Use the EXTRUDE-cut option to produce the initial mold cavity feature.
Remember to address the positive draft angle requirements.
The fillet radius for all inside corners is to be 0.250”.
The mold cavity for the one-piece mold must be designed to produce a bar of soap that uses no more than 7.5 cubic inches of glycerin soap per cycle.
The mold cavity for the two-piece mold must be designed to produce soap that uses no more than 11.000 cubic inches of glycerin per cycle.

Inquiry:
Solve the following using the mass property function and the appropriate calculations.
A. Find the volume of glycerin soap necessary to pour the entire mold cavity, including the sprue and gate features.
B. Using the answer from above, how many pounds of soap would be needed to produce 1000 bars of soap.
C. Now we will predict what the shipping charge will be for 1000 bars of soap. First find the volume of 1000 bars. Remember to subtract the volume of the sprue and gate features.
(Hint: you can suppress those features in the browser and then do a volume mass property on just the soap bar feature.)
D. Find the weight of a single bar and multiple by 1000.
E. Find the shipping charge for 1000 pieces.

Other Applications:
What other consumer products would make use of the shell feature to help produce a product design that uses less material, while still providing adequate strength to enable it to perform its intended task.

Evaluation:
Prepare the standard four-view drawing with the appropriate dimensions. Print on 18 x 24 paper.
How closely does the design adhere to the Geometric Requirements?

Supplemental Information:
The density of the glycerin soap is .043 lbs. per cubic inch.
The price per pound of the glycerin soap is $3.20.
The shipping charge per pound is $ .27.