Group assignment

Individual Assignment

Molding and Casting

Molding is the process of shaping a material into a desired form using a mold. The material is usually soft or liquid during the process and hardens into shape. Common materials include plastics, resins, metals, and silicones. At its core, molding involves creating a negative cavity of an object, which can then be used to produce multiple identical copies.

Applications:
Automotive components
Electronics enclosures
Medical devices
Consumer products
Silicone Molding

Silicone molding is widely used for flexible and detailed parts. It is especially useful for prototyping and low-volume production.

Individual Assignment:

For the individual assignment, I designed a mold for a soda cap. The following is the model of the soda cap that I designed in Fusion 360: I imported the tools library used in our lab and set up the machine for the CNC milling process: Setting up the toolbit axises:

CAM

Next was to CAM the model. i have used 3 toolpaths and 3 different bits for the process. The first toolpath was adaptive clearing for the 6mm flat bit: Second adaptive toolpath for the 3.175 flat bit: Pocket Toolpath for the 3.175 flat bit: Spiral Toolpath for the 3.175 ball bit: . Final toolpath: To download the gcode for the toolpaths, follow the instructions in the images given below:

Machine Setup and Milling Process:

I first set up the machine for the milling process. Then, i used the end finder to set the x,y zeros of the machine. Then, I used the 6mm flat end mill to mill the wax block.


I switched to the 3.175 flat end mill for the second toolpath and the pocket toolpath. The following are the videos of the milling process:


and then the 3.175 ball end mill for the finishing process. The following are the videos of the milling process:


This is how the mold looked after the milling process: After i had completed the milling process, i washed the block: Then dried it using the air pump: Then i starter mixing the silicone and the catalyst: Poured it into the wax block. Then i put the mold in the vacuum chamber to remove the air bubbles: This is how the mold looked after the vacuum process: After 10 hours, I demolded the silicone: Next i poured the resin into the mold : This is how it looked after the first part of resin was poured: