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(continued...) A report generator wizard steps through the creation of paper based or HTML based reports incorporating plot animations.
Options include the plots and details to include, image size and order of results.
Reports can include one or more part analyses.
Mold Advisor incorporates all Part Adviser functionality and adds tools to orientate or mirror parts for multi-cavity and family tools.
By working along the additional tool bar, parts are orientated, the number of cavities, parting plane and overall tool size specified then runner and gates created.
Runners can be generated automatically or manually and can be subsequently edited.
An automatic gate sizing analysis estimates the best gate dimensions and automatically updates the model with the calculated dimensions.
A wider range of available gate types minimises the customisation required and analysis with gates only allows their optimisation before adding the sprue and runners.
MPA 6 even includes support for three plate moulds.
A runner balance analysis can be run with the option to accept proposed modifications.
Runners can also be imported from previous models and a library of standard geometric sizes for sprues, runners, and gates can be created for rapid reuse.
Additional results include cycle time, clamp tonnage, and shot size.
An additional feature of MPA 6 is the Moldflow Community Center, a set of web based tools accessible from within MPA.
These include discussion groups with other users, issue and enhancement request reporting and assistance in the form of training material, FAQ's and Moldflow's Knowledge Zone to supplement the extensive information available in the installed help topics.
In order to establish an informed view of product usage and possible enhancements, performance and usage logs are automatically forwarded to Moldflow unless specifically disabled in the preferences settings.
Part Adviser is priced around £5,500 for a machine locked license and for an additional £1,00 a floating license with a Commuter option to allow a license to be checked out from the server for up to 30 days, typically for use on a laptop.
A new native compressed file format is used to reduce disk space storage requirements.
The two complementary products within MPA definitely put easy to use tools into the hands of part and mould designers.
As with all analysis tools it is important to understand the results that are generated but the supplied support files and new web based resources make a significant attempt to inform both novice and expert users.
Even for designers with extensive practical experience, the speed with which analyses can be run leaves little reason not to use MPA to spot potential problems at the point in the development cycle when changes can most easily be implemented.