In this section, you create a mold design assembly and add the plastic part to mold.
- Click Inventor
and select Manage > Projects. - Browse to the Tutorial Files/Mold folder and set the project to Mold.ipj.
- In the Projects dialog box, click Configure Content Center Libraries
. - In the Configure Libraries dialog box, scroll to the Inventor Mold libraries and ensure that the In Use checkbox is enabled. If the metric library is not enabled, you cannot able to add the mold base later in the tutorial.
- Click OK on the Configure Libraries dialog box.
- Click Done on the Projects dialog box.
- Click Inventor .
- Select New to open the Create New File dialog box and start a new mold assembly.
- Click the Metric folder in the Create New File dialog box, click Mold Design (mm).iam, and then click Create.
- In the Create Mold Design dialog box, click OK to accept the defaults. The Mold Design environment is now available. Tip: Do not check the box titled Interactive Tutorials. It provides an alternate method to navigate to the tutorials.Note: For subsequent work, it is important to choose a descriptive name that easily identifies the mold file. For this tutorial, you use the supplied default. The About this tutorial tutorial will further explain project files and file schemes.
- In the Mold Design browser, right-click the mold icon and choose Prompt for File Names in the context menu. You can control the names and locations of system generated files. Note: The enabled or disabled state of the file name setting is persistent between sessions.
- On the ribbon, click Mold Layout tab > Mold Layout panel > Plastic Part
. - In the Plastic Part dialog box, select the Mobile Top.ipt part file and click Open to add the plastic part to the mold assembly.
- Left-click in the graphics window to place the part with the default alignment option.
- Click OK to accept the default file names and location on the file naming dialog box.
The Inventor part file, which is now placed in the Mold Design environment, will be used to guide you through the process of mold base design.
User Inventor Mold Design to place multiple moldable parts in the mold assembly as a family of parts. Or, you can use patterning functionality in the mold layout to create rectangular, circular, or variable placement patterns.
For more information about these techniques, refer to the following tutorial: About this tutorial