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Looking for some expert knowledge. I have just recently moved to Creo 5.0 and went thru the Ptc university mold design course. I presently use a manufacturing mold cavity template that contains my workpiece and a predefined flat partingsurface as the parts I do are quite often parted at this location . I then locate my part model in this assembly using same model. I then apply my shrinkage to the part. My next step is to create closed partingsurfaces through a variety of surfacing techniques to be used to do volume splits for all the inserts of my mold. I then make cavity insert components from these. This techniques was show to my a long time ago. I now see that I can skip making a lot of the parting surfaces and go directly to making volumes in a lot of these cases this seems like it may save some time and simplify my model tree some. So the questions are what if any are the down falls if any using volumes where I can for breaking up the tool versus surfaces and then volumes. Any knowledge shared will be appreciated.
You have more to gain by using volumes for splitting inserts and components vs. parting surfaces. I describe it to people this way: Imagine you have a cavity and core set on a bench with each half opened up facing you. If you were to spray the surfaces with blue layout dye, the blue surfaces would represent where you would use parting surfaces. Any core pins, insert, slides, etc. you would use volumes. The benefit of volumes is they are capped on the ends automatically, they merge automatically (assuming you stay in the parent volume for subsequent features you add) and can use depth references that are non-parallel to your sketch plane, where a parting surface needs a depth reference that is parallel, and if you want it capped you have to set that option. Keep your parting surfaces as simple as possible and let volumes capture the more complex areas of your split. I see users go through the effort to copy ref part surfaces and use them for their parting surfaces and volumes and in most cases this isn't necessary let the ref part drive as much of your split geometry as possible, keep surfaces and volumes simple. I don't have a good example of this handy, but if I run into one I will do my best to remember to share.
Thank you for the info on this any other information or an example would be greatly appreciated.