508 Chapter 494: Mould Center

Optoelectronics also has a directly affiliated branch in Bingcheng, the ODF business division.

In addition to ODF special equipment, in order to cope with the rapid commissioning of LCD production line equipment, optoelectronic equipment has also customized and developed a lot of special equipment, and these equipment have also been placed under the ODF branch.

In addition to the design of these devices, the purchasing power of each LCD manufacturer is in the hands of optoelectronic devices, which actually shoulders the coordination, research and development, and production line design of TFT-LCD production technology.

The development of the 2.5 generation line and the 3.5 generation line is led by Wang Qingshan.

The pre-research of the fourth generation (29-inch) TFT-LCD, the assembly line production plan, and the technical support for the two wafer lines of Bingcheng and Chuncheng are intricate.

Optoelectronic equipment is not only a research and development and production unit of LCD equipment.It has actually become the engine of China's semiconductor industry.

This is why the position of the general manager of optoelectronic equipment is so important.

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In addition to several major branches of optoelectronic equipment, over time, many independent functional departments have been differentiated.

One of the more important is the mold center.

This unit is actually set up around 3D printers.As soon as this mysterious special department was established, it was warmly welcomed by various business departments.

The convenience that 3D printing technology brings to mold manufacturing and sample manufacturing is revolutionary in this era.

In addition to 3D printing that can achieve complex shapes that traditional design and processing methods cannot achieve, the integrated technology of design and manufacturing also brings great convenience to engineering and scientific researchers.

Using traditional design methods, drawing, tracing, and printing, the process goes down in a circle, not to mention the waste of materials and manpower, it takes about a week.

In traditional engineering design, each drawing also needs to have multiple procedures such as proofreading, review, and chief engineer.This is the same as the project quality control mechanism of later generations, preventing the wrong design from flowing into the production link and causing greater losses.

This is also the fundamental reason why traditional equipment design requires a long process.

But when 3D printing technology was introduced to equipment companies, everything changed fundamentally.

In addition to more complex shapes, the manufacturing cost and cycle time of these molds and even samples have been greatly shortened.

If the manufacturing cost of the sample is 10,000 yuan, the cycle is one month, one person designs it, and two or three people review it, and proofreading makes sense.

When the manufacturing cost of a sample is only two yuan, why do you need to review and proofread?

The cost of review and proofreading is even greater than the cost of production.

Therefore, with the popularization of 3D printing technology, the link between design and manufacturing has been greatly simplified.

The first is the set of paper drawings, which has been completely abandoned.The second is the review and proofreading process, not in the design process, but after the sample is manufactured.Look at the real thing!

3D printing technology has brought two advancements to this era, one is CADCAM integration, and the other is complex structure manufacturing.

In a sense, the introduction of CADCAM is more important.

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In the 1990s, it was an important node in the large-scale application of CADCAM.The most significant impact on people's lives is the appearance of the car.

In the 1980s and even the 1990s, the appearance of cars was generally square.Even some curved surfaces are also regular figures, such as the standard ellipse of the Beetle.

The reason here is to design with traditional methods. Even if the designer has an idea, it is difficult to express it correctly through paper drawings and three views.

But after the introduction of CADCAM integration technology, no matter how complicated the shape, from design to processing, it can be seamlessly connected. This is the fundamental reason why all kinds of beautiful streamlined cars flood the streets in later generations.

Without CADCAM integration technology, first, a good shape design cannot be expressed, and second, it cannot be expressed and made.

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The CADCAM technology brought by 3D printing has been warmly welcomed by several major equipment companies.Especially welcomed by young researchers.

With this technique, there is no need to go to the drawing board to draw a picture. After the drawing is finished, you can fill in a table and you can see the samples directly. Even the proofreading and review are omitted. This is so cool.

Even the processing and design departments of some conventional workpieces are calling for the popularization of this system.

Of course, the 3DS software that was used in the first place was slowly abandoned in the course of use.

3DS is only an entry-level animation software, which supports too few types of surfaces, which is unacceptable for professional industrial design software.

During this period, it was not that there was no dedicated CADCAM software, but these softwares could not be seamlessly connected with 3D printing technology, which made the optoelectronic equipment have to start anew and develop a new set of software.

The initial function of this software is actually a castrated version of 3DS, it does not need to consider animation functions, rendering functions, etc.With the passage of time, this set of software has become the core design platform for optoelectronic equipment.

This software is not only used by Optoelectronics itself, but also in some special departments of the University of Technology.

With the growth of 3DCAM software, 3D printer technology has become more mature.Driven by demand, it grows towards high precision and large scale.

Of course, with the development of 3D printing technology, confidentiality has become empty talk.The mold center also applies for a bunch of patents. If they are useful or not, apply first, at least to prevent others from collecting patent fees.

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3D printing technology is the unique technology of the mold center.But the usefulness of CAM has been realized by many people.

The School of Mechatronics is ready to cooperate with the mold center to see if it is possible to link with the large machining center to directly process the design data into a finished product.

If it is realized, the mold center will have the ability to design and process large special-shaped parts.For example, directly processing automobile shell molds.

Later generations of private car manufacturers, their first works, generally rely on skin replacement.Before you know it, another trillion-level industry has opened its doors.