Peco Speed up Design

[Master Cutler]

Thought this may be of interest to the model railway builders.

[Quote]
Model railway manufacturer Peco is using Vero software to cut design time by 30% and help with difficult insert moulding issues.

Tolerances for the track, which combine metal and plastic parts, are extremely important, according to Peco’s engineering and development director Ben Arnold. “We produce a lot of insert moulded products with metal components that have their own tolerances.

“The tool has to sit very neatly and snugly around them to ensure there is no flash along the sides of the rails on the finished moulded track product. In that respect, some of the tolerances for our tools are tighter than those I worked with in the automotive industry.”

Using a range of Vero’s Visi modules not only provides greater accuracy, according to Arnold, but they also cut deign time by 30% and save the tool room CNC programmer even more time during the manufacturing process.

New products development manager Paul Hitchcock uses Visi Modelling, Visi Mould incorporating Visi Catalogues, and Visi Electrode, to design the mould tools, having originally imported the product as Solidworks data.

“With the number of modifications and changes we go through during manufacture the history tree of our previous system caused frequent problems. But Visi provides concurrent design and manufacturing, meaning the design and tool paths are easily modified,” Hitchcock said.

Peco claims to manufacturers the largest range of model railway track in the world, distributing to around 450 model shops across the UK and exporting to more than 30 countries worldwide. [Quote]