Hi, I have no Mold design experience. I would like to take the CSWPA-MM exam, but the practice exam does not cover all the topics in the exam description. Namely 'Mold Cooling Problem', 'Max Mold Opening', 'Runner and Sprue fill', and 'Create Tapered Interlocks'. Any links to tutorials would be appreciated. Thanks Chris
Hello Deepak. Thank you for the links. Unfortunately I only have a MySolidworks guest account which does not give me access to those lessons. I can’t afford to pay for a premium account.
So I also am studying for the CSWPA-MM and was stuck on some subjects they suggest you study in the practice exam, but did not cover in the practice exam.
The SW-Tutorial gives you a little information on "Interlock Surfaces" during the Mold Design tutorial.
SW Help has a bit more information on 'Create Tapered Interlocks' if you search for "interlocks".
There are 9 results that are not in any particular order, so reviewing them all helped me figure out the information SW was trying to get across. It is not much more than that in the tutorial. Just some stuff on Ruled Surfaces that I have yet to practice.
I ended up googling the terms 'Max Mold Opening' and 'Runner and Sprue fill' after the SW-forum, SW-Help file, and SW-youtube failed to provide any useful information on the topics.
I got nothing for 'Max Mold Opening'.
Wikipedia gave me the answer to 'Runner and Sprue fill'. It is the excess plastic channels of the mold necessary to fill the final product cavity. I don't know how SW will test on this, but I assume from some other stuff I have found that it will be removing this excess to find the overall mass of the virtual molded part. Could also be to figure out the overall mass of the wasted material, now that I think about it. But again, I have no idea.
Edit: Reddit had this answer which I guess is helpful because now I can google some more mold terms.
I guess I was wrong about the 'Mold Cooling Problem' since it seems the cooling is not about the shrinkage of the plastic, but the cooling of the actual mold.
Max Mold Opening means the max distance/dimension a mold tool (assembly) can achieve in open condition.
Sprue is the area/passage from where molten plastic gets into the mold from the machine nozzle
Runners are the channel which are connected from sprue to the cavity. The material flows into the mold cavity through these channels/runners.
Gates are the entry point of molten material into the cavity. They are at the end of runners and just at the tip of cavity.
Mold Cooling: Mold cooling is done using water, coolant or other means. This is done to keep the mold temperature optimum else with excessive heat or increase in mold temperature can result in bad product.
Sprue, runners and gates are generally ejected along with the part and then those are removed later on. These all adds to material used in each mold cycle.
The exam is designed to test some of the practical/design knowledge about mold making. So you may not find all the topics in the sample exam.
But you can go thru these two resources to learn more about other tools/topics:
CSWPA-Mold Tools Exam Prep Course | MySolidWorks Training
SolidProfessor.com