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【Plastics】Thanks to their excellent properties such as low cost, light weight, and ease of molding, plastics, which are primarily composed of hydrocarbon compounds, are very popular in the manufacturing industry and serve as the preferred material for many products. Process designers love it and hate it at the same time; they suffer headaches whenever they think about the material properties of plastic and its special processing techniques. As a design software better suited to China’s manufacturing industry, HaoChen 3D offers unique features specifically for plastic product design. It provides various tools that assist designers in carrying out precise 3D digital modeling and process simulation, thereby enabling a close integration between design and manufacturing processes. 1. Due to the limitations of material properties, the specialized design characteristics mean that plastic parts inevitably experience shrinkage and a reduction in size during the molding process. Traditional design software assigns attributes to plastic products through manual calculations along with textual annotations or table descriptions, as shown in the figure. The HaoChen 3D software provides a [Scale Entity] functional module for the shrinking feature, thereby enabling attribute assignment. We can choose geometric scaling (where the scale factor is applied proportionally in all directions) and non-geometric scaling (where the scale factor can be applied separately to the X, Y, or Z axes), and customize the respective scaling factors. 2. The first step in rapid creation of complex molds: Create a base mold by using rapid modeling, and insert the plastic model into this base mold as a copy of the part. Step 2: Create a custom parting surface. Based on the demolding requirements, a custom parting surface is created so that the upper and lower sections of the mold have different draft angles. Step 3: Drafting processing – Access the drafting options, select the reference surface and the drafting surface, and enter the appropriate draft angle. Step 4: View and adjust the design of the mold cavity. Use the view function options to display the model in wireframe format, so as to observe the condition of the plastic inside the mold and adjust it to the desired position. 3. Easy access to specialized functions: As is well known, plastic is a very brittle material that breaks easily. Without increasing the wall thickness, the proper placement of reinforcing ribs can undoubtedly enhance the strength and stiffness of plastic products, preventing warping and deformation. Haocheng 3D can generate common reinforcement elements such as ribs and mesh struts with just one click, enabling rapid structural optimization. The rib design allows for the direct placement of ribs at any desired location by using the rib command, and it also enables the customization of the rib’s shape, making it very efficient. With HaoChen 3D for grid rib design, it is not only possible to directly edit the shape, position, size, and other characteristic attributes of grid ribs, but it is also possible to perform lofting operations on them, saving time and effort. 4. Besides adhesive bonding, bolt fixation is also a common method for fixing the editable screw post module plastic parts. Haocheng 3D has specifically designed the screw post, a commonly used module, as an editable parametric module; by entering certain values, we can automatically generate the corresponding screw posts, which is truly very convenient. Well, are you tempted? Download HaoChen 3D software right away and give it a try! Those who still don’t understand can leave me a message in the comments section~ Follow me to learn more useful tips for 3D drawing!