Innovative new products made with Seibu Electric & Machinery's first all-3D design

"MEX15 is a high-end machine for ultra-fine processing that can use ultra fine wires as small as 0.03 mm. Combined with a new machine structure that minimises thermal displacement, it features a new multi-touch CNC and automatic feeder device, significantly improving process accuracy and operability. During the development process, the goal was to achieve more than industry-standard product capabilities, and we succeeded in vastly improving accuracy and cost reduction.” The three-dimensional design using Inventor Professional was the catalyst to solving the challenge of balancing high performance and cost reduction,” Ito continues.

"WEDMs are processing machines that microfabricate objects placed on the table by moving vertically and horizontally or at an angle. Although the difference is either moving from the work side or the wire side, machines produced by manufacturers share a standard form to a certain degree, and roughly have the same configuration. This time, we adopted a totally unique one-of-a-kind drive format, and the shape and mechanical structure of the base are completely different from the conventional machines.” In the same way, the distribution of stress is different from the conventional machines, so past empirical rules do not apply. "Therefore, we repeated the analysis a little at a time between the designs so there is no impact on the accuracy, and pushed it forward by comparing with previous analysis. We were keenly aware of the power of Inventor, which enables seamless and smooth design and analysis.”

And for Ito himself, it was the first new product development utilising 3D from scratch. "We are really happy that we used Inventor. We would have probably needed more than double the time and effort if we had used 2D.”

"There were few people in design, so I was immediately given a development theme. For a while, I used Inventor for modeling, and later performed DR (Design Review) as the design progressed." DR is a presentation the designer makes to the company, "This is what I will do" for a given specification. Conventionally, 2D drawings were used, but it was difficult to explain how the machine work in the 2D drawing and it was often time-consuming. "It was very well received when I showed and spun the 3D model. It triggered the shift to 3D designs."

In this way, Ito's 3D presentation led to the company’s rapid deployment of 3D designs. Soon the company purchased more Inventor licenses, and gradually other mechanical designers started experimenting with this and it accelerated the spread from there. "Once you use Inventor, any designer will realize how efficient the 3D design is," Ito says. The company found that the "rework” associated with the 2D design was drastically reduced, resulting in higher quality designs in a shorter period of time. This turned many designers into Inventor users.

"Wire electrical discharge machines have many moving parts, so it is difficult to check their complicated interference using 2D CAD, and we cannot cover everything at the design stage. Often, we found out that they actually did after we assembled a machine, and rework occurred frequently. 3D got rid of such rework. Ito thinks that assembling using Inventor is almost the same as assembling the machine. Therefore, 3D designing makes it impossible to determine whether "bolts do/do not fit" and "easy/difficult to install using tools". "In addition, it was important to be able to analyse. This ability of providing easy analysis made it all possible to come up with a unique drive format, and reduce weight without compromising on the accuracy.”