What is Cold Stamping Mold Making?

Cold stamping is the process of applying pressure on a material with a die attached to the press to cause separation or plastic deformation. This provides a method of pressurizing the required parts (commonly known as stamping parts or punching). It is called a cold stamp because it is usually processed at room temperature in the press.

The main feature of the cold stamping manufacturing process is that it is processed by molds and stamping equipment. It’s easy to automate, productive, and easy to operate. With a normal press, each piece can make hundreds to dozens of stamps per minute, while fast punches can make hundreds to thousands of stamps per minute. The parts obtained by cold stamping generally do not need to be machined, so it is a way to save energy and raw materials. Since the raw material used for cold stamping is primarily sheet or strip with good surface quality, the dimensional tolerances for stamping are guaranteed by the die, so the dimensions are stable and compatible. Cold stamping products have thin walls, light weight, and high rigidity, and can be machined into complex shaped parts, from the second hand of a watch to the longitudinal beams and covers of an automobile.

However, since mold making is generally a single small quantity production with high precision and high technical requirements, it is a technology intensive product with high manufacturing cost.

Therefore, cold stamping production can achieve higher economic benefits only in large quantities.

In summary, cold stamping has unique characteristics compared to other processing methods and is therefore widely used in industrial production, especially in mass production. A significant number of industrial sectors are increasingly using cold stamping products such as machine manufacturing, automotive manufacturing, aerospace, electronics, appliances, light industry, instrumentation and daily necessities. In these industrial sectors, the proportion of stamping parts is very large. Many parts manufactured by casting, forging and cutting methods have been replaced by stamping parts that are lightweight and have good rigidity. Stamping significantly increases productivity and reduces costs. If the stamping process is not widely used in production, it can be difficult to upgrade products in many industrial sectors to improve productivity, improve quality, and reduce costs.

In summary, cold stamping has unique characteristics compared to other processing methods and is therefore widely used in industrial production, especially in mass production. A significant number of industrial sectors are increasingly using cold stamping products such as machine manufacturing, automotive manufacturing, aerospace, electronics, appliances, light industry, instrumentation and daily necessities. In these industrial sectors, the proportion of stamping parts is very large. Many parts manufactured by casting, forging and cutting methods have been replaced by stamping parts that are lightweight and have good rigidity. Stamping significantly increases productivity and reduces costs. If the stamping process is not widely used in production, it can be difficult to upgrade products in many industrial sectors to improve productivity, improve quality, and reduce costs.

1. Cold stamping process

Research and application of key trends in the development of various stamping techniques aimed at improving productivity and product quality, reducing costs, and expanding the range of applications of stamping processes. At the moment, the domestic and rapid emergence of advanced technology for production is precision stamping press, flexible film forming, superplastic forming, multi-point forming, explosion and other high energy electromagnetic forming, precision stamping and cold extrusion. Has technology etc. These advanced stamping technologies have achieved excellent technical and economic benefits in actual production.
Precision stamping is an effective way to improve the accuracy of stamping parts and is an important way to expand the range of stamping. Currently, precision accuracy can reach IT6 to IT7, and sheet thickness can reach 25 mm. Fine punching methods can be formed as well as punched (precision bending, deep drawing, flange machining, cold extrusion, embossing and countersunk drilling, etc.).

2. Mold design and manufacturing side

Stamping is a basic condition for mold making. Currently, there are two trends in mold design and manufacturing that require careful attention.

(1) Mold structure and precision are growing in two ways

On the one hand, to meet the needs of mass production, automatic production, precision production, safe production and other large-scale automatic production. Dies are evolving towards high efficiency, precision, long life, multi-station and multi-functionality. Meanwhile, various rapid prototyping methods and simple economical mold design and manufacture have been rapidly developed to meet the rapid demands of product upgrades on the market.

(2) Modernization of mold design and manufacturing

Advanced technologies such as computer technology and information technology are widely used in mold technology, and the level of design and manufacturing of mold technology has changed significantly. Currently, the most famous is mold CAD / CAM / CAE. Today, the world mold industry is the world leader in mold technology development in the industrialized countries of Japan, the United States and Europe, accounting for half of the world’s molds. They have modern design methods and advanced mold making equipment, especially in recent years, these countries have developed CAD / CAM systems as the center of the mold industry, and the development momentum is growing rapidly. increase.
With the rapid development of mold technology, mold CAD / CAM is rapidly developed and widely used due to its advanced technology. Its technical and economic benefits are unmatched by traditional mold design and manufacturing methods. The specific features are as follows.

• The mold manufacturing cycle has been shortened.
• High mold quality.
• It significantly reduces production efficiency.
• CAD / CAM technology frees engineers from computational drawing and NC programming to create a more creative workforce.

The modern mold manufacturing and mold industry has new characteristics compared to the traditional mold industry.

1.High productivity

Modern mold productivity is much higher than traditional molds, mainly because modern molds have multiple stations, multi-cavity molds or multifunction. For example, a highly productive progressive die has more than 50 2 positions and a rubber shoe mold has 18 2 positions. In addition to punching and molding, a set of multifunctional molds can also undertake assembly tasks such as assembly and riveting, and the assembly can be manufactured directly.

2. High precision

Modern molds require orders of magnitude higher accuracy than traditional molds. Station-level progressive die precision plastic molds have an accuracy of over 0.003 mm.
Some high precision, especially fully embedded ones, have a long life.
Long-life dies are a basic condition for ensuring high production efficiency of high punching equipment. The life of modern molds is generally more than 5 million times. Cemented carbide molds can have a lifespan of 20 to 6 million times, and injection molding molds can reach 40 to 600,000 pieces. With 5-10 million die-cast molds, traditional mold life is only 1/5 or 1/10 of modern molds.

3. Cavity shape and mold structure are complicated

Cavity structures in modern molds become more complex as people’s demands for product shape, dimensional accuracy, and overall productivity increase, and as many new materials and processes become widely applied. I am.

Based on the above characteristics, we can discover that the modern mold industry becomes an independent industrial system. Mold standardization, advanced specialization, production and supply system for mold standardization, and high quality mold materials. In addition, technical talent and capital are concentrated. Molds have changed from traditional labor-intensive to technology-intensive. Talent-intensive and capital-intensive industries. Technology-intensive is reflected in the CAD / CAM of molds, and advanced design methods and equipment will inevitably require high-quality professionals to form talent-intensive. At the same time, advanced industry is also an important symbol of modern mold. However, it will take some time to implement CIMS in mold manufacturing. However, the development and widespread application of CAD / CAM integration technology and the related high-tech development will enable automated CIMS in mold manufacturing in the near future. Achieve new flying mold technology, and make the whole human mold technology.

Through the development of modern mold technology, we can see that mold manufacturing technology is always moving in advanced and new directions, accompanied by the development of manual steering automation. Overall, mold design and manufacturing completely eliminates primarily labor-dependent manufacturing methods. To be able to streamline mold manufacturing, simplify the structure, improve the accuracy, and bring new vitality to the development of various industries in the future.