A second review of the mould, before the steel is cut.

What it does

It reads the STEP of the whole mould, whatever program it comes from, and recognises every part (plates, inserts, slides, standard parts) and every hole (cooling, ejection, threads, fits). On that assembly it runs the checks an experienced toolmaker would, but over the whole mould and with the exact measurement.

What it checks

• Cooling: water against the other holes, the components and the moulding surface, with the distance measured on the exact model. Counterbores and seal grooves too, not just the channel diameter.
• Components: round parts with no pocket, threads that are too short and fits with no tolerance.
• Hot runner: the air gap of the manifold, water near it and the wall of its pocket.
• The part inside the mould: minimum local draft with the area below it, sharp inner edges, steel left inside the part after the 3D operations, and ejectors too close to the edge.
• The mould against the customer's press: clamping force and shot, checked against the filling report.
• Conformal channels: the curved channels of a metal-printed insert are recognised and measured like drilled ones.
• Water flow and coverage: minimum flow per circuit for turbulent water, and moulding areas too far from any channel.
• Water near slides and inserts, and parallel channels too close together.
• Thin steel between two moulding surfaces, and minimum draft for the texture.
• Ejector pins that buckle: the unguided length against the diameter, and thin pins without a step.
• Venting: depth for the part material, land and relief channel; if not modelled, the depth to use.
• Slides: angle-pin inclination, locking heel 2-3° steeper than the pin, and enough stroke to clear the undercut.
• Sub gate: tip Ø, cone and angle, checked against the minimum Ø for the part weight and wall.

Every finding, with its section and its closure

Every finding is marked BLOCKS, WARNING or INFO, with the part, the position and what to ask the toolmaker. Blocks and thin walls are closed one by one as «Taken» (where it is in the report) or «Dismissed» (why it is not a problem), and the closure is checked against the report. A check that could not run comes out as a warning: it never counts as passed.

What you get

• 2D mould drawings with the parts list, what to make and what to buy, material and machining hours.
• Prioritised summary: the points to look at first.
• 3D mould viewer with the findings on their part.
• Export for shop management (CSV with fixed columns).
• Acceptance sheet with the SHA-256 fingerprint of every file: if the 3D changes, the fingerprint no longer matches.
• Technical record of the mould, the inventory of what you pay for.

When the part changes

If the customer changes the part once the mould is designed, GALGA compares the two versions and tells you where it changes, which steel parts mould each zone and whether steel must be removed or added. It also tells you which version the mould is made on and which shrinkage it carries.

What it does not do

• It does not simulate filling or warpage. That is what simulation programs are for; GALGA checks their report against the mould.
• It does not design the mould or replace the engineer: it gives the engineer measured findings to decide on.
• The submarine gate is still measured by hand.
• Thresholds come as defaults and are set to your mould manual. GALGA copies no manual and no standard.

Try it

Mould review is in its pilot phase. Send us a mould you already know well and we compare together what GALGA sees with what you saw: that shows what it adds and where it falls short. How the pilot works.