5-Axis Computer Aided Manufacturing of Stamping Die Insert: A Case Study

3-Axis Machines have traditionally been used for stamping die insert machining, which have less flexibility in terms of degrees of freedom. In order to cater to ever increasing demand for class-A surface finish of the inserts, additional operations such as hand grinding and polishing needs to be performed. It has been possible to manufacture the die inserts with 5 -axis machines, which in theory offer many advantages over 3axis machining but suffers drawbacks like gauging and collision. Many researchers investigated the 5-axis machining techniques. However, very few investigations of complete steps for manufacturing of die inserts using a CAD/CAM system were found. The 5 -axis CAM technologies for manufacturing stamping die insert are investigated in this research. An independent industrial die manufacturer using a 3-axis, high-speed machine provided the insert model used. The results show that 5-axis machining consumes less machining time but requires an accurate geometrical model of the machine for machining simulation and a closer control of parameters during tool path planning.