Electrical And Electronics
High-end electronics is expanding more rapidly than any other industry. Companies large and small are growing beyond their national borders and into a global marketplace filled with new challenges, like communicating across long distances and meeting the needs of international customers.
IronCAD’s 3D Design Solutions help engineers share ideas throughout company design teams. Unlike other CAD systems, IRONCAD is flexible and works well in a multi-CAD environment. Its intuitive interface, ease-of-use and radical approach to 3D design allows team members to increase individual productivity.
Design
We live in a 3D world, but many engineers working in the electrical and electronics industry still work in 2D. Mainstream 3D CAD applications make you begin with a 2D sketch which has to be constrained and is then extruded, spun, lofted etc to create your design. These features need constant management to avoid your design from breaking later on. IRONCAD is different, in IRONCAD shapes are unique and intelligent. To begin a design in IRONCAD simply start by dragging and dropping features, parts and assemblies from standard catalogs or use advanced tool wizards to create standard parts, like bolts and gears. Create your own catalogs of commonly used electronic components to further speed up the design process. With IRONCAD you spend your time designing and not managing data, no longer do you need to worry about rebuild errors and broken relationships.
Unlike other 3D CAD systems, you have a choice in IRONCAD to work in a more traditional approach to design by working with intelligent features such as extrudes, spins, sweeps, lofts, and surfaces, or work by direct manipulation of part and feature geometry, or even a combination of both! It’s what we call Hybrid modeling and IRONCAD has had this technology since the product launched in 1998. The power of the system means IRONCAD does not constrain you by limiting your design changes to only those that are anticipated. Hybrid modeling allows dynamic, unanticipated changes to be made easily; just open the file in IRONCAD and make the changes that are required to get your product to market. It’s that simple.
If you do work with features, IRONCAD makes design easy. IRONCAD’s intelligent parts and features enable geometry to mate and align automatically, history is automatically reordered to reflect your intent, and even allows entire assemblies to be resized without changing individual shapes. If you need to move a hole or boss to another area of your design simply click and drag. It will apply itself to the new location regardless of how the part was built and without breaking other areas of the design.
Changing the size of an item is as simple as pulling on a 3D handle on the design. Need to make that hole bigger, pull on a handle, need to change the bend radius of that sheet metal part, pull a handle! IRONCAD puts the controls directly on the model so you can change your design dynamically in 3D instead of having to edit a sketch. And when a model is ready, IRONCAD’s advanced surfacing tools let designers create beautiful, ready-to-manufacture enclosures for a complete design solution.
Engineers even control how IRONCAD organizes their data. Choose between externally linked files or IRONCAD’s single-scene design environment, which stores projects in a single file and makes sharing designs easy. IRONCAD’s single scene design environment makes data management a thing of the past. No longer does a 4000 part assembly have to be represented by 4000-5000 files on your hard drive or server. In IRONCAD you have everything in one file, spread amongst five files, ten, it’s your choice. IRONCAD’s freedom to choose how you work changes the way engineers design for the better.
Information Exchange
With IronCAD’s 3D Design Solutions, designers of high-end electronics can share models between workers in the office or half a world away.
Dual ACIS and Parasolid kernels allow import and export of common file formats like Catia® V4 and V5; Pro/Engineer®; Unigraphics®; Solidworks®; Inventor®; Unigraphics®, IGES and STEP, giving designers the ability to work in formats their customers can read. Once files are imported, IRONCAD’s Hybrid modeling technology can modify base geometry while catalogs allow designers to add “intelligent” shapes.
IRONCAD can even publish information online thanks to 3D PDF export and the ability to embed models in web sites using standard web based 3D formats. And with the press of a single mouse click you can package up your design in a light graphics format for distribution via email to anyone you wish and the recipient can view the model in full 3D on their computer (Internet Explorer required). Use IRONCAD to facilitate an open exchange of ideas and refine high-end electronic projects.
Simulation
Simulate designs virtually before clients ever see them with IRONCAD’s real-world mechanical testing. Digital simulations replace costly physical mockups. By applying mechanical constraints during design, engineers in the high-end electronics industry create real-world simulations to test part viability.
IRONCAD supports testing in one of four constraint-solving algorithms with fully integrated collision detection in mechanical simulation and regular design modes. Engineers can also, test design survivability with integrated analysis software like NEi Nastran for IRONCAD package, delivered with a free node-limited fully functional version.
Production
The complete 3D and 2D design package the IRONCAD solution provides will improve corporate production processes. With IRONCAD, files export into formats directly compatible with high-end tooling machines. Annotated 2D drawing views of 3D models can also be created to clearly document designs. Dimensioned views and bills of material automatically generate from 3D files and update whenever geometry changes.
Exploded views, 3D animations, DWG/DXF export and others are options engineers can choose from to communicate with production – reducing communication errors and freeing engineers up for other tasks.
IRONCAD also supports your rapid prototyping needs with full support for STL import and export. This allows you to test your designs using 3D printers prior to going to production.
Efficiency
By improving how companies exchange information, design, prototype and produce, the IRONCAD solution for high-end electronics will increase productivity. Its design system is easy-to-use and can be learned in days, not months, so turn around time increases right away – making you a more profitable supplier for the electrical and electronics industry.
Engineers, designers and customers will all benefit from IRONCAD’s flexibility Use IRONCAD to freely exchange ideas and eliminate misunderstandings during development and production. Everything will change with IRONCAD. Engineers will design more efficiently, meet end-user needs, improve communication, shorten turn-around time, reduce revisions, and increase efficiency – making you a more profitable company.
