Get a Quick Cost Estimate with Graphicast’s “Ballparker’ Application
May 31, 2012
“Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.
Graphicast has added a new feature to our website – the Price Ballparker. This tool will give you a quick estimate of the cost of a machined casting just by entering the volume of your part, the estimated production lot size, and then comparing your part to photos of easy, moderate, and difficult to machine parts. That’s it. The Ballparker tool determines these costs based on mathematical modeling of the various production steps of thousands of production runs of parts at Graphicast. We’re able to give you a reasonable estimate of costs just by entering the information and comparing your part to the most similar part in our model. If your part is considerably smaller or larger than the parts shown, the model is less accurate. Just go to the Engineering and Design pull down menu to access the estimator. Please contact us with any questions you may have or if you want us to look at your part in more detail for a more accurate quotation.
Graphicast Castings Get a Clean Bill of Health
March 2, 2012
Graphicast recently put a large sample of machined castings through an x-ray testing procedure. A third party laboratory measured the castings against the same standards used for critical components in jet engines and other aircraft applications. The results? A clean bill of health! Take a look at the x-rays yourself. These results clearly show that the Graphicast LTA graphite mold casting process produces extremely dense, low porosity castings. Although these casting aren’t going into a jet engine, they could.
Assembly Magazine Gets It
January 26, 2011
What do they Get? The value and cost benefits featured in Graphicast’s newest trade magazine article. This case study shows how moving from CNC produced components to a casting process lead National Optronics to big savings on a low volume part.
After working with Graphicast to convert the design, National Optronics has taken what was a four piece pin and screw assembly, down to a single, precision machined casting.
This project reduced part inventory, assembly time, and made for a much more rigid design. Oh yeah, they also brought the cost down!
Sound like something that can help you? CLICK HERE to read the story.
The Power of Collaboration
October 22, 2010
“Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.
Caterpillar recently highlighted how they reduced the cost of a component 20% by working with their supplier from the start of the design step. Graphicast has been pushing this concept for the past several years as we’ve recognized that designs coming to us later in the design process were not able to take advantage of all the features a casting can provide. By getting our customers working with us from the beginning, we can help them optimize their parts for manufacturing while still meeting the design specifications for function and performance. We offer our Design and Rapid Prototyping Service as a means to this end, and it has been very successful, with nearly half of our new customer projects starting out with a design consultation at the beginning of the design phase.
Graphicast’s Design and Prototyping Service Continues to Receive National Recognition in Design News
August 27, 2010
“Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.
Graphicast’s Design and Rapid Prototyping Service (DRPS) continues to receive national recognition. The most recent issue of the Design News website features our process as the lead article. Unique to other prototyping processes, Graphicast will produce a prototype in our ZA12 alloy with all the features present on a finished, machined castings. This way, our customers can test an exact copy of their machined casting before we even begin to cut the graphite mold! Prototypes such as these confirm design intent and casting performance to ensure the final design meets all the design criteria. Having the finished part design and machining program in place with the prototype shortens the time to produce the mold and first production runs of the machined casting. Our customers and prospects are discovering the value of this service, as we see more new parts going through this prototyping process first.
Prototype Part? Looks Like a Machined Casting.
August 11, 2010
We can help you, design engineers!
July 2, 2010
- “Geoff Forester photograph, courtesy of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund”.
In a recent survey of design engineers , Product Design and Development magazine found that four major challenges exist in the new product development process:
1. Project management
2. Controlling costs
3. Improving time to market
4. Component selection
Building Molds, Building Relationships
May 19, 2010
Graphicast recently sold a mold to National Optronics, Charlottesville VA. Since 2005, National Optronics has developed 8 tools producing value added cast and machined parts with Graphicast.
National Optronics, a manufacture of eye glass lens grinding equipment ,looks to Graphicast to make value added components for their equipment. Graphicast often reviews part and assembly prints for their equipment with them to determine if we can achieve cost savings by combining multiple parts into a single casting. Other savings are found when it is more economical to machine a casting than to machine a component from bar stock.
More than your average win-win situation, this has become a rare and appreciated relationship. A few years of review, understanding and design collaboration has lead to strong and fluid communications between the organizations. Today, projects are developed start to finish with relative ease, savings are realized, and at the end of a project, well, speaking for Graphicast, we are happy to have completed another job for National Optronics.
American managed.
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