Soft tooling for Die casting?

[04]

This year our company is looking at soft tooling for Injection moulding for parts to be use for testing and first Production build. We also want to use some sort of soft tooling for die cast parts. Does soft tooling exist for Die casting?
We normally get parts in machined to represent cast parts but this will be too expensive for Production build. Any links or advice would be great.



Thanks in advance
Paul

 

[HPost]

High pressure die casting, not so much.

If its gravity die casting, then yes.

If you want to replicate high pressure die casting without high cost outlay, then investment casting process give good results for casting of similar finish and mechanical properties.

 

[04]

Yes sorry its high pressure die casting.

It will be for a heatsink require to remove heat from an IGBT module. Will investment casting have similar thermal properties? The material we commonly use is LM20
Cheers
Paul

 

[HPost]

The thermal conductivity for LM20 is 0.37 Cal / cm2 / cm / ºC / sec at 20 ºC

The thermal conductivity for LM25 is 0.36 Cal / cm2 / cm / ºC / sec at 25 ºC

How close do you need to be???

 

[KENAT]

Some folks use Rubber Plaster Mold casting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaster_mold_casting

to make protos for die cast parts.

They aren't an exact simulation, though perhaps might be an option for low to medium volume production instead of die casting.

This is one company I've got a couple of parts from

http://aljcast.com/

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[04]

Neeed to be about +/- 10% if that's possible