Replacing a Plate in a Mold  

A mold is an assembly composed of a pile of plates.
Those plates can be split by a surface and drilled by some components.
The coherence of the dimensions and positions of the different plates within the mold is maintained by some relations and some constraints.

In some cases, you will need to replace one plate by another.
A typical example is a process of iterative design where a simplified version of a plate is replaced by a more advanced version.
Since the plates are linked to the other parts of the assembly by many objects such as constraints, relations, contextual imports, etc, replacing a plate by another is a very complicated operation.
Moreover the Tooling Feature extensions of tooling components add some links in the products structure that can be corrupted if you try to replace a plate “by hand”.

The Replace Plate command:

• keeps the same feature extension on the new plate,
• re-creates the relations that define the dimensions of the plate (Width (W), Length (L), Height (H)):
  the replacing plate size is adjusted to the mold dimensions,
• in the case of a standard Mold Base, the replacing plate must be a plate of the same Mold Base catalog:
  the Replace Plate command will set the value of the Ref parameter of the replacing plate to that of the replaced plate.
• reconnects the constraints: constraints with the other plates, constraints with the components,
• reconnects automatically the link to the splitting surface of the replaced plate if any,
• proposes a manual reconnection for the external references of the replacing plate that have not been automatically reconnected
• re-creates the drillings of the replaced plate inside the replacing plate (Standard drillings, detailed drillings and Coolant Channel),
• re-creates the simplified drillings,
• propagates the machining attribute, colors and Technological Results from the drilling components to the drillings in the replacing plate,
• reroutes the links of the feature extensions of all the Tooling Components that drills the plate.

• The Replace Plate command only applies to a Mold Tooling Design plate (CATPart that has a Mold Tooling Design Plate icon).
• This command can only be used to replace a CATPart by another CATPart. You are not allowed to select a CATProduct as the replacing plate.
• The replacing plate must contain the PLRef plane and the ZRef, L, W and H parameters.
• If some features such as fillets or chamfers have been added on the top of drillings made by tooling components in the plate, those features will not be re-created in the replacing plate.
• Drillings performed without using Mold Tooling Design dedicated commands will not be automatically re-created in the replacing plate.
• If the replaced plate is split and if the replacing plate is not split, the split of the replacing plate is not re-created.

1. You are going to replace the top plate.
   
   Pick it in the 3D Viewer and select Replace Plate in the contextual menu.
   This menu is also available from the specification tree.
   
   The Replace Plate dialog box is displayed.
   The name of the plate to replace is displayed in the title.
    

2. Click to browse your directories and select ReplacingCorePlate.CATPart in the samples\ReplacePlate directory.
   The dialog box is updated with information about the replacing plate. They are not editable.
   
   A preview of the replacing plate is displayed.
   Its H, L, W parameters are set to the values of the corresponding parameters of the replaced plate.
   If the MoldBase is a standard Mold Base, the Ref parameter of the replacing plate is set to the value of the Ref parameter in the replaced plate (same line in the Design Table). This way the overall consistency of the mold base is preserved.
   

• If the PLRef plane or the ZRef parameter, or the L, W or H parameter are missing in the replacing plate, an error message is displayed asking you to select another plate or to define the missing parameter.
• If the Mold Base is a standard Mold Base, the command searches the matching configuration (RefMold, Ref) in the design table of the replacing plate. If no matching configuration is found an error message is displayed asking you to select another plate.
• The dialog box is updated and the preview performed once a valid replacing plate has been selected.

3. Click OK.
   If some external references could not be reconnected automatically, the following dialog box is displayed to let you reconnect them manually:
   
   Select a line, the buttons on the right becomes available.
   According to your need, click Isolate, Reconnect or Delete.
   Click OK when you are done.

4. The original plate is replaced by the new one, as described in the introduction above.
   Its length, width and height are those of the replaced plate.
   In the case of a standard Mold Base, the Ref parameter (and thus the active line of the Design Table) takes the value of that of the replaced plate.
   The part number of the replacing plate is that of the replaced plate.