Cimatron Die Design: Designed For The Accuracy And Replicability Stamping Needs
Stamping die work is not forgiving. Even a fraction off on a strip layout, a punch that doesn’t 100% clear on the first pass, or a forming sequence with a wrong bend allowance – these are not little things you can paper over.
They come right off the shop floor in scrap blanks, jammed tooling or parts that just won’t conform.
The discipline of progressive and transfer die making demands precision at every stage — from the initial quote through strip development, punch design, die set assembly, and final CNC programming. Doing any of these stages in a disconnected system adds translation risk at every handoff.
Cimatron Die was developed to get rid of those handoffs entirely.
One System from Quote to Finished Die.
Cimatron Die is a complete CAD/CAM environment for stamping toolmakers that integrates quoting, design and manufacturing capabilities. There’s no need to build the strip layout in one tool, hand geometry off to a separate CAD system for punch design, and then re-import everything into a CAM package for machining programming.
All the stages of the die-making process are in the same data environment and data remains connected throughout. The punch geometry is updated when the strip layout changes. The CAM program can be run without file export, when the punches are finalized. It is in this continuity that Cimatron Die has made its name in serious die shops.
Quotes That Actually Reflect the Job
In competitive die work, pricing the job correctly is almost as crucial as making the die right. If you underestimate, you absorb cost overruns. Overestimate and you will lose your job.
Cimatron Die has quoting tools that take real job data – material cost, machining time estimates, labor and overhead – and feeds it directly into the estimate. Since the quote is generated from the same design data that drives the rest of the workflow, it represents the true complexity of the job, not a rough approximation. Toolmakers who use it invariably see fewer surprises from quoted to delivered cost.
Strip Layout Without Iteration Cycle
Strip layout is one of those things that looks easy until you actually try to do it and suddenly it gets really complicated. Station count, pitch, blank orientation, strip width, material utilization – each decision affects every other decision and the right answer usually involves a number of iterations.
Designers can change all of these parameters and see the effect immediately with Cimatron Die’s strip layout tools. Changes update immediately in the strip view rather than requiring a full recalculation cycle. This leads to a faster, more confident layout process where material optimization and station design decisions are truly interactive and not sequential.
Punch & Matrix Design Built for The Work
Punching and Trimming Contours
In Cimatron Die, you can create trimming punches directly from the contour geometry of the strip, rather than surfacing them from scratch manually. With die sets with many trimming punch profiles of different shapes, this is a significant time saving that adds up over the total design cycle.
Automated Tool Forming and Bending Punches
Automated tools specifically designed for this work can generate forming and bending punch geometry instead of manual surfacing operations. The punch geometry stays associatively linked to the strip data, so adjustments to forming depths or bend parameters propagate correctly.
Die Sets Pre-Fitted and Ready for Building On
Standard die sets with plates, guiding components and fasteners load directly into the design environment in seconds. As the design evolves, catalog and user defined components can be added, while keeping the linkage of the assembly to the original design intent throughout.
Collision and motion checking – before it hits the shop floor
One of the most expensive findings in die making is an interference that is not found until the die is put together and the press is run the first time. Cimatron Die also includes simulation of vertical axis movement and kinematics checking that validate the die’s motion throughout the full stroke – catching punch clearance problems, pilot conflicts and stripper interferences while they can still be resolved in software rather than on the shop floor.
CAM for Die Making Integrated in the Design Environment
Once the design is finalized CNC programming starts in the same environment, no need to re-import the geometry. Cimatron Die CAM capabilities include:
- Roughing and finishing strategies for die components (3- to 5-axis)
- Automated hole recognition on plates for drilling, which drastically reduces the programming time for plates with a large number of holes
- Programming of wire EDM for punches, dies and guide elements
- Full toolpath simulation with gouge and collision detection before a program reaches the machine
- Creation of drawings from templates which carry customer specification forward, reduction of repetitive drafting
- Configured for How Your Die Shop Really Works
Each die shop has its own conventions — preferred die set configurations, strip layout standards, drawing templates, and reporting formats. Instead of asking shops to change their time-honored working methods to conform to default software settings, Pelf Engineering works with each customer’s team to configure Cimatron Die around those conventions.
Pelf Engineering, a partner of Cimatron, offers implementation support, training and ongoing technical assistance for die shops of all sizes across India. Whether you are manufacturing simple blanking dies or sophisticated progressive die sets for automotive stamping, Cimatron Die is worth a proper evaluation on your own tooling.
Call Pelf Engineering and schedule a trial run – and see the workflow on the kind of geometry your shop actually builds.