CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
13 August 2007
Events News
Delcam to Show New Five-Axis Machining Options at Great Lakes Event
Delcam will demonstrate new options for five-axis machining in the latest versions of its PowerMILL and FeatureCAM CAM software during the Great Lakes show to be held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from September 18th to 20th.
This new exposition and conference, organised by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers will showcase innovations and emerging technologies to help advance the manufacturing community in the Great Lakes Region. The two Delcam programs contribute to higher productivity by giving users an ability to program equipment for milling, mill/turn, turning or wire EDM.
The most significant of the new five-axis options in PowerMILL (booth 632) is a powerful tool-axis editing function that allows the user to select any region of a toolpath and redefine the tool-axis vectors within that region. This ability will allow users to optimize cutting conditions, in particular to give faster machining, and to avoid any sudden machine tool movements that could result in a poor surface finish.
New automated functionality has also been added for much faster programming of the five-axis machining of blisks, blades and impellers. Swarf machining has been improved by the addition of an option that forces the toolpaths to follow the surface internal lines where possible. This approach can be used to give smoother motion of the machine tool and more precise control of the cutting conditions.
Improvements in simulation and verification include the ability to rotate the ViewMILL machining model both during and after the simulation. In addition, the user interface has been streamlined so that both cutting tool simulation and machine tool verification can be controlled from a single toolbar.
Five-axis simultaneous milling capability is now available in Delcam FeatureCAM (booth 613) for the first time, offering a variety of methods for controlling the tool axis. The user will be able to set a specific lead and/or lean angle. This can be done either to access areas unable to be reached with three-axis machining or to give better cutting conditions. Alternatively, the tool angle can be set in an orientation either to or from a point, or to or from a line.
Many three-axis toolpaths generated in FeatureCAM are now able to be converted to a five-axis equivalent by using automatic collision avoidance to change the tool axis. The software will automatically tilt the cutter away from the obstacle by the specified tolerance and then return the cutting angle to the value set for the overall toolpath once the obstacle has been cleared. Various choices will be available to control the direction in which the tool is tilted.
Other new options include five-axis trimming and swarf machining. Five-axis drilling will also be supported. This new functionality, coupled with the advanced feature recognition in FeatureCAM, will make it possible to create drilling programs in seconds even for multiple hole types and sizes.
FeatureCAM 2008 also features numerous smaller enhancements and speed-ups, plus new and updated post-processors, in particular for turn-mill equipment, including the Mazak Integrex, Daewoo Puma and Nakamura-Tome machines.
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