Mastercam Mill offers expanded machining flexibility and an increased emphasis on speed and automation. Multi-axis features, 3D enhancements and 2D high-speed tool paths combine with dozens of additional new enhancements in a software package intended to improve shop-floor productivity.

For example, maintaining climb and conventional machining is crucial for surface finish and tool life. For this reason, tool paths now provide constant control of climb or conventional cutting even while in complex areas that would require use of both sides of the tool.

In addition, multi-axis roughing has been enhanced and renamed to multi-axis pocketing, which includes new options such as undercut roughing, wall finishing and floor finishing. Multi-axis pocketing provides greater control of the tool contact point and machining angle when using ‘Accelerated Finishing’ tools and ensures that users get the best possible motion.

The new unified multi-axis tool path allows users to select multiple pieces of input geometry to generate the tool-path pattern. Then, using those geometry choices, the tool path picks the best algorithm to calculate the path.

Mastercam’s 3D high-speed blend tool path includes many enhancements, including the ability to keep created passes equidistant in 3D by adding cuts in steep areas and the capability to set the exact number of cutting passes. Furthermore, by applying automatic and custom angles to raster tool paths, Mastercam now automatically sets different angles to maximise the length of the cut pattern and/or minimise the connecting moves.

Finally, advanced drill, a new tool path, is a customisable multi-segment drill cycle that is useful for spot drilling, deep-hole drilling and back spot facing.

For further information
www.mastercam.com

Faro RevEng Software 2021, the latest update to the company’s RevEng software platform, features automatic surfacing capabilities (NURBS), creating surfaces quickly and directly from scanned point clouds and meshes. As a reverse engineering scan-to-CAD software solution, the system is suitable for aftermarket design, the creation of replacement parts, new design iterations or additive manufacturing.

The ‘Automatic NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline) Surfaces Creation Tool’ allows for the creation of a full network of curves and surface patches at the click of a button, ready for immediate export into a CAD file. Full control is also possible by customising the surface patches in the sketch mode with its flexible control point placement, while curves are colour-coded to quickly verify surface continuity. The 3D point cloud capture enables users to create models up to 1.75x lighter with a grid management feature to obtain clean, light and consistent point cloud data.

“Reverse engineering with RevEng is easier and faster than ever,” says John Chan, Faro software product marketing manager. “Users can scan with a Faro ScanArm – paired with the optional eight-axis rotating platform to increase acquisition speed – to generate a high-quality mesh and quickly produce exportable CAD surfaces for machining, FEA simulations or 3D modelling.”

According to Faro, users can also import point cloud or mesh files from any source and repair the mesh with RevEng optimisation tools, automatically repairing meshes up to 20x faster than current leading tools and improving smoothing effectiveness up to 1.5x faster. This makes RevEng software agnostic, ensuring it can be paired with any inspection program.

For further information
www.faro.com

With a wide range of production capabilities, France-based Erpro Group is able to adapt to the needs of its customers by offering them a range of prototype parts, from pre-production to mass production. In this environment, WorkPlan and WorkNC software from Hexagon play a key role.

The group uses production planning software from Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division to automate and manage processes such as job costing, quotations, sales order processing, planning, quality, time, purchasing and stock management.

Workshops in a number of companies throughout the group also use WorkNC, Hexagon’s automatic CNC software for surface and solid models in mould, die and tooling applications for two- to five-axis CNC programming.

“We abandoned the first ERP system we had acquired because it was not suited to our needs,” recalls Cyrille Vue, director at the holding company. “A new contract we were tendering for required simplicity, speed, agility and flexibility from the future software package. At the end of our comparison of various systems on the market, we chose WorkPlan software.”

He adds: “The flow of information in WorkPlan must be continuous and precise. This is particularly important when we’re looking at the profitability of an operation. In this respect, the software has fully supported the growth of Erpro Group, acting as its production planning backbone.”

The Erpro Group has also invested in Hexagon’s WorkNC CAM software, which now plays an important role in the workshops, particularly on the Erpro site.

“With WorkNC, we are able to machine a 3D-printed part on a five-axis machining centre, from the same CAD file,” says Vue.
This is where WORKNC comes into its own, as there are new parts that require manufacturing every day, all of which require new programs.

For further information
www.worknc.com

Asco Power Technologies, based in Welcome, North Carolina, manufactures automatic transfer switches, switchgear and other power management products. The company has used Jetcam Expert nesting software since receiving it alongside a Finn-Power 880 CNC punch press back in 1997. Notably, the software’s performance provided a stark contrast to the different nesting software systems being used to drive other machines in Asco’s facility at the time.

James Hunley, fabrication specialist recalls: “We used a range of nesting software systems supplied alongside machines at the time, with varying issues. One was particularly slow and not user-friendly – more of a CAD system than software designed for punching.”

After using Jetcam Expert alongside the other systems, Hunley realised that it was outperforming them in every way.
“We started to wonder what else it could drive,” he says. “It was the most user-friendly, and financially it was cheaper than other systems. Why, when we can do things faster in Jetcam, would we not use it for everything?”
The decision was made around 2005 to standardise on Jetcam Expert for all new machines.

“We’ve run a number of benchmark comparisons over the years and each time Jetcam outperformed other systems, both in terms of overall speed of programming and nesting efficiency,” says Hunley. “Programming was up to 75% quicker, while nesting efficiency could be as much as 14% better. In addition, the machine path optimisation allowed jobs to run faster with code generated by Jetcam.”

He concludes: “Over the years I’ve dealt with maybe six or seven other systems, and Jetcam is superior to all of them.”

For further information
www.jetcam.co.uk

A free evaluation licence from Alphacam meant that a manufacturer could put a machine awaiting commissioning to work producing essential PPE for front-line health workers. Codem Composites had recently invested in a pre-owned Blackman & White CNC cutting machine, with a bed capacity of 2.2 sq m, to cut carbon fibre pre-impregnated with an epoxy resin. The carbon fibre serves to make components for the motorsport industry and satellite dishes.

“The machine hadn’t been fully commissioned and we had post-processing issues with the software and interface – we didn’t want to invest several thousand pounds in software immediately, given the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19,” explains managing director Kevin Doherty. “However, when we got the call asking us to cut NHS scrubs, we approached Alphacam to help get the machine up and running. Alphacam supported our efforts by providing us with a free evaluation licence.”

The software gave Codem complete flexibility and speed of production by optimising nests. Running at a capacity of around 500 full sets of scrubs a week, the Blackman & White machine cuts components for a group of volunteers in Northamptonshire to put together.

Alphacam accurately interrogates the DXF file for each of the patterns, and computes all permutations and variables.

“So rather than someone having to work everything out manually, such as what we are going to cut, how we are going to cut it, and what’s got to go where, we simply input which components we need in which sizes,” he says. “Alphacam does the rest, including helping us with the correct cutting speeds and feed rates. The first cut parts came off the machine within 24 hours of installing the software.”

For further information
www.alphacam.com