Posts Tagged ‘cnc milling machine’

SolidCAM to Exhibit its latest version at SolidWorks World 2008

2008-01-18 17:36:29 –

January 18, 2008 – SolidCAM, the leading and fast growing supplier of integrated CAM software solutions for the manufacturing industry, today announced it will exhibit at SolidWorks World 2008, one of the world’s largest annual 3D CAD events. This in-ternational user conference and exposition takes place in the San Diego, CA, Conven-tion Center January 20 – 23, 2008.

SolidCAM will demonstrate the new version SolidCAM2008 R12, which is Gold-certified for SolidWorks®2008 at Booth # 632. The single-window user interface and the full as-sociativity between the CAD model and NC tool path guarantee a short learning curve and an efficient data flow from the 3D design model to the machined part. The new version provides a complete manufacturing solution with enhanced user friendliness, more automation features and additional CAM functions. SolidCAM2008 R12 supplies improvements for all Milling applications, including interactive and automated 2.5D Mill-ing, High-Speed Machining, Indexial and Simultaneous 5-axis Machining. Also, users will benefit from new features for the Mill-Turn, which includes support up to 5-axes (XYZCB) and back spindle operations.

SolidCAM is also presenting at the Certified Partner Theater on Tuesday, Jan 22nd at 4 p.m. Mr. Bede Kortegast, SolidCAM’s VP of sales for North America, will demonstrate the latest innovations in SolidCAM2008 R12.
Today, SolidWorks and SolidCAM look back to a successful 5-year partnership, which started in the year 2003 with the Gold certification and the Bundle agreement. Emil Somekh, founder and Managing Director of SolidCAM, states: ‘As a Gold-certified part-ner of SolidWorks, we have always been committed to single-window integration and full associativity with SolidWorks – in our view the best solution to streamline the entire manufacturing process which results in reduced costs and shorter lead times.- He continues: ‘In the past 5 years, we succeeded together with SolidWorks to win several thousand new customers, which benefited from the combined solution Solid-Works+SolidCAM. In the next years, we will continue to strengthen our leadership in In-tegrated CAM.-

About SolidCAM

Founded in 1984 by its Managing director Dr. Emil Somekh, SolidCAM provides manu-facturing customers with a full suite of CAM software modules for 2.5D and 3D Milling, High-Speed Machining, Multi-sided Indexial 4/5 axes Milling, Simultaneous 5 axes Mill-ing, Turning, Turn-Mill up to 5-axes and WireEDM. SolidCAM has the Certified Gold-product status from SolidWorks and provides seamless, single-window integration and full associativity to the SolidWorks design model including parts, assemblies and con-figurations. SolidCAM has today more than 12,000 seats installed. SolidCAM is sold by a worldwide reseller network in 46 countries. SolidCAM is used in the mechanical manufacturing, electronics, medical, consumer products, machine design, automotive and aerospace industries, in mold, tool and die and rapid prototyping shops. SolidCAM has been on a very rapid growth path since it implemented the SolidWorks integration strategy with high annual growth rates of more than 30%. For the latest information, visit the company’s website www.solidcam.com

For more information about SolidCAM visit:
www.solidcam.com

Press Contact
Rachael Dalton-Taggart
Strategic Reach PR
Tel: (303) 487-7406
Email: Rachael@strategicreachpr.com
 

Touch Application Requires Tough Mills

Automotive parts subject to high loads, such as drive shafts, gear wheels, and cardan joints, are formed using special tools. Besides having to meet increasingly demanding quality requirements, component manufacturers have to pay particular attention to the cost of the manufacturing process as a whole.

Eleven partners working together in the European Union (EU) project, HardPrecision, have developed a five-axis milling machine for high-precision hard machining. The results were presented at the Euromold 2007 fair, which took place in Frankfurt, Germany.

"Automotive parts, for instance, and the cold-working tools used to shape them, are expected to last for increasingly longer. For this reason, they are made out of extremely hard, high-strength materials, but this also means that they are more difficult to machine.

It is a major challenge for the European tooling and mould-making industry, because the parts have to be manufactured to a high standard of quality, without driving up costs,“ says Kristian Amtz, of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology, in Aaachen.

In current practice, the process chain in tooling and mould-making involves milling, hardening, surface treatment by spark erosion and, often, final finishing by hand. In the EU’s HardPrecision project, the Fraunhofer specialists teamed up with ten European partners to develop an improved machine for high-precision, five-axis hard milling.

The industrial partners included component manufacturers, such as Hemtech Machine Tools, of the Netherlands, System 3R AB, of Sweden, and Walter Dittel, of Germany, and also end-users, such as Hirschvogle Umformtechnik, Moldit SA, of Portugal, and Norma, of the Netherlands.

On the scientific side, the Fraunhofer researchers were supported by the Research Centre for Manufacturing Technology, at the University of Prague, in the Czech Republic.

"One of the chief objectives was to reduce the process cycle for the tools,“ Amtz explains.

To do so, the researchers undertook a detailed study of the whole milling process – starting with Cam and NC technologies, and continuing with machine tools and tool coatings through to process monitoring.

"In HardPrecision, we took a broad view of the whole process chain. Our partners told us which materials they intended to work with in future. These comprised mainly conventional and powder-metallurgical cold-work and high-speed steels,“ Amtz relates.

To optimise the entire seqsuence of proces steps, the scientists defined a number of separate work packages. This meant, for instance, having to reconfigure the process technology, given that one of the key questions addressed by the project was: What is the most cost-effective way of obtaining the necessary tool geometry?

"The modern trend in manufacturing is to use a single forming process to produce increasingly complex shapes, for instance, highly loaded steering system componets. As a conequence, toolmakers are also having to deal with highly complex shapes. This, in turn, increases the complexity of the necessary machining tools and the design of the individual milling paths," says Amtz.

The solution found by the researchers was to adapt the machine to the new requirements by developing an optimised prototype with all-hydrostatic bearings. The improvements they implemented included the integration of lightweight structures and optimising the coordination between the machine and the control system.

CAD/CAM Software Helps R&D Process

In prototyping and producing medical components, a company said that its CAD/CAM software enables it to often go from prototype to production in a matter of days, producing tooling in-house

The rapid introduction of its minute medical components is owed by the Oscor company to Delcam’s CADCAM software. Oscor’s chief of manufacturing engineering, Ed Smith, said: ‘We do a lot of R and D and constantly come up with new products. We often must be able to go from prototype to production in a matter of days.

One of the ways we are able to do this is to produce all our tooling in-house.

This gives us control over the development and helps us achieve very fast turnaround on every tool’.

Oscor designs, develops, manufactures and markets a range of highly-specialised lead systems for pacemakers and a variety of other medical applications.

Most are high-volume, high-accuracy components produced in the range of 100,000 parts’month.

Typical tolerances are 0.0002in.

Oscor operates a state-of-the-art machine shop, which includes high-speed CNC vertical milling machines and a Roku Roku turning centre served by a robotic loading system.

There are four high-speed milling machines, two Mori Seiki machines for metalcutting and two others for machining graphite electrodes.

All can run at 20,000 rev/min.

The CNC milling machines use very small cutters.

The smallest is a 0.005in diameter ball cutter for milling the electrodes.

The company also runs six Star Swiss-turn automatic lathes.

Smith introduced Delcam CADCAM software into Oscor.

He said: ‘We now use PowerSHAPE and PowerMILL for our mills and PartMaker for our Swiss-turn machines.

Our Mitsubishi wire EDMs are run by Partmaker Wire.

I’ve always liked Delcam because it is not a limited product, it has a lot of flexibility for the user built into it’.

Delcam told manufacturingtalk.com that Oscor uses PowerSHAPE, to analyse its mould models for duplicated or missing surfaces, interactively inspect draft angles, and see hard-to-mould areas for the tiny leads.

Smith said that 90% of the parts Oscor makes can be created with solid modelling.

Smith added: ‘For the other 10%, we found that the surface modelling flexibility of PowerSHAPE has been very helpful’.

Smith said: ‘PowerMILL even lets us write our own software code to automate our work.

We first create a Visual Basic program and link it back into PowerMILL.

For example, this ability has allowed us to automate the robotic handling of electrodes and tell the machine how many, and what kind of, electrodes we want it to produce.

Little things like that add up to a lot of time saved’, PowerMILL’s range of high-speed machining techniques help to assure rapid delivery of high-quality mould tools and components for Oscor.

According to Smith, that ability is a big reason customers come to his company.

‘We can do these micro-moulds faster that most shops could ever hope to,’ he claimed.

‘Our specialty is the quick prototype-to-production work in the 30,000 parts per month range and that is where the Delcam software really helps us to be responsive to our customers

This is my initial post to layout my catagories and tags for this CNC News Website.