Delcam Vortex seminars aim to spread 'faster cutting, longer tool life' message

The webinars will run under the banner 'New Tools, New Rules' and will cover the use of Vortex in each of Delcam's CAM products. The webinar schedule is as follows: 20 November – Vortex in PowerMILL 27 November – Vortex in FeatureCAM 9 December – Vortex in FeatureCAM 11 December – Vortex in PartMaker 18 December – Vortex in Delcam for SolidWorks For full details and to register, go to www.vortexmachining.com/events/index.asp Delcam claims that its Vortex strategy offers the fastest safe metal removal capability when using solid carbide tooling, particularly those tools that support deep cuts and where the full flute length is used as the cutting surface. The strategy can be used for 2- and 3-axis roughing, 3+2-axis area clearance and for rest machining. It gives benefits when machining all types of materials, including titanium, tool steel and alloys such as Inconel. The key to Vortex's productivity, the company explains, is its application of a controlled engagement angle that maintains the optimum cutting conditions for the toolpath, as opposed straight-line moves only. As a result, higher feed rates are possible, cutting times shorter, while cutting is undertaken at a more consistent volume removal rate and at a constant feedrate, so protecting the machine. A series of trials run by Delcam on different machine tools within its Advanced Manufacturing Facility has shown that a time saving of at least 40% should be expected in most cases. The constant feedrate achieved with Vortex is underscored as a fundamental difference to other high speed roughing techniques. Trials at Delcam have shown that this approach is more reliable, as it can often be difficult to predict exactly how machine tools will react to changing feedrates, the company offers. Vortex also uses a minimum radius parameter, calculated to make sure that the machine tool can maintain the cutting feedrate in corners and, more generally, for any non-straight part of the toolpath. This, says Delcam, makes the cutting process more predictable, since the machine should run at the programmed feedrate throughout and not slow down, as it could on other kinds of area clearance toolpath. Other benefits include more predictable and longer tool life. In one example where 2,000 stainless steel components were being produced monthly, the number of tools being used was reduced from 300 to 100 each month. The replacement tools were more expensive but the overall costs were still reduced by around 50%. In another case, a user was able to produce a similar number of parts with a smaller, cheaper tool costing around half as much - about £80 instead of £180. With almost 900 parts being produced each month and both tools able to cut nine parts before replacement, the saving was almost £10,000 per month.