Adaptive roughing of free-form surfaces - Within the CAM functionality, the ‘NC5ax/MSurf’ function for 5-axis simultaneous roughing offers users the benefits of 5-axis simultaneous machining when roughing free-form surfaces with minimal effort. For example, in die manufacturing, where large free-form surfaces often must be manufactured with few cavity fractions, users just select the surfaces and blank, and it’s ready to start. The function provides the adaptive and contour-parallel path layout. The ‘NC5ax/MPocket’ function is exactly matched to 5-axis simultaneous roughing of part areas having many cavity fractions. Adaptive and contour parallel milling strategies are integrated. HPC tools can machine high volumes of material very quickly, especially in adaptive roughing.
Perform simultaneous 5-axis machining in a single operation after selecting contiguous milling areas - Connected milling areas can be machined in a single operation and with no extra design effort, even for isoparametric path layouts. User select the surfaces, display the milling area and start the calculation. Highly complex part areas can be easily prepared with the ‘NCPrep/Drive’ function.
Interactively adjust and save tilt direction - 5-axis simultaneous finishing with the ‘NC5ax/MSurf’ function was already convenient before Release 6. The tool tilt direction is interpolated between easily selected vectors and surface quality is often better than in simple machining normal to the part. This function has been further optimised in Release 6, where the integral tilt direction preview lets users check and optimise the quality of the tool direction during programming.
Path layout created via guide curves and area curves - For CAD preparation, milling areas for 5-axis simultaneous milling can easily be defined. For parts with highly complex geometric properties, the ‘NCPrep/Drive’ function provides a convenient way to generate and optimise milling areas for 5-axis simultaneous milling – for instance using guide curves or planar cuts. The path layout can be displayed in advance, the starting position can be adjusted, overlaps, kinks and head movements can be detected and, if necessary, the cutter offset can be changed or, if needed, smooth the paths in the milling or stepover direction. These milling areas can, in turn, be automatically selected in the ‘NCJob’ templates for 5-axis machining.
