MACH 2016 Live machining demonstrations and almost 200 strong sales leads were the highlights for Vero Software (
www.verosoftware.com) at the recent MACH exhibition, where a number of machine tool companies highlighted the latest benefits offered by Edgecam and WorkNC programming software. For example, DMG Mori UK programmed one of its 3+2 DMU ecoMill 500s with WorkNC for machining the chin strap for a fighter-pilot helmet (pictured right); a component designed to demonstrate Edgecam’s Waveform roughing strategy also attracted considerable attention.
DMG Mori UK’s engineering manager, Andrew Beckett, said visitors were particularly impressed with the trochoidal milling and fast material removal rate on the part, which was designed for The modern art of milling — a local partnership between DMG Mori, Edgecam and Sandvik. “It demonstrates the ease of machining pockets, outside milling, face milling and island milling with pockets. The partnership works very well, because it shows our machine tool, the Edgecam CAD/CAM software used to generate the tool-path, and Sandvik’s cutting tools.”
Visitors were able to see some 30 new and enhanced items of CAD and CAM functionality in Edgecam, including super-fast file loading for large assemblies, and auto indexing when moving between features on different planes. Furthermore, a number of machining cycles have been enhanced, including the ability to support several sharp-corner profiling methods — such as loop, break corner and chamfer — with significantly reduced code output.
For turning, the rough-grooving cycle has been improved with the addition of control for managing ‘nibbles’ on corner radii by adding or removing intermediate cuts.
Meanwhile, VISI 2016 R2 features major CAM improvements covering both 2-D and 3-D milling routines, while developments in VISI Mould include cooling-channel management, along with support for solid groups, CAD transformations and updated catalogue components such as plugs, connectors and baffles.
Sheet-metal workers now benefit from Radan 2016’s new interactive auto-tooling concept; this allows users to specify areas of the parts and nest to automatically tool, including individual variations of parameters such as thesettings
for a complicated aperture. Meanwhile, Radmanager provides a simple way of entering customers’ order data and turning it into nest projects within Radan.