IML cracks the code with hyperMILL

A selection of complex parts machined with hyperMILL at IML UK

From one-off components to high-volume production, is a sub-contract machining company that specialises in giving its customers exactly what they want — when they want it. With more than 25 CNC machine tools running 24/7 and 365 days a year, the Weymouth-based company has invested in the very latest five-axis machine tools, pallet automation technology and of course, a CAD/CAM suite from Open Mind Technologies.

Established as a partnership that started with just two machines back in 1995, IML has invested more than £3 million since 2017. Working with prestigious customers in the automotive, aerospace, medical, defence and marine sectors, the company has most recently invested in a DMG Mori Monoblock 85 with automation to service its growing customer base that demands larger components. This takes its five-axis machine tool capacity to six machines — all with automated pallet systems.

IML UK director David Zollo said: “The work on the machining side of the business is predominantly aluminium with our turning department being mainly stainless steel machining. We have now been doing this for 30 years, so when we began there was not any CAD. We entered the market of CAD and CAM systems back in the early days and we have now had that CAM system for probably around 25 years. However, things have evolved and designers have changed the way they design things and jobs are getting more complicated. The parts are getting more complex and the software systems have changed too.”

Pictured right: motorsport pedals machined at IML

He continued: “Now, we use two CAM systems. We introduced hyperMILL more recently and we are finding that hyperMILL is better on the complex parts we make — but we are now also applying it to our simple parts. For parts where there are loads of lines of code, it is all about the regeneration. If you are designing a complex part there can be a lot of time spent regenerating the program. If you have a part that you want to design, one software package can spend a long time regenerating that program, especially if you have to make a tiny change at the end of the program — it will regenerate the program from the top all the way down. Sometimes that can be very time-consuming.

“When you do a regeneration of a complex part that is ‘millions of lines long’, we are used to the regeneration taking forever but with hyperMILL, it will just regenerate the bit you need. This saves us a lot of time on our more complex parts. So, hyperMILL is better for programming our complex work as it is much quicker, especially when you just want to make a small change.”

Alluding to tool paths, Mr Zollo added: “We just find that with CAM software cycles, the tool is always moved up and over — and back and forth with a lot of ‘thin air cutting’. It is hard to see that ‘thin air cutting’ when you are programming, as there are so many lines of code on the screen, so it is almost impossible to see the tool paths. When it is on the machine, you see the machine cutting thin air when the tool is travelling up and over the part. These are the parts where you need to go back to the software and change the toolpaths.”

Pictured left: a batch of complex five-axis parts programmed and machined with hyperMILL

He continued: “When you do that and you have to regenerate the whole programme, it takes forever. If you can just regenerate that one part of the program, as you can with hyperMILL — it makes it much faster to get the part back on the machine and cutting.

“As a company that has two software systems, we do know what we are talking about. So, we can give an honest opinion of where we are with the two systems. With hyperMILL, the training, service and sales teams were fantastic and we found the transition from one system to another very easy. They are two completely different systems, but some similarities made the transition easier. We are now leaning more and more towards hyperMILL when it comes to our complex parts.

“The service and applications team have been fantastic. With the evolution of things like Teams in the aftermath of Covid-19, we do not need engineers coming to see us. We contact them and they can link into the software and see what is on our screen via Teams. This means that with just a call, we can get things sorted over the phone with Open Mind. Even the updates can all be done online, so it is fantastic.”

Pictured right: motorsport components programmed and machined with hyperMILL

Regarding the capabilities of hyperMILL, Mr Zollo said: “They do have more cycles on there, so you can now look at a part and have around 20 different cycles you can choose from and determine which one will work best for your part. Open Mind are launching more strategies all of the time too and this increases the number of options. Parts are forever getting more complex and you can select what you think may be the best strategy, but you then change to another strategy and save yourself an additional 10min on cycle times. There is a definite advantage to having more cycles and more options available.”

He added: “We have three-axis and five-axis machines on-site as well as large and small machines — we pretty much have the full suite of technologies available to us. For this, we find hyperMILL is fantastic. Once we have generated a program, the posts mean that we can almost move the program from machine to machine. We can even run a job on a five-axis and with a small change move it to a horizontal machine. A horizontal may work completely differently from a five-axis, but once you have the tool paths in there, you can just change it around. We found that once we generate a program, we can pretty much move it to any machine. We can even take out the five-axis stuff like certain tool paths and transfer parts to a three-axis machine. hyperMILL gives us this flexibility.”

Discussing the latest DMG Mori DMC 85 FD monoBLOCK investment that arrived in 2023, Mr Zollo concluded: “We have invested in this large machine as our parts are getting bigger. The larger the part and the more complex the jobs become, the more lines of code are required. With this trend, we find that hyperMILL is the only software package we will use on this machine. That is because the program files are so large and long that hyperMILL is pretty much the only system that can cope with it.”