CAM system offers functions and strategies that save time and money

Related Vendors

Jongen Werkzeugtechnik GmbH

Ramada Acos

Knarr Vertriebs GmbH

OPEN MIND Technologies Schweiz GmbH

Machining time savings of 90 percent with the performance package

The Hyper Mill Maxx Machining performance package also offers a range of innovative technologies. The power strategies provide a very high level of efficiency in roughing, finishing and drilling. “The way in which Open Mind improves and develops its products is exemplary.” Roughing takes place in spiral and trochoidal tool movements. The large axial in-feed depth of the tool over the entire cutting length results in a material removal rate that is up to 75 percent faster than those achieved with conventional strategies. This also makes the life of the tools considerably longer.

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The 5-axis tangent plane machining and 5-axis tangent machining strategies of the Hyper Mill Maxx Machining finishing module help reduce machining times even further. These finishing operations make it possible to machine steep, planar and all continuous curve surfaces with conical barrel cutters. Small corner radii can also be milled with the same tool in one job. “These types of operations would take far too long using ball mills or torus cutters and would no longer be economically viable,” explains Marco Mergner. The 5-axis helical drilling function is also being used frequently at Knarr and is providing a great benefit. “This function makes it possible to use milling tools tilted in cutting mode to generate various hole diameters, even in materials that are difficult to machine and without the need for any pre-drilling. This means we need fewer tools in the magazine and we save time.”

Time savings illustrated using a practical example: one hour instead of twelve

The machining specialists from the mould assembly milling department were able to demonstrate the significant benefits offered by the 5-axis tangent machining strategies with conical barrel cutters at a number of events, including the “Third Knarr Precision Day”, which took place this year. For this purpose, they constructed a 96 mm-thick mould plate with a rectangular, conical breakthrough with a 1 mm corner radius. Marco Merg- ner and his team used all three modules from the Hyper Mill Maxx Machining performance package for the complete machining on a 5-axis DMC 80 U duoBlock machining centre from DMG Mori in order to generate the appropriate NC program: Using 5-axis helical drilling, a milling head first generates the recess. After a roughing job, the inner surfaces and curved outer surfaces are finished using a conical barrel cutter. “With a conical barrel cutter and 5-axis tangent plane machining, we can select a line spacing of 1 to 2 mm and achieve very good surface qualities even with a narrow corner radius. With a 2 mm ball mill, we had to choose a stepover of 0.01 mm or smaller in order to get a half-decent surface,” explains Marco Mergner. His milling team have been able to save an enormous amount of time, as he proves with an example: “In an ideal situation, milling with a ball mill would have taken 12 hours. Using the CAM strategy and conical barrel cutter, we are finished in just an hour and can still achieve the very best surface qualities, even in the corners.”

Marco Mergner also uses this sample mould plate to highlight further strengths of the Hyper Mill CAM solution. He considers the option to create a complete and reliable NC program – which begins right at the start with the automatic output of the zero point and the probing cycles – to be particularly beneficial. “This eliminates a lot of manual work long before we actually start machining,” explains Mergner, the team leader..

Manual measuring is, to some extent, now also a thing of the past, as the components are measured directly after machining. Open Mind has integrated a measurement solution with several measurement cycles in Hyper Mill for such internal process quality control purposes. The programmers have added a cleaning cycle. This way, the finished component leaves the machine in record-breaking time.

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