CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
26 September 2013
Events News
Delcam’s latest CADCAM Developments on Show in Poland
Delcam’s Polish subsidiary, Delcam Polska, will demonstrate the latest developments in the company’s complete range of CADCAM software at the Toolex exhibition to be held in Silesia on from 1st to 3rd October.
The exhibition comes at a time of rapid growth for the subsidiary. It opened a third office in Bydgoszcz earlier this year, and has recruited additional sales and support staff for the head office in Warsaw and for the office in Katowice.
The main focus on the stand will be on the new Vortex strategy for high-speed area clearance in the 2014 release of Delcam’s PowerMILL CAM system (www.powermill.com). Vortex, for which Delcam has a patent pending, has been developed by the company specifically to gain the maximum benefit from solid carbide tooling, in particular those designs that can give deeper cuts by using the full flute length as the cutting surface. It can be used for two- and three-axis roughing, three-plus-two-axis area clearance and for rest machining based on stock models or reference toolpaths.
The benefits of using the Vortex strategy will vary depending on a number of factors, including the material and shape being cut, and the machine tool and cutting tools being used. 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% is not untypical, with the biggest percentage savings being found when cutting tool steel on a Huron machine with SGS Z-Carb MD cutters. The cycle time for the sample part was reduced from 121 minutes to 34 minutes, a reduction of 71%.
New functionality for the conversion of product designs into tooling designs will be shown in the 2014 release of Delcam’s PowerSHAPE CAD software (www.powershape.com). The software now provides an even more powerful set of easy-to-use tools to increase productivity through increased automation and improved workflow.
By offering a combination of modelling and reverse engineering functionality, PowerSHAPE provides the most comprehensive range of design techniques available in a single CAD program. Having all the different technologies in the same package reduces the need to transfer data between multiple programs and so streamlines the whole product development process. At the same time, the combination of quick and easy direct modelling options, together with powerful and flexible surface modelling, makes PowerSHAPE the perfect choice for design for manufacture.
Another program that has seen significant development is the Delcam Electrode integrated solution for the design, machining and inspection of electrodes (www.delcam-electrode.com). The latest enhancements include support for burn-vector electrodes, automated machining of electrode frames, batch processing of multiple machining projects and faster generation of electrode drawings. Delcam Electrode also benefits from a number of options introduced into PowerSHAPE, which provides the CAD element of the overall solution.
Delcam Electrode combines functionality from PowerSHAPE, PowerMILL and the PowerINSPECT inspection software to give a completely integrated solution for the design, machining and inspection of electrodes. At the heart of the solution is a novel file format – the .Trode file. This contains all the information for each electrode project, including not only the electrode design but also the machining and inspection information, plus the set-up sheets for its manufacture and use. Having all the required information in a single file simplifies data management as well as increasing overall efficiency.
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