High-performance roughing with spiral and trochoidal toolpaths
5-axis tangent plane machining: New strategy for high efficient finishing of plane surfaces with conical barrel cutters
5-axis helical drilling for efficient and tool-friendly plunging into the material
Improved sketcher with new dependencies in hyperCAD-S
hyperCAD-S viewer for viewing CAD data
New shape contour command creates contours of a face or solid model quickly and easily
New strategies for improved 3-D rest material machining
New strategy for efficient finishing of plane faces using special conical barrel cutters
OPEN MIND Technologies AG has announced its hyperMILL version 2016.1. The hyperMILL MAXX Machining performance package is one of the highlights of the release. The hyperMILL and hyperCAD-S versions feature improvements and enhancements. "Among the highlights, the main attraction is a processing strategy, which speeds up Z-level finishing so that the time required to machine can be reduced by up to 90%," said a company spokesperson. Further features include a new rest material strategy, a new user interface for mill turning, as well as highlights in the CAD for CAM system hyperCAD-S.
The hyperMILL MAXX Machining performance package offers three modules designed to help companies realize significant optimization potential in roughing, finishing and drilling applications.
Roughing
The roughing module in the performance package includes numerous cycles for milling in trochoidal toolpaths for fast and reliable HPC machining. Dynamic feedrate adjustment according to actual cutting conditions helps ensure milling with the highest possible feedrates. "This results in optimal milling paths with maximum material removal and the shortest possible production times. High-speed roughing of both prismatic and curved component faces is supported," said the spokesperson.
Innovative algorithms were engineered to help ensure that each tooth of the milling tool always removes a constant chip volume. "This is designed to deliver high utilization rates without exposing the tool to undue stresses, resulting in roughing speeds that are 20 to 70% higher than before," said the spokesperson.
OPEN MIND has made this fast roughing method available for all types of machining from 2-D to 5X simultaneous. The machining strategy is designed to increase the speed and tool life. Stress on the tool and machine is reduced at the same time.
Finishing
"The finishing module of the hyperMILL MAXX Machining performance package is an example for the application of tool characteristics in combination with trendsetting CAM strategies," said the spokesperson. The barrel cutter module includes pre-finishing and finishing of planes and free-form surfaces with various barrel cutters. "Time savings can be achieved with a simultaneous improvement in surface quality," said the spokesperson. These benefits are accomplished with CAM strategies that are designed to use the special shape of the tools to best advantage. The finish depends on the step-over distance and tool radius. "The quality of a workpiece surface decreases as the line increment increases, and improves as the tool diameter gets larger. This means that if users want to shorten the machining time by increasing the infeed rate, for example 5 mm instead of 0.5 mm, the tool radius has to be increased several times over to obtain a high surface quality at the same time," said the spokesperson. Since the tool diameter cannot be increased at will, barrel cutters only work with a section of the desired tool diameter - a circle segment. Larger step-over distances can be realized due to its bigger radius, while achieving high quality surface finish. "The hyperMILL MAXX Machining finishing module realizes fast, high-quality machining jobs with general, tangential and tapered barrel cutters. All tool paths are checked for collisions," said the spokesperson.
With its 5-axis tangent plane machining, OPEN MIND has developed a CAM innovation for plane machining. "Time savings of up to 90% can be achieved together with the conical barrel cutter. Path distances of 6 and 8 mm are possible with the large radii of the conical barrel cutters. This results in optimal surfaces and longer tool life," said the spokesperson.
Five-axis tangent plane machining is designed for straightforward and hard-to-reach planes. Tool paths are generated automatically and checked for collisions.
"Companies in various sectors such as tool and mold making, aerospace or the automobile industry can reap benefits from the programming strategies available with the hyperMILL MAXX Machining finishing module," said the spokesperson.
"Hard to reach areas such as deep and narrow cavities can be processed with high efficiency due to 5-axis tangent plane machining and the conical barrel cutter," continued the spokesperson. "Holes can be machined easily and efficiently. This cycle involves helical milling with a forward lead angle. A tilt angle to the side is then used as part of collision avoidance process."
Drilling
Only one tool is needed for different drill diameters. Pre-drilling is not necessary and the strategy is designed for materials that are hard to cut. The process features safe chip removal and is engineered to reduce stress on the tool.
"Practical tests have shown that, with 5-axis helical drilling, the machining time can be reduced by 20 to 25% compared to conventional drilling," said the spokesperson.
3-D Optimized Rest Material
The rest material cycle generates HSC-optimized toolpaths for rest machining. Intelligent filtering options and algorithms make a shorter calculation time and better surface possible.
Mill Turning
Defining and managing mill turning cutting tool reference using the tool database is more convenient. Cutting inserts can also be defined in the tool database using the ANSI/ISO code, so that standardized tools can be created more quickly according to specifications. A revised user interface for mill turning is also designed to make work easier. The cycles for finishing, roughing, grooving and parting are arranged in a menu window.
CAD Viewer
The hyperCAD-S viewer - an independent system - can in the future be used for fast and straightforward viewing of model data. This viewer supports all common file formats such as CATIA, PTC Creo, Autodesk Inventor, STL and more. The viewer is primarily used in departments that do not require a complete CAD system, for example in job planning or quote calculation.
Fast Preparation of Shape Contours
"The outline curves of a face or component can be created quickly and easily with the new function," said the spokesperson. This function can be applied to surface models as well as solid models. Contours for subsequent CAM machining can be created quickly.
Sketcher
Major further improvements have been made to the sketcher in regards to user friendliness. It now offers functionality for drawing design sketches. Mini dialogue boxes allow users to enter desired design values. Users can also select common design dependencies using the sketcher, such as vertical, horizontal and tangential as well as angle and parallelism dependencies. This function can also be applied to existing curves and faces.
Mesh Functionality
hyperCAD-S also works with meshes in addition to curves, faces and solids. Four new functions have been added for preparing meshes: separating joined meshes, smoothing mesh surfaces, reducing mesh density and closing holes in meshes.
For more information contact:
OPEN MIND Technologies USA, Inc.
1492 Highland Ave., Unit 3
Needham, MA 02492
888-516-1232 / 339-225-4557
info.americas@openmind-tech.com
www.openmind-tech.com