Shops that install multiaxis CNC equipment are immediately faced with a paradox: The multiaxis CNC was acquired because it has the potential to dramatically improve accuracy and machine cycles while improving overall machining capabilities. However, to achieve all this, you have to put your investment at risk by allowing the equipment to operate swiftly in many, often simultaneous, dimensions and this increases the potential for catastrophic collisions exponentially.
What often happens, particularly for first time users, is that the shop “babysits” the machine, programming it to run conservatively and requires someone to watch over it to ensure it stays out of trouble. For the sake of safety, the shop sacrifices all the benefits of efficiency and creativity that the multiaxis CNC system can provide. This approach is, of course, a tremendous waste of both manpower and machining capacity.
Multiaxis users need to get past this stage as quickly as possible. They can accomplish this by becoming proficient in machine simulation.
Machine simulation provides you with additional layers of visualization, so that you can zoom in and zoom out at will, to observe everything that will happen during your machining process. You can move the simulation along very quickly in program segments where you are certain that the part, tool, holder fixtures, and peripheral devices (e.g. robots) are in no danger of colliding. When everything is happening in a confined space, you can slow the simulation down to observe these interrelated movements in slow motion or step through them in block fashion.
Do you have a game changing machine simulation application?
Let us know and Mastercam can feature your experience in a story. Email marketing@mastercam.com
