NX CAM 10 offers a powerful solution for prismatic parts machining

New industry-specific capabilities in NX CAM 10 help you program faster and machine better quality parts. In this NX CAM 10 introduction article, we’ll take a look at some of the recent enhancements that help streamline your CNC programming of prismatic or machinery components.

Easily chamfer many holes

The new cham­fering operation applies the powerful hole-milling approach to a common feature with a minimum programming input. NX 10 enables you to automatically calculate the correct tool offset for chamfering holes and generating a circular milling tool path using the familiar hole-making method­ology.

 Figure 1 – Various holes are chamfered in a single operation

You can reduce programming and machining time by chamfering multiple holes with one operation, even when the holes have different orientations. And you can use a single tool to machine chamfers of different sizes that save you even more programming time. The in-process visual­ization displays uncut material after each operation.

Efficiently drill large sets of holes

Minimizing the travel and improving the machining accu­racy can be critical when drilling a large number of holes. The new optimized sequencing in NX enables you to improve drilling operations by specifying the desired drilling pattern and selecting the best start position.

Figure 2 – A large hole set is sequenced for best efficiency

The subsequent operation can start where the previous one ended, reversing the cutting direction, thus further maximizing performance of the machine tool.

Reduce tool changes and machine travel when machining features

With NX 10, you can mini­mize the number of operations needed to machine parts with many holes. Using feature-based machining, holes are identi­fied, filtered and grouped automatically.

Figure 3 – Features are grouped and processed together if they are similar enough to share tools, reducing tool changes and machine travel

Holes sharing similar attributes are programmed together so that they share tools. On the shop floor, the optimized machining process can reduce tool changes, shorten travel distance and increase drilling accuracy.

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 About the Author

Derek has focused on PLM CAM software, in one way or another, since 1992, which sounds like a very long time. He’s written posts, done implementation and training, served as a product manager, and as a marketer. It has all been fun and he’s met a lot of interesting people and seen a lot of interesting machine shops.