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Product category: Software, off-line programming, CAM, for metal cutting machine tools
News Release from: Delcam | Subject: PowerSHAPE CAD, PowerMILL CAM system
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial Team on 24 September 2007

Casting firm's CAM use speeds
development

US casting company uses the latest CAM system to deliver cost-effective prototypes and create models and secondary tooling in a day or even in hours.

Innovative Casting Technologies (ICT), in the USA, claims it can accelerate its customers' product development cycles and help them reduce time to market, since the company had added Delcam's CAD/CAM software ICT is a small, ISO-certified company based in Franklin, Indiana, and produces fast-turnaround prototypes and low-volume castings

Materials include grey iron, ductile iron and aluminium for customers such as Cummins, Deere, Tecumseh, Caterpillar and Parker-Hannifin.

ICT can ship machined prototype parts within three to four weeks of receiving the customer's CAD file.

Depending on the size and complexity of the projects, the company usually produces between three and five different patterns a week.

ICT has used Delcam's PowerSHAPE CAD software and the PowerMILL CAM system since 2005 to deliver cost-effective prototypes to its customers to check form, fit and function, and to evaluate new product designs visually.

Most of the prototype work is manifolds and brackets of various descriptions.

The Delcam software allows it to produce models and secondary tooling in a day or even in hours, said ICT.

ICT owner.

Jack Laugle, said: "For one customer who needed parts for an engine right away, we shipped five six-port exhaust manifolds thirteen days after receiving the CAD file." Laugle is a 'second-generation' patternmaker.

Before starting his own company in 1997, he had had experience at another casting company.

Pattern designer, Tony Luenebrink, explained: "Previously we used another software package but we have found that the options available in PowerSHAPE make the pattern design and machining process much easier.

We bring the customer's part file into PowerSHAPE and then easily break out the component parts - cores, the outside shape and the core boxes - in order to create a pattern to produce the prototype parts".

Luenebrink continued: "Once the file is imported into PowerMILL, it is easy to program the machining in layers to suit the lengths of our cutters.

Many of our patterns can be 10-12in tall, and our cutters are 4-5in (100-125mm) long, so programming in layers allows us to program the machining efficiently.

This saves all kinds of time, which is important to our business".

* No more 'cutting air' - Luenebrink added: "The machining strategies in PowerMILL help us avoid 'cutting air'.

The result is that we can turn around a pattern 30% faster.

For example, a pattern that used to take us twelve hours to program and machine now takes us less than eight hours.

The programming time is similar to our previous method but, once we start machining, we can really see the difference".

Once a prototype casting is delivered and evaluated by the customer, its CAD file can be changed and returned to ICT.

"PowerSHAPE makes its easy to overlay the 3D model from the customer and to see any changes in the new casting file we get back," said Luenebrink.

"This makes it easier to select the areas of a pattern that need re-machining then to modify the PowerMILL file accordingly, so the machine will concentrate only on the area of concern. Request a free brochure from Delcam ...

This saves a lot of time in re-programming and re-machining.".

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