CAM software cuts CNC programming time in half

Brooks Crownhill Patternmakers firmly believes that the EdgeCAM software has cut its CNC machine tool programming time by half and production lead times reduced by 30%.

Brooks Crownhill Patternmakers (BCP) of Andover, firmly believes that the installation of EdgeCAM computer-aided manufacturing software by Pathtrace of Reading has cut its CNC machine tool programming time by half, production lead times reduced by 30 per cent and overall casting efficiency increased by at least 20 per cent.

BCP provides a 'one-stop' shop service covering the supply of patterns, sand and gravity die castings and resin injection mouldings.

It also produces complex mould tools for blow, injection and vacuum processes and provides a CNC machining facility for its foundry sourced precision cast parts.

Having front line contact with BCP customers, sales engineer Lee Henderson is keen to outline the benefits he has seen following the recent installation of EdgeCAM: "The system has already helped us to open up new areas of business such as the machining of complex 3D blow moulds.

While it is still early days, EdgeCAM will also be used on our new gravity die casting tools where we expect to see a three-fold saving against our previous 2D methods," he says.

He explains that as well as improving programming efficiency and accuracy on complicated multi-surface machining tasks, EdgeCAM has also helped to optimise general engineering and even quotations to customers.

"It has certainly reduced the risk of manufacturing errors and we can tackle far more difficult work than ever before," he maintains.

When it comes to precision casting, there's not much BCP cannot provide from its 20,000ft2 facility in Andover.

With its own foundry, the 40-strong company also has nine machining centres and one CNC lathe.

EdgeCAM was selected on three separate counts based on performance, power and price.

As a result, BCP can now directly import 3D solid model files from any of its customers and machine the multi-surface moulds, patterns and dies.

Lee Henderson explains the thinking and debate behind the purchase of the EdgeCAM.

"To advance the business in general and improve our machining capabilities, we needed to be able to work on 3D Parasolid (registered trade mark) or solid file models supplied by our major customers either directly from e-mail or CD.

We really needed to have the capability to import 'dimensionless' data from all the major CAD packages including SolidWorks (registered trade mark), Solid Edge (registered trade mark) and Pro/ENGINEER (registered trade mark) directly into the programming system.

EdgeCAM can readily handle all these systems and enables us to rapidly process part programs ready for download by DNC to specific CNC machines on the shopfloor." Founded in 1962, BCP is a precision casting specialist covering a wide spread of materials including aluminium, zinc, cast iron, gunmetal, phosphorus bronze and steel for industries including aerospace, automotive, electronic, marine and general commercial companies.

Sand castings up to 150kg are produced and gravity die castings up to 25kg in batches from the proverbial single order right up to batches of 1000 a week.

BCP's pattern making expertise accommodates models in wood, resin and metal as well as the reaction injection moulding (RIM) process for accurate prototypes, pre-production and production mouldings requiring low-cost tooling and short lead times.

Before the introduction of EdgeCAM, really complex 3D mould work was either put out to other sub-contractors for machining or, in some cases, even turned down.

The new software now allows complicated multi-surface machining projects such as a large, two-impression blow mould for the main plastics housing of a battery charger unit used by roadside assistance vehicles to be produced.

Machined from two 914mm by 457mm solid aluminium billets, the negative and positive 3D cavities involved extensive profiling, pocketing, surface blending and area clearance routines for the main curved surface form.

In addition there were various upstands, spigots, ribs, multi-stepped forms, runners and block sections that were all easily programmed using a single data source.

As Lee Henderson says: "We were also able to produce particularly fine detail on certain areas of the mould which had to accommodate LED type displays.

For BCP's first blow mould in a Fortal grade aluminium alloy, Pathtrace engineers were there to help create the toolpaths directly on the solid model using the CAD files supplied by the customer.

The entire job including machining took around six weeks while the actual programming time was around five days.

Due to the complexity and cost of the project, a resin board version of the tool was initially machined to verify that all the key parameters and features of the mould were correct before the program was finally committed to machining.

When the final blow mould was produced it had a two per cent global contraction rate and was to a general tolerance of 50 microns.

Following the success of this project, BCP has already machined another intricate blow mould without any problem and a number of other key mould and die projects are currently at the quotation stage.

In the meantime, the company is also using EdgeCAM to produce part programs for 3D pattern making and prototype components to replace stereolithography techniques which it used before.

It is also planned that manufacture of gravity dies, as well as the programming for general machining of castings will make full use of the system.

As Lee Henderson is keen to point out: "There's no doubt that EdgeCAM has helped streamline our production methods.

We can now work in a modern, paperless office and the business is expanding.

We have been very impressed with the level of pro-active support and technical back-up from Pathtrace and the results of their training days has allowed us to run very quickly on our own.".

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