Delcam to be only CAM developer at Pacific Coast Machine Tool Expo

Delcam will reinforce its position as the world’s leading CAM specialist at the Pacific Coast Machine Tool Expo when it will be the only CAM developer to exhibit. At the Expo, which takes place in Santa Clara, California, on 21st and 22nd September, Delcam will demonstrate enhancements across its range of CAM programs.

US analysts CIMdata first ranked Delcam as the leading specialist supplier of CAM software and services in 2000. The analyst’s latest NC Software Market Analysis Report from leading showed that, in 2010, Delcam again had the highest vendor revenues and received the highest end-user payments of all the CAM-centric suppliers, meaning that the company has completed eleven years as the world leader.

The CIMdata report also confirmed that Delcam continues to employ the largest development team in the industry, with 175 people working on the company’s manufacturing software.

The results of this investment will be seen at the Expo, with the 2012 versions on show of PowerMILL, for high-speed and five-axis machining, FeatureCAM for feature-based programming and PartMaker for the programming of turn-mill equipment, bar-fed mills and Swiss-type lathes.

The new release of PowerMILL includes a number of new strategies, together with more general enhancements to make programming faster and machining more efficient with the best-possible surface finish. The most important of these new options is flowline machining. With flowline machining, the toolpath is divided between a pair of drive curves in a constant number of passes, rather than having a varying number of passes with a constant stepover. This approach gives a better surface finish on the part and minimises wear on the cutter and the machine tool.

FeatureCAM 2012 includes a range of enhancements that will enable faster and easier programming, and produce more efficient toolpaths to give greater machine productivity, in particular from further developments in the use of stock models. Two new strategies are available – back boring and spiral roughing. Back boring allows more parts to be completed in a single set-up, with larger bores able to be produced on the reverse side of the part. Spiral roughing can be used instead of Z-level roughing. It uses a single continuous toolpath instead of a series of levels and so gives a smoother finish with no dwell marks.

Major highlights of PartMaker 2012 include a new module for the simulation of vertical and horizontal machining centres, improved simulation for the latest breed of multi-axis, turn-mill and Swiss-lathe machine architectures, more powerful surface machining strategies, and improved visualisation throughout programming, as well as a host of additional productivity enhancements.