Tomorrow's CAM Specialists Are Taught Alphacam Today at Wolverhampton College

Teaching Alphacam as part of BTEC and City & Guilds courses can give Wolverhampton College students a boost up the career ladder, according to their engineering lecturer.

Neil Davies says within The City Of Wolverhampton College’s BTEC Level 3 course an assessment is based on the students producing a machined part with Alphacam; and a whole unit is based on CAD/CAM as part of their HNC course.

“The students work on a number of different milling parts which include features like pockets, islands, holes and outside profiles. Firstly, the parts are drawn up through CAD. Then we go through importing the DXF, STL or IGES files into Alphacam, creating geometries and toolpaths, looking at speeds and feeds, and optimising programs in terms of tool changes, along with parameters for lead in and lead out moves, and outputting the program to our CNC machine to cut the parts.

“Also, we show them how to modify their programs using Alphacam’s CAD module, rather than exporting it back to our Autocad or Solidworks packages.”

With around 80 to 100 students learning about Alphacam at the college during an academic year, he says many already have a level 2 machining qualification. “So picking up the extra CAM skill gives them the option of taking their career in a different direction as a CAD/CAM operator rather than CNC machine operator, especially as level 3 students also learn G-code and the Heidenhain language.

“These students don’t need a full understanding of CNC because Alphacam produces the code for them, but knowing G-code shows them how a program is built up, meaning they have a greater appreciation of the underlying principles of CNC programming. If students have a good grasp of what goes into building a program it helps them to better understand why they’re doing something in Alphacam.”

A point echoed by student Peter Butler who is in his second year of an HNC Mechanical Engineering course: “It was tedious having to write the program longhand – 50 lines or so of G-code, but it was valuable in showing us what the lines mean. It helps us to know where to amend lines in Alphacam when we need to make changes to our programs.”

However, students doing the specific CNC course would learn about G-code first, and use it to program machines online. Then they would be taught about CAM, which shows them the definite benefits of using CAM over the traditional system of writing CNC codes longhand.

While Peter Butler finds the 3D simulation, including collision avoidance, to be a particularly important feature of Alphacam, he says the whole package gives him a good appreciation of what goes into manufacturing a part. Having completed his apprenticeship with local HVAC company Hotchkiss Air Supply he has seen many different types of complex parts being manufactured, and says that thanks to Alphacam he now knows exactly what has gone into creating them. “It means that when I’ve got this CAM qualification I could become a CAM programmer.”

Fellow student Faith Kelly, who works for Mann + Hummel manufacturing automotive air filtration boxes, says Alphacam makes the machining process much easier than she originally thought it was going to be. “That’s largely down to being able to create the programs so simply. The software does everything I need to produce parts from the original CAD design, through to creating the toolpaths. It’s all very straightforward.”

Neil Davies is looking to upgrade to the recently released 2012 R1 version of Alphacam, as he believes it is invaluable for students to be trained on the very latest industry-standard software which is widely used by engineering companies. Their current Alphacam package is also instrumental in helping the College get the very best from their 25-year-old Beaver Partsmaster 3-axis mill with 16-tool automatic tool changer and Heidenhain controller. “Driving the Partsmaster with Alphacam means it can do things it wasn’t originally designed to do.”

All students are given advice during the theory stage of their courses about which face to datum. “We might suggest they rotate a part to get a better face for datuming,” he says. “And we make sure they understand about the datums within the CNC machine and where the clamps are, so what they’re doing doesn’t interfere with those.

“We also look at jigs and fixtures as well, to see if they need to use them for the part they’re making.” And imparting traditional engineering skills is an important aspect of the courses, such as teaching them to look at all programming requirements of a part before producing the code. “We have to make sure they’re not going to jump in and program it straight away without thinking it through, otherwise they might machine something away that they may need to rely on later.”

It all adds up to ensuring that graduating students have both the theoretical and practical skills they will need in industry, and a knowledge of CAM to help them find jobs involving offline programming.

Best Machinery and Alphacam Software Keep Leemark Successful

Long term partnerships with machinery manufacturers and CNC software developer Alphacam are two key elements that an engineering subcontractor says are vital for its continuing success.

The three brothers who run Leemark Engineering in Hayes, Middlesex, say coupling traditional engineering skills taught to them by their Father, with high-tech machinery and software, has kept customers coming back to them for over 40 years.

Having been one of the first companies in the UK to invest in Matsuura Machining Centres in the 1970s, they have kept the partnership going ever since: a number of Matsuura 3-axis machining centres and two 5-axis Matsuuras, currently handle most of their milling. For turning, they mainly use Mori-Seikis, and as part of a recent £350,000 investment in new machinery, they now have two CMZ machines, the latest a C and Y axis machine with live tooling.

Production Manager Neil Stockwell says three of their last four machines have been multi-axis. “This is the way machining’s going...it’s not good enough just to multi opp a component any more, parts need to be produced more economically by machining more features in one operation.”

In particular, he says, aerospace components have evolved considerably by joining two or three basic parts into one highly complex item requiring advanced CNC software to produce it.

Manufacturing from solids, more than half their output is from the machining centres, but with wire erosion, spark erosion, 2-axis and 4-axis lathes they have the machine which will be absolutely right for the complexity of any component. “Because we have all this capability we can select which is the best way to produce a specific component. We don’t just have to take the traditional route...sometimes it’s better to go on to a Y-axis turning machine with its additional ways of moving the live tooling across the face of the spindle, which may be a more economic way of doing it.”

But whether they need to do a job on a Matsuura, Mori Seiki or CMZ, Neil Stockwell and his brothers Mark (the company’s Managing Director) and Kevin (Senior Programmer), know that Alphacam will be able to produce NC code for all 14 CNC machines. “It means there are no constraints when we purchase additional machines, and this was key in our decision when we started using Licom around 20 years ago, which developed into Alphacam. We knew it was a dynamic software. Machines don’t stand still, they’re always developing. And with two releases of Alphacam every year we know we’re always going to have software utilising our machines to their full capabilities.”

With clients from across a range of industries including motor sport, satellite communications, a leading aircraft ejector seat manufacturer and aerospace, they often work to 20 micron tolerances and 30 micron flatness tolerances, manufacturing from aluminium, aerospace steels, titanium and engineering plastics.

Programmer Kevin spends most of his time working with Alphacam. “Our jobs mainly involve production runs of just 10 or 20 components, rather than hundreds or thousands, so I’m constantly feeding new CNC programs to the machines.”

Alphacam is also Leemark Engineering’s only CAD system, accurately interpreting customers’ drawings from STEP files for instance, and is used right from the initial quoting stage. Once a file has been imported into Alphacam he says the image is fully rotated and angled so they can see all its features. Then they take its measurements, including any small, intricate, corner radii they need to achieve, and produce the quote. “When that turns into an order we choose the face we’re using as our datums, check the features and geometries, and start selecting the toolpaths.”

There is no one particular aspect of Alphacam that they find more important than another. “It’s the flexibility of the whole package which is invaluable to us, because different functions are useful for different components. Sometimes we’re machining a solid model, other times it’s just for feature extracting geometries and creating toolpaths.” Once a CNC program has been created it can be post processed to any of their machines. “It’s saved on a flash card which the operator simply plugs into the front of the Fanuc controller on the chosen machine, and we’re ready to start cutting metal.”

The long-term partnerships with machinery manufacturers and Alphacam are two of the five elements that Leemark Engineering says is vital for its continuing success; the other three being experienced and well trained staff, effective tooling and an infallible inspection process. The company was established by the brothers’ Father, Brian Stockwell, in 1967, and he instilled traditional engineering skills into the boys at an early age; skills such as fully understanding what goes into making a component. “It’s important to look for where the tolerances are and ensure that after two or three operations they are still intact” says Neil Stockwell. “Because many of our components are so highly complex we need to think carefully about the order of machining. We can’t afford to jump in and machine something away that we might need to rely on later in the process.”

A point echoed by Kevin: “When I’m programming I always consider what’s the last feature I want to machine, what’s the last face, how I can hold it, and which features have the tightest tolerances. I work backwards through to the first thing I need to do.”

The brothers say those traditional skills, which are now largely dying out across the industry, are then put to maximum effect by using state-of-the-art software to seamlessly, accurately and speedily manufacture high quality parts for their aerospace, motor sport and satellite customers.

Alphacam is finally used in the companies dedicated inspection department, where measurements taken using co-ordinate measurement machines are compared to the Alphacam models, to ensure all the components manufactured are correct and meet their customer’s requirements.

Alphacam's Tagging Helps Monoplane-Maker Soar

Those magnificent men with their cutting machines played a significant role in getting other magnificient men their flying machine. A Cambridgeshire woodworking company has produced all the shaped wing struts for the re-creation of a famous early 20th Century monoplane.

A group of model-makers from Basildon came across the story of the Oakington Monoplane which was built in 1909 in an attempt to win a £1,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail for the first circular flight of at least one mile, by an all-British aeroplane. Alfred Grose and Neville Feary constructed the original monoplane in a barn in Oakington, Cambridgeshire. Although it never flew, the story captured the model-makers’ imagination, and they are currently building a full-size working model.

Ironically, the woodworking company chosen to manufacture the birch plywood wing struts was The Cutting Room, sited just 15 miles from Oakington as the crow flies.

Cutting Room partner Mark Durey explains that the market-leading CNC software Alphacam was instrumental in cutting out all the components “as sweet as a nut” on their twin-bed Anderson Duo CNC router which has two heads and eight-station auto tool changers. “We used the Anderson as it has the best vacuum for this type of work.

“While Alphacam was absolutely essential for creating the CNC codes for the toolpaths, a particularly important factor for this project was the software’s Support Tagging procedure. Tagging is a real game-changer for making small accurate components like these wing struts. Without it our job would have been much more difficult.”

He says once they had made sure all the geometric lines on the client’s CAD file were clean and interconnected properly, they decided whether they were going to cut inside or outside the line and then put in the toolpaths to a depth of minus-1mm. “Using the tagging function, we raised the cut for lengths of 15mm in specific areas to about 3mm. Putting a series of these in holds the components steady. I always liken it to how Airfix kit parts are held in place.

“Tagging these components saved us hours over the other more traditional options: making a purpose-built jig, pinning, or onion-skinning. Making jigs is time consuming, pinning tends to spoil the component, and with onion-skinning you’ve got to release each part with a craft knife. Using Alphacam’s tagging feature is much quicker and neater.

“Although we were creating a lot of small parts, using tagging effectively makes them one large part, which ensures absolute accuracy and increases the cutting speed.

“The more accurately we can work, the better. And that’s what Alphacam gives us. It means we’re working to perfection. In the office we work to perfection on the programming, then in ‘real life’ when it gets to the machine, it’s also perfect.”

Although The Cutting Room used their Anderson Duo, they could just as easily have transferred the job to their SCM Record 220 or SCM Routomat 3. The Anderson handles most of their contract work, with the Routomat 3 used mainly for kitchen doors – which is a large part of their business – and the Record mainly for 3D work and some overspill from the other two.

“Another distinct advantage of Alphacam, is that its programs can be transferred to any of our machines. We can produce a program for one machine and within a minute it can be transferred to another. We’ve got all our post processors which I can readily tweak. We’d be nowhere without Alphacam, we’re so embedded with it now.”

Alphacam Used Extensively in Irish Education System

With both the Irish state training agency and colleges teaching learners about the Alphacam market-leading CNC software in the Republic of Ireland, young learners are more likely to be offered jobs, and mature learners who are reskilling also find it easier to get back into work.

As the Irish National Training and Employment Authority, FÁS anticipates the needs of, and responds to, a constantly changing labour market. Its training and employment programmes provide a recruitment service to jobseekers and employers, along with an advisory service for industry, while supporting community-based enterprises.

The FÁS centre at Raheen in Limerick specialises in CNC training, and programs its Bridgeport and Mori Seiki mills, and Emco lathes, with Alphacam. As well as year-long City and Guilds courses covering CAD, manual programming and CAM programming for mills and lathes, along with Computer Aided Competencies, The Computer Aided Engineering Department runs sponsored courses for industry, giving training in CNC set-ups and programming. There are also courses for the unemployed, providing them with new or additional skills to get back to work in the metal industry.

Instructor Gearoid Ryan says: “There are distinct differences between our courses and those offered by local colleges and universities. We provide very practical skills, concentrating on the machine side of things – just the relevant subject and the theory about it. It’s the practical, vocational aspects, geared towards getting the learners a job or improving their skills if they’re already working in the industry, instead of just giving them an academic qualification.”

With Alphacam’s renowned ease of use, learners are literally manufacturing parts from aluminium and steel within a week of starting their course. “First of all, they’re taught to use 2D, then solid modelling CAD systems, before moving on to manual part programming and machine set-ups.

Then we introduce CAM, and they learn about Alphacam for mills and Alphacam for lathes. We focus on milling first because there’s more for them to learn and do as there are more functions than for turning work.”

Alphacam-related tasks begin with learning to draw on it, using the powerful CAD module. “This is preparing them for when they find a mistake in a customer’s drawing. We give them the skills to change it in Alphacam. Then they learn to apply the toolpaths – we literally take it from a basic level through to an advanced level.” Learners program the lathes to produce a variety of intricate shapes, both internally and externally using inside and outside profile tools, roughing tools, U-drills and threading tools. On milling, they cover everything from pocket cycles to drilling and tapping, and to profiles – both inside and outside.

Learners’ ages range from 16 to 65, some come with good computer skills, others may have never used a computer before. Some go to FÁS looking to upskill having worked in engineering previously, while others might not have even basic engineering knowledge. “But I’ve never had a learner from any age group or level of experience who’s struggled with Alphacam,” says Gearoid Ryan. “They all master it very quickly. And they quickly see the possibilities it offers them to fully utilise CNC machines: they love its power and the intricate shapes it lets them produce, which would be so difficult, if not impossible, to write a program manually for.”

The learners are guided at their own pace, depending on their experience, taking them all to the same point at the end, with the qualification.

FÁS also teach their learners G-Code so they can fully understand how a program is built up, meaning they have a greater appreciation of the underlying principles of CNC programming. “If the learner has good grasp of what goes into building a program, it helps them better understand why they’re doing something in Alphacam,” he says.

It is that same philosophy behind FÁS training in how to use Heidenhain and ISO. “Because post processors are outputted and sent to our Bridgeports in Heidenhain, and to the Fanuc controllers on our Mori Seiki and Emco in ISO, it helps learners to make changes such as adjusting a tolerance feature, or adding something at the end of a program – perhaps bringing the table forward for loading. If they’re versatile in those languages it saves them having to generate the program again from scratch.”

In addition, the course teaches learners how to use Alphacam for programming CNC woodworking routers. “It’s an overall package covering a lot of areas involved in both engineering metalwork and woodwork. If there’s a vacant job in one of those fields we’ll have trained someone to be able to fill that vacancy.”

Enhancements for Machining Strategies in Alphacam 2012 R1

The latest release of Alphacam CNC software contains new and improved 3D Machining Strategies, which will give manufacturers a competitive edge by allowing them to maximise the potential of their cutting machines.

Alphacam 2012 R1 is the latest release in the market-leading CNC software’s ongoing program of development and enhancement, ensuring it not only keeps pace with the changing needs of manufacturers throughout the world, but also delivers maximum return on investment.

The following are just some of the many functionality improvements in Alphacam 2012 R1:

New and Improved 3D Machining Strategies:

• The new Constant Cusp strategy gives a more consistent surface finish over the entire part
• A 4-axis Cylindrical Profiling strategy is introduced
• The improved Horizontal Z Contour machining with Rest Machining support comes with more control options, increasing reliability
• New Tool Axis Conversion methods for 4- and 5-axis normal to surfaces or solids are introduced.

Continued Improvements to Toolpath Associativity and Operation Editing/Updating:

• All machining operation types are now fully editable
• New commands provide the ability to regain any lost associativity
• Tool Axis Conversion settings are now stored with the operation, and automatically updated as needed
• New API components provide the ability for operations generated by user add-ins (e.g. VBA macros), to support associativity, editing and updating. It includes Machining Styles, adding geometry, and copying operations or boundaries.

Solid Viewing Support for all Modules/Levels:
• Solid bodies contained within Alphacam drawings are now visible and maintained in all Alphacam product levels, including Alphacam and the new Alphacam Shop Floor Editor, which was formerly known as Alphaview+.

Updated and Improved Vertical Application Add-ins:

• The Alphacam APM User Interface has been completely refreshed
• All machining add-ins now support operation editing functions.

Alphacam is renowned as being one of the most responsive CAM systems on the market, providing full machining capabilities to manufacture anything from simple 2-Axis parts through to complex 5-Axis components. Its extensive range of features help manufacturers adapt to changing business requirements, by being able to quickly modify tool paths.

In highly competitive markets, automation is the key to reducing programming time and maximising efficiency. Extensive research and development ensures Alphacam’s twice-yearly releases allow users to gain the absolute maximum performance from their CNC machines and the CAM process, maintaining a competitive edge.

Sandy Livingstone, Founder of Alphacam CAD/CAM Software Passes Away

Sandy Livingstone has died aged 70.

After graduating from Glasgow University with a first class honours degree in mechanical engineering in 1961, Sandy started work designing parts for rocket engines with Bristol Siddeley in Coventry, subsequently getting a job as a full-time lecturer at what became Lanchester Polytechnic and then Coventry University.

Leaving the Polytechnic in the early 1980s he set up Licom Systems, working out of a bedroom at his home in Coventry. Originally Licom’s business was creating, selling and installing computer software for engineering applications, eventually concentrating on CAD/CAM software for programming CNC machine tools.

As a dealer for an American CAD/CAM system called Ultrapath, Sandy took the bold step of developing a brand new system called APS, the first version of which was released in 1989. Then, with a new name; Alphacam for Windows was released in July 1995.

Utilised in many manufacturing sectors, APS and then Alphacam, made a very strong impact in the wood market due in part to its ease of use and strong relationships with CNC machine tool manufacturers.

As business grew Sandy travelled the world from Argentina to Japan and by 1997 he had established subsidiary Licom companies in Italy, USA, Germany, Holland, Taiwan and Japan with distributors and dealers in all other major countries.

Licom’s CAD/CAM software was acknowledged to be in the top three such systems world-wide, and in 1993 was given a Design Council award for being amongst the best.

In 2001 Licom was bought by a larger group - Planit. Sandy was retained as a consultant and non-executive director, spending a few days a week at his desk. After three years of semi-retirement, he fully retired in 2004. The semi-retirement allowed him to adapt to, and enjoy, the slower pace of retired life and lack of deadlines.

Integrating CAD and CAM - Alphacam and 3D Analyzer

The seamless transition from solid model to CNC program is close to the top of every woodworker’s wish-list. Now, Alphacam and 3D Analyzer have teamed up to make this goal a reality. With the ability to import solids from Parasolid and ACIS-based CAD modellers, as well as native solid files from CAD vendors such as Autodesk, Alphacam Part Modeler or Pro/ENGINEER, Alphacam is the ideal software partner for 3D Analyzer.

Using commands specifically developed within Alphacam, imported solid assemblies can be identified, tagged and exported directly into 3D Analyzer. Configurable scripts within 3D Analyzer automatically apply the jointing technology between assembly parts, such as Rafix, and Cam and Dowel. Cutter technology, also applied within 3D Analyzer, prepares each part of the assembly for export back into Alphacam. On import, the powerful Alphacam package automatically machines, nests and outputs the code for each part ready to run on any CNC router.

Darren Duane, managing director OgeeTek, European distributor of 3D Analyzer software, states: “Linking Alphacam and 3D Analyzer enables the automatic manufacture of assemblies created within any solid modeller. Additionally, the combined industry knowledge and experience of Alphacam and OgeeTek means manufacturing has been fast tracked to create seamless integrated environments and increased profitability for our customers. We see this as the ultimate link between CAD and CAM.”

Visitors to Alphacam’s stand (Hall 6, Stand L21) at the W8 show, held from 26th to 29th October 2008 at the NEC, Birmingham, will be able to witness firsthand the business benefits and efficiency gains available from the seamless integration achieved between these two market-leading companies.