Swiss Machining Made Simpler – Advanced Manufacturing

Advancements and shop actions can reduce the difficulty of a challenging process. Read the full article here.

…By contrast, nearly all of his company’s Swiss machines come with free CAM programming software called Abile, created by Tsugami. According to Derek Briggs, Tsugami/Rem Sales’ Swiss Product Manager, third-party CAM software comes with a “general post” for machine tools made by different builders. When it comes to producing code for different machine brands and models, these general posts “are pretty good at all of them but not perfect on any of them, in my opinion,” Briggs said. “The nice part about Abile is that each machine model has its own software focused on that specific model. So the code that comes out is perfect for that model. This is good for people new to Swiss who never had to program a two- or three-path control and don’t know exactly how the code is supposed to look.”

In addition, Briggs said, the software is simple to use and there’s no licensing involved, so it can be put on any computer. It’s also free, while third-party Swiss machining software can cost anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000, he added…

…Tsugami/Rem Sales has also introduced software for “oscillation cutting.” With their very small work area, Swiss machines tend to have problems with chip evacuation, according to Briggs. This is especially true when they’re cutting exotic materials such as Inconel and 17-4 stainless steel, which can produce long, stringy, hard-to-break chips. “If you can’t break those chips, they’re going to wrap around your part and tools,” Briggs said. “Then the operator will have to stop the machine and pull the chips off by hand.”

To prevent chip wrap and the required operator intervention, the new software oscillates the tool axis at a certain frequency during the cutting process to thin and break chips of hard-to-cut materials. “This makes it a lot easier for operators to trust that they can walk away from that machine and it’s going to break chips all day,” Briggs said…

Read the full article here.