EG2501 Design and Computing in Engineering Practice 2011-12

Engineering Design, Solid Modelling

Laboratory 3 Computer Integrated Manufacture with HAAS_VF2 CNC Milling Machine

Dr Hongyue Sun

Contents
Contents ..........................................................................................................................1 1. Aims .............................................................................................................................2 2. Assessment .................................................................................................................2 3. Health and Safety ........................................................................................................2 4. Completion of CNC program for the hinge ...................................................................3 4.1 Set up Hinge_2Cuts Milling Operations ........................................................................................... 3 4.2 Set up Hinge_3Cuts Milling Operations ........................................................................................... 9 5. Working on the CNC Machine .....................................................................................9 5.1 CNC System File, HAAS_VF2 ................................................................................................................. 9 5.2 Working on the CNC Machine........................................................................................................... 10

EG2501 Design and Computing in Engineering Practice 2011-12

Engineering Design, Solid Modelling

1. Aims
(i) To understand how the CIM (computer integrated manufacture) is processed (ii) To lean the process of CIM (iii) To continue using SprutCAM for the hinge parts created in week 37 lab session (iv) To generate the NC (numerical control) program for HASS_VF2 type CNC milling machine in the School Workshop (v) To manufacture the hinge pieces of the 3Cuts and 2Cuts with the HASS_VF2 milling machine under the Technicians supervision.

2. Assessment
Class Assessment You must attend the laboratory and mechanical workshop session and carry out the work outlined in this Lab-note. Attendance will be taken during the class session. At the end of the session, each group should complete manufacturing the two base pieces of the hinge. The final product should be matching the original design. Both the original design and the manufactured pieces should be shown to one of the demonstrators for assessment. Be prepared to answer questions about the work you have done. You will be rewarded a mark (out of 20) based on the completion of the simulation and CIM work you have done in the class. Formal Assignment: Report 1 Based on the design and CIM work you carried out in Design Lab 2 and 3, you are required to submit the first Formal Assignment in the form of lab report. The detailed outlines about the format of the report, what to be included and deadlines for submission, etc, will be released on MyAberdeen under Continues Assignment menu after the last lab session in week 41.

3. Health and Safety

This laboratory involves not only the computer simulation, but also a CNC milling machine and the Mechanical Workshop environment. For using computers, you should make sure that you do not take liquid into the computer classroom where potential hazard of electrical shock may occur when spill the liquid in the room. For working in the Mechanical Workshop, there would be some concerns about health & safety procedures. Therefore, you should Be aware: No one should enter the Workshop without the permission of the Technician in charge. On entry to the Workshop, students should follow the instructions of the Technician in charge and not wonder away from the machine. The machine itself is fully enclosed so the wearing of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) is not necessary for this exercise.

EG2501 Design and Computing in Engineering Practice 2011-12

Engineering Design, Solid Modelling

Be supervised by the Workshop Technicians throughout the half-hour session.

4. Completion of CNC program for the hinge

In this lab session, you will work in a group of 10 to manufacture the hinge you designed in lab 2 session in the School Mechanical Workshop. You can find the list of group members in file EG2501Lab3group-time.pdf on MyAberdeen. Each group will only be given 30 minutes to use the CNC milling machine. Therefore, you will have to run through the machining simulation and spot any potential mistakes in the process, and finally generate the NC program for controlling the milling machine. Based on the design of a two-/three-cut hinge pieces and what you learnt in Design Lab 2, you can complete the milling simulation of manufacturing the hinge.

4.1 Set up Hinge_2Cuts Milling Operations

Referring to lab 2 notes (lab2note_update.pdf), you learnt how to use SprutCAM to complete the cut in one direction, i.e. the set z direction. However, to manufacture each piece of the hinge (exclude the pin), more than one-direction cuts will be needed. To this point and based on the same principles, you can create different milling operations to complete the manufacture process for both hinge pieces (i.e. 2Cuts and 3Cuts). Although this should not be a one-solution approach, the following considerations should be taken into account: Using suitable and available tools Reducing the number of separated milling settings for one part Realignment suitability for separated milling operations for one part Fixture for the workpiece at the beginning and for the intermediate milled part when requiring separated milling operations. In principle, you can create your own milling operations. But in this occasion, because we only have very limited time and we must be supervised by the Technician in charge for operating the CNC machine in the Workshop, we are required to create two separated sets of milling operations for each hinge piece as the following. Vertical cut to the hinge base Referring to Lab2note, import Hinge2Cuts.sldprt (you may have different name) in SprutCAM, and create 2 milling operations (Figure 1) in this setting: Roughing waterline, for removing material Finishing waterline, for fine cutting on the tabs

EG2501 Design and Computing in Engineering Practice 2011-12

Engineering Design, Solid Modelling

Figure 1 Vertical cut to the hinge base

The tool settings for these two milling operations are shown in Figure 2

EG2501 Design and Computing in Engineering Practice 2011-12

Engineering Design, Solid Modelling

Figure 2 Too settings for the Roughing waterline (top) and Finishing waterline (bottom) in the Vertical cut to the hinge base.

Run the operations in the Machining mode, once seen green tick signs, go to Simulation mode and watch how the milling operations are performed on the CNC machine. Save the project as, e.g. Hinge2Cuts_Vertical_cut. Horizontal Cut to the hinge base Import Hinge2Cuts.sldprt again in SprutCAM, and create 4 milling operations (Figure 3): Roughing waterline, for removing material Finishing waterline, for fine cutting Hole machining, drilling 9 mm hole (8.5 mm for 8 mm bolt, plus tolerance of 0.25 mm) Hole machining2, drill countersink hole on top of 9 mm hole

Figure 3 Horizontal cut to the hinge base

EG2501 Design and Computing in Engineering Practice 2011-12

Engineering Design, Solid Modelling

The tool (available in the Workshop) settings for these four milling operations are shown in Figure 4 to 7.

Figure 4 Tool settings for Roughing waterline

Figure 5 Tool settings for Finishing waterline

EG2501 Design and Computing in Engineering Practice 2011-12

Engineering Design, Solid Modelling

Figure 6 Tool setting for Hole machining

Figure 7 Tool settings for Hole machining2

As the available countersink drill tool is 20 mm in diameter, which is larger than the hole we have on the hinge, we have to limit the path by using the Recognize function to identify the cut parameters from our model. Do the following In Machining mode, highlight Hole machining2, then click on Job Assignment button, then Recognize, with the current tool (20 mm diameter), there is no hole is recognised because all holes in our model is smaller than 20 mm (Figure 8), the software considers no cut can be performed.

Figure 8 Process for Hole Recognising

EG2501 Design and Computing in Engineering Practice 2011-12

Engineering Design, Solid Modelling

If we change 20 to 2, all holes in the model will be recognised (Figure 9, left). Now uncheck the holes with diameters of 9 mm and 17.30 mm, only get the four 17.32 mm holes checked, then OK. The checked hole features will appear in the main window (Figure 9, right).

Figure 9 Holes recognized for countersink drill

Now highlight these four hole features and double click on them, a new window pops up, where the Zmin should be set as By model.

Figure 10 Using By model to limit the minimum value of Z

Following the same procedure, you can Recognize the four 9 mm holes for completing Hole machining operation. <Run> all operations in Machining mode, once seen green tick signs, go to Simulation mode and watch how the milling operations would be performed on a CNC machine. Save the project as, e.g. Hinge2Cuts_horizontal_cut.

EG2501 Design and Computing in Engineering Practice 2011-12

Engineering Design, Solid Modelling

4.2 Set up Hinge_3Cuts Milling Operations

The procedures for creating milling operations for the Hinge_3Cuts piece is the same as for the Hinge_2Cuts, described in 4.1 section. But you will need to change the hinge configuration to 3Cuts in SW before importing it to SprutCAM. Once imported the part, you will also create two sets of separated milling operations, just like what you did for the 2Cuts piece. Save both .stc files as Hinge3Cuts_Vertical-cut and Hinge3Cuts_Horizotal_cut for later use. You now should have four .stc project files, which will be used to generate the NC program for manufacturing hinge in your Workshop session. You may save these files on an USB key.

5. Working on the CNC Machine

5.1 CNC System File, HAAS_VF2
It is the NC program which controls the CNC machine. In Design Lab 2, you also learnt how to use the set milling operations to generate NC program by running Postprocessor. Now, to specifically generate a NC program for the CNC milling machine in our School Workshop, you will need to have the CNC system file (with an extension .spp) in hand for the specific milling machine. The machine we are going to use is called HAAS_VF2, and its CNC system file, HAAS_VF2.spp, can be found on MyAberdeen under Lab 3 folder. Store HAAS_VF2.spp file Now, store HAAS_VF2.spp in a folder called Postprocessor, which would normally created automatically in My Documents folder when you install SprutCAM on your laptop. For the classroom computers, you can create such folder on your Home drive or an external drive under a directory such as the following:
C:\User\Documents\SprutCAM\Version 7\Postprocessors

Run Postprocessor to generate NC program After the HAAS_VF2.spp file is stored in a directory, with one of the project .stc files (e.g. Hinge2Cuts_horizontal_cut project) opened, repeat the procedures of Run the <Postprocessor> specified in Lab2note_update.pdf on page 14, when the postprocessor window is opened you should look for and select HAAS_VF2.spp from the list of CNC systems (Figure 11, left), then click the <Run> button to generate the NC program. Note that if the CNC system file for HAAS_VF is not in the list, you can use Browse (Figure 11, left) to allocate the file.

EG2501 Design and Computing in Engineering Practice 2011-12

Engineering Design, Solid Modelling

Figure 11 HAAS_VF2.spp in Postprocessor (left), the NC-program is generated (right)

The NC program name is shown in the <Output file> field. By default, the NC program file has a name of the current project and an extension that is set in the selected postprocessor. You can change to another name if you like, you then need to perform <Run> again to save it to a new .VMC file. If you go through each line of the NC program, you would see the tool maneuvers step by step. Save the NC programs on a USB key Now generate NC programs for both vertical and horizontal cuts and for 2Cuts and 3Cuts hinge pieces. Then, save them on the same USB Key for transferring to the machine memory.

5.2 Working on the CNC Machine

As mentioned at the beginning, each group have half an hour to manufacture the hinge part in the School Workshop under the supervision of the Technician in charge. You should take The material we use is a 10-mm thick Aluminium sheet. The sheet is already cut in pieces for our use. Please make notes on everything you seen and learnt in your session, e.g. Pre-process for the materials (For convenience, each aluminium piece, as the workpiece (raw material) for the hinge has been processed, why this is necessary?) Tool names Manufacture procedures with the use of NC program The order of cuts, e.g. vertical or horizontal cut first What fixtures are used for both cuts What affect the manufacture speed What considerations you have missed/ignored are taken by the Technician Potential ways to optimising the procedure Significance of tolerance in the design Questions 10

EG2501 Design and Computing in Engineering Practice 2011-12

Engineering Design, Solid Modelling

Finally, what have you achieved in this lab session?

11