Creo NC

NC Milling tutorials have been developed with great emphasis on the Prerequisites
practical application of the software to solve real world problems. The
self-study course starts from the very basic concepts and teaches The user should have basic concepts in the
advanced techniques step by step. After completing these tutorials an following
Engineer or CAM Programmer will be able to easily machine any CAD
model on a three axis milling machine, generate required downstream 1) Solid Modeling
documentation for job setting, create NC templates and configure 2) Surface Modeling
Post-Processor for a given CNC controller. 3) Assembly

The training material is divided into sections. Each section is Stats

accompanied with exercises to practice the concepts learned.
Following are the stats for Creo 1.0
1. Introduction
2. Face Milling
Total Pages: 593
3. Volume and Local Milling
4. Roughing and Reroughing
Total Exercises: 84
5. Plunge Milling
6. Profile Milling
7. Surface Milling ®
8. Finishing
9. Trajectory Milling
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10. Engraving
11. Hole Making
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12. Thread Milling
13. Tool Manager
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14. Process Manager
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15. Manufacturing Process Information
16. Manufacturing Template
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17. Post Processing
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INTRODUCTION
This tutorial will introduce to the basic steps of setting up a
manufacturing model in Pro/NC.

The topics covered are as follows.

• Creating a new manufacturing model

• Assembling the reference model
• Creating the workpiece
• Defining the style state for workpiece
• Defining the operation and workcell
• Creating new tools
• Concept of Accuracy in Pro/E

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FACE MILLING
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Face milling NC Sequence is used to face down the workpiece.
Usually it is the first sequence in machining a part.
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The topics covered are as follows.

• Defining a new face milling NC Sequence

• Defining relations for cutting parameters
• Optimizing the toolpath for longer tool life
• Set the toolpath to cut the material using climb milling
strategy
• Avoiding direct plunge motion into the material
• Changing the start point
• How to perform multi step machining

Facing a Part
VOLUME AND LOCAL MILLING
Volume milling NC Sequence is a 2.5 axis
sequence. It is a very versatile sequence used not
only to rough machine the workpiece but can also
perform finishing and facing operations.

It is the mostly used NC Sequence while

machining a part. So it is given its due share in our
tutorials.

• Defining a new Volume milling NC

Sequence
• Controlling the cutting condition at corners Roughing a Cavity- Helical Entry and Pocketing- Profiling of Walls and Facing
to avoid vibration Minimum Corner Radius Control to of Horizontal Surfaces within a single
• Specifying the linear ramp motion instead of Avoid Vibration at Corner NC Sequence
plunge
• Specifying the helical ramp motion
• Controlling the cutting feed along ramp
motion
• Simulating toolpath in Vericut for verification
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• Specifying an axis for plunge motion to the
next slice
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• Defining a Local Milling NC Sequence for
rest milling operation
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• Using Volume Milling for profiling of the
walls of the mill volume
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• Controlling the entry/exit condition of the
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tool
Controlling the surface finish by specifying
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scallop or cusp height

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Performing profiling and facing within a
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strategy of Volume Milling
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single NC Sequence by using pocketing

• Customization of the toolpath

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"S" Connection, Tool Stays in Constant by previous tool
• How to copy a NC Sequence and specify Contact
new references
• How to use excluded surfaces option to
exclude the selected surfaces from profiling
• How to control the entry/exit into cut for
longer tool life and less machine tool
acceleration/deceleration
• Introduction to the following entry/exit
movements between slices

1. Lea in, Lead out

2. Ramping
3. S-shape Connections

• Defining a local milling NC Sequence to

machine the material left at corners by a
previous tool
Machining of Thin wall component with
Thin Wall Structure Slice by Slice Scanning
 • Facing a part's top surface
• Defining a Mill Window
• Specifying Tool Side for Mill Window
• Machining with Slice by Slice strategy
• Declaring Approach Walls for a Mill Volume
• Offsetting the selected surface of a Mill Volume
• Introduction to Smart retract option
• Introduction to Top Surfaces functionality

High Speed Facing- Single Entry/Exit, "S" Connection between

Passes, Corner Rounding

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Smart Retract- Minimizes the time wasted in Retract and
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Plunge movements

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Mill Window requires less references to select

ROUGHING AND REROUGHING
Roughing and Reroughing NC Sequence are used
specifically for high-speed mold machining. They
allow different scanning strategies within single
sequence.

The topics covered are as follows.

• Defining a new Roughing NC Sequence

• Creating a Mill Window within and outside the
NC Sequence and specifying its Depth
• Choosing the most suitable toolpath scanning
strategy Trochoidal Milling of Slots-No Sudden Direction
• Optimizing the toolpath for high speed Change, Constant Tool Engagement
machining
• Eliminating the sudden direction changes
with the smooth transition moves
• Scallop Height control
• Implementing different scanning strategies
within single sequence
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Defining a new Reroughing NC Sequence
Simulation of two sequences in the Vericut
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simultaneously
How to confine the re-roughing to a desired
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region

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Connection, Tangent Entry/Exit with

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Air Cuts
Minimum Radius Control

Reroughing: Accurate Computation of Simulation in Vericut of Roughing and

Leftover Material Reroughing Sequences
PLUNGE MILLING
Plunge milling is used to rough machine a workpiece by a series of
overlapping plunges into the material.

The topics covered are as follows.

• Defining a new Plunge Milling NC Sequence

• Creating a Mill Window
• Creating a new plunge milling cutter

Plunge Milling to Rough out a Cavity

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PROFILE MILLING
Profile milling NC Sequence is a 2.5 axis sequence. It is
usually used to semifinish or finish the vertical or slanted
surfaces.

The topics covered are as follows

• Defining a Mill Surface as “Machinable Area”

• Defining a new Profile Milling NC Sequence
• Creating smooth entry/exit motions
• Setting up Retract plane at NC Sequence level to
reduce non-cutting time of tool
• Machining a sharp corner with a single pass of cutter
• Controlling the plunge movement of the tool at the
center of a hole Finishing of Holes-Plunging at Centre Axis
• Machining the selected surfaces with multiple passes
with a single NC Sequence.
• How to get the manufacturing information for a
sequence
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Creating CL data for a given NC Sequence
How to mirror the CL Data
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Machining an undercut
Defining a side milling cutter
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Selection of surfaces by loop option
Checking visually, by placing the tool at desired
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location, to see if any gouges occur
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Defining a new profile milling NC Sequence to machine
and undercut
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Introduction to NORMAL_LEAD_STEP parameter

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Patterning a NC Sequence
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Generating CL Data for a patterned NC Sequence
Machining of Undercut with Side Milling Cutter
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Gouge checking patterned NC Sequence

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• Defining a Sloped mill surface
• Introduction to Check Surfaces functionality
• Setting the “option file” option related to check
surfaces.

Machining of Groove with T-Slot Cutter

SURFACE MILLING
Surface milling NC Sequence is
usually used to semi-finish or finish
the shallow surfaces. It is a versatile
sequence which can generate a lot
of toolpath strategies.

The topics covered are as follows

• Defining a new surface

milling NC Sequence
• Introduction to different cut Cutline Machining follows surface topology Smooth Connection Movement for HSM
definition options to suit the
surface topology
• Choosing the proper
scanning strategy
• Controlling the connection
movement between cutting
passes
• Introduction to available
entry/exit movements
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Creating multi-step toolpaths
Defining Sloped Mill Surface
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to classify surfaces based
upon slope angle
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• Defining surface milling NC
Sequence to finish a hole
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• Controlling the cutting
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direction
Selecting suitable
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SCAN_TYPE for selected
surfaces
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• Introduction to
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ARC_TANGENT entry/exit
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condition
• How to create CL data for a
given NC Sequence
• How to mirror the CL Data
• Adding Auto Inner Cutlines
• Adding smooth Entry/Exit
motions
• Adding smooth connection
movements between tool
passes
• Inserting a CL Command at
the end of CL Data
• Patterning a NC Sequence
• Generating CL Data for a
patterned NC Sequence
• Gouge checking patterned
NC Sequence Using the Surface Sequence to machine the Using the Surface Edges to Smoothen the
material left by previous tool. Toolpath
FINISHING
Finishing is a new NC Sequence that first
analyses and then applies suitable machining
strategy according to the geometry of reference
model.

The topics covered in this tutorial are as follows

• Defining a new Finishing NC Sequence

• Creating a Mill Window
• Profiling of steep surfaces
• Optimizing the entry/exit into slice
• Machining the shallow surfaces of Facing by defining Close Loops
reference model
• Machining only the flat surfaces of
reference model
• Excluding surfaces from toolpath
computation
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Defining Close Loops for the part
Specifying Tool Side for Mill Window
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Specifying Offset for Mill Window
Machining the complete part using the
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Spiral scan

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Finishing both the steep and shallow surfaces

Machining the complete part using the Spiral scan

TRAJECTORY MILLING
Trajectory milling is a 3 to 5 axis milling sequence. It
allows to sweep a tool along any user-defined trajectory.
It gives the user very low level control over the tool path.

The topics covered are as follows.

• Defining a Composite datum curve

• Defining a 2-Axis trajectory milling NC Sequence. Driving the Tool along 3D Trajectory
• How to perform 2-Axis multi-step trajectory milling
• How to perform 2-Axis multi-pass trajectory
milling
• Defining a 3-Axis trajectory milling NC Sequence.
• Adding smooth entry/exit motions.
• Checking the gouges against reference part.
• Shifting the toolpath upward to avoid gouging by
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using AXIS_SHIFT parameter
How to perform 3-Axis multi-step trajectory
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milling.
Machine a slot in multiple steps
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• Controlling the connection movement between
slices by CONNECTION_TYPE parameter
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• Machining a slot (groove) which lies on a curved
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Face a part by a succession of trajectory passes
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Customized Facing to Reduce Non-Cutting Time

ENGRAVING
Engraving NC sequences are created to machine a Groove
cosmetic feature

The topics covered are as follows.

• Creating a new Engraving NC Sequence

• Defining a new Grooving Tool
• Machining the Groove feature with multiple cuts

HOLEMAKING ®
A large number of operations like drilling, boring,
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countersinking, tapping and reaming can be performed by using
proper Holemaking NC Sequence.
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The topics covered are as follows.

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• Standard Holemaking NC Sequence
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Introduction to different types of hole making sequences

• Countersink Holemaking NC Sequence

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• Center-drilling the holes to the required depth
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Selection of holes for hole making sequence by following
methods
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Automatic Determination of Drill depth
1. Axes
2. Surfaces
3. Diameters
4. Parameters

• Creating Hole Sets to specify different depth options

within a single sequence
• Specification of depth to which tool can travel by different
methods
• Specification of tool retract height during traversing
movement
• Drilling of hole by using peck drilling and high-speed
peck drilling techniques

Countersinking
THREAD MILLING
Thread Milling NC Sequence is used to cut internal
and external threads on cylindrical surfaces.

• The topics covered are as follows.

• Defining a Single-Tooth thread mill cutter
• Defining a Multi-Tooth Thread Mill cutter
• Defining a new Thread Milling NC Sequence
• Creating smooth entry/exit motions
• Creating Single Pass toolpath for multi-teeth
cutters
• Creating Interrupted Motion toolpaths

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Single Pass Toolpath

Interrupted Motion-Multiple
Passes
Tool Manager
Tool Manager is used to define cutting tools. In addition to the
geometry parameters you can also specify cutting
parameters for a tool in the Tool Manager Dialog box

The detail of topics covered in this chapter is as follows.

• Defining a new Flat End Mill

• Defining a Ball End Mill with Holder
• Defining a Bull Mill with Holder
• Defining a Sketched tool.
• Defining a Solid tool.
• Adding non-geometry parameters to the Solid tool
• How to take the advantage of Holder in a Trajectory Establishing associativity between tool model’s dimensions and
Milling NC Sequence NC Manufacturing tool parameters
• Advantage of Solid tools over the Standard tools
• Copying NC parameters from the tool into a NC
Sequence non-associatively
• Copying NC parameters from the tool into a NC
Sequence associatively ®
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System uses holder geometry for automatic gouge avoidance

Process Manager
There are three major applications of Process Manager.

• Manufacturing Process Information

• Creation and Manipulation of Steps
• XML Template

The detail of topics covered in this chapter is as follows.

• How to get a printable list of tools used in the

operation
• How to get a printable list all of the NC Sequences and
their related information
• Creating a Holemaking Step in Process Manager
• Creating a 2-Axis Trajectory Milling Step in Process Building a view to list the tools and their parameters
Manager
• Using Copy/Paste functionality to duplicate a step
• Creating a XML template from existing steps
• Using the XML template to create steps in another
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Building a view to list the NC Sequences and their related
information

Creating XML template

MANUFACTURING PROCESS INFORMATION
Delivering information about manufacturing process and producing in-
process documentation is very crucial for setting up of job and cutting
tools on machine.

The topics covered are as follows.

• Creating a new drawing

• Associating the Manufacturing model’s assembly to the drawing
• Defining tables and merging the cells
Creating Customized Tables
• Entering text and setting the width and height of the cells
• Defining repeat regions
• Entering the system and user defined parameters in the repeat
regions
• Getting a list of parameters available for a tool and a NC
Sequence
• Adding a filter to repeat region
• Inserting a new sheet
• Numeric formatting of parameters
• Inserting the different views of the model
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Changing display of a view to NO HIDDEN
Changing the scale of sheet
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Displaying the toolpath in a drawing view
Creating a PDF file of the drawing file
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Inserting the views to setup job

Displaying the toolpath in a drawing view

MANUFACTURING TEMPLATE
A manufacturing template file contains all the necessary setting
which a user performs routinely while defining a manufacturing
model.
Creating Relations in Site File to extract Tool Cutting Data
The topics covered in this tutorial are as follows

• What is manufacturing template?

• Create a new operation
• Define new cutting tools
• Associating Feeds and Speeds data with tool
• Create a site file
• Utilizing the cutter Feed Speed data within NC Sequence
• Create a PPRINT table
• Create style state
• How to use the template for enhanced productivity

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Using the custom defined template for enhanced productivity

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Defining Rules to Create Display Style
POST PROCESSING
The cutter location data (CL Data) produced by Pro/NC is meaningless to
the machine controller. To transform the CL Data to useful controller
acceptable instructions we need to post process it to machine control
data (MCD) for a particular machine controller.
Customization of Post for Required Drilling Codes
The topics covered are as follows.

• What is post processing

• Introduction to Option File Generator
• Introduction to GPOST
• Defining a new option file
• Configuring Pro/NC to select the option file automatically
• Modifying the option file settings to get the desired output
• Inserting program number at the beginning
• Inserting safety codes at the start of program.
• Inserting a blank before each address
• Changing the output order of addresses
• Changing the default format of addresses
• Changing the default behavior of radius output from IJK to R
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Customization of Post to get correct Radius Output
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Inserting M30 at the end of MCD data
Modify the option file to get the output for following drilling
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cycles
1. Drilling

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2. Peck Drilling
3. High Speed Peck Drilling
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• Set the maximum federate to be output to tape file.
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Set the maximum spindle RPM to be output to tape file
Set the option file to output operator messages to tape file
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Set the option file to output tool length compensation code G43
Change the extension of tape file from .tap to .txt
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Set the maximum value of radius to be output to tape file
Set the sequence number to be output with any specified
increment
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Specifying Safe Start up Block