Introduction tutorial

Expert high-speed and 5-axis machining software.

PowerMill® CAM software provides comprehensive milling
strategies for high-speed and 5-axis machining. Get tools for
manufacturing molds, dies, and highly complex parts.

Powermill might start up with a

dialogue box on the right of the
screen displaying a list of robot
plugins, please select the x to
close this box

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 Introduction tutorial

Importing a model

You can open a saved project using file and open, but if this is a new part, it more
than likely exists as a CAD model, you therefore will need to import the model.

 To import a CAD model into Powermill (the file produced in Catia has to be
saved as an IGES file), Figure 1.
 When searching for your model make sure that you are looking for the correct
file type.Then import the model as Error! Reference source not found..

Ensure you select .iges so that you

can see your CAD model

Figure 2 Figure 1

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 Once the model has been imported it will be visible (possibly as a wireframe).

 To modify the view of the model you can use the view toolbar icons on the
right of the screen, highlighted Figure 3.

Toggle view
to plain
shade

 To manipulate the model use the centre mouse button to zoom. Press and
hold to rotate and scroll to zoom

 To pan the model hold down the shift key and MMB

 Ensure part is shaded.

 This will show you the orientation of the surfaces. The blue surfaces are
external surfaces and the red/brown show internal. All surfaces need to be
blue/grey.

 To change the surface orientation, first select the surface by left clicking
the surface. This will highlight the surface. Then right click the mouse
button which will bring up a sub-menu from which select ‘reverse selection`.
This needs to be done for all surfaces so that NO red/brown surfaces are
shown.
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Figure 4

All surface need

to be blue/grey

Note:
Alternately if there are many red surfaces then select the entire model by pressing
and holding the left mouse button and dragging the box over the model to select
all surfaces. Then right click and ‘orient selected surfaces’. This should orient all
surfaces to the same direction. If all surfaces are red then again select all surfaces
and ‘reverse selected’ as below.

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Figure 5
 Introduction tutorial

Adding our stock/billet

 Now that the part has been imported the next thing to do is to add the ‘billet’
material. This is the material stock that will be used to produce the part. This
is done by defining the ‘Block’. As Figure 5.

Note: PLANNING
How are we going to decide on what the billet should look like (dimensions), this
will be discussed on another tutorial. For this part we will wrap the stock around
the geometry.

Define ‘Block’

Figure 5

 You can manually assign the ‘Block’ size or use the ‘calculate’ function. This
will look at the model and assign a block of the minimum dimensions to
include all surfaces.

 Now that you have assigned the block you will see a shaded area around the
model which represents the block material. This is the block that subsequent
machining operations will remove material from to produce the part. See
Error! Reference source not found..
Turns block/stock on/off
Ensure the ‘draw’ is
ticked so you will see the
block. Choose ‘Model’ and then
‘calculate’ and then accept

Figure 6
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Set your coordinate system:

 Now it is necessary to set the axis system you will use in conjunction with the
CNC machine. Once you have set the axis on the part you will need to align
this on the machine, therefore it needs to be set in a way which is possible to
accurately align.
In this instance we have a square block of material so we will set the axis
system to the top of the block on the bottom left hand corner.

 The axis system is referred as a ‘Workplane’. Select the workplane ribbon

and then Aligned to block: See below.

Figure 7
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 Select the bottom top left corner. See Figure 7 it will then place the origin (X0,
Y0, Z0) on the corner but it has to be in the correct orientation.

Z Axis

Y Axis

X Axis
ORIGIN

Figure 8

 Right click on your new workplane in the tree on the left and rename your
workplane “datum1” for example

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Figure 9

 Once this has been selected you will need to rotate the Workplane into the
correct orientation. Right click again on your new work plane (datum 1) and
select workplane editor.

Figure 6

Figure 71
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 In this example we want our X axis running along the bottom edge to do this
we need to rotate it around the Z axis (90 degrees) and accept: Fig 12

Figure 12

 Our X axis is in the correct position now we need to rotate the X axis to put
the Y axis in the correct orientation.

Figure 13

 Accept the changes

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 Double check that your new workplane (datum 1) is activated in the tree:

Figure 14

 You can now see that your block (stock) may have rotated, so we need to re-
calculate it as in figure 5.

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Plan your operations

Note to self put

pdf here of
drawing once ok

Figure 15

 What sequence are you going to use to produce the part

 How are you going to hold the part

 What tooling is required

NOTE:
This tutorial is designed as in an introduction to power mill and its functionality,
therefore some of the operations are out of sequence for demonstration purposes.
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OPERATION SCHEDULE SHEET OF

COMPONENT MACHINE
DESCRIPTION
PART No
JOB No
PREPARED BY DEPARTMENT ISSUE DATE

OP No TOOL No NOMINAL CUTTING FEED SPINDLE OPERATION WORK

SIZE & TOOL SPEED RATE SPEED HOLDING
DESCRIPTION
1 1 6mm drill Drill 6mm hole Machine vice
Note:
2 To be covered on separate Drill 8mm hole Machine vice
2 8mm drill lecture
3 3 10mm drill Drill 10mm hole Machine vice

4 4 10mm end mill Area clear around Machine vice

raised boss
5 5 4mm ball nose Finish mill radius Machine vice
around base of
boss
6 6 20mm end mill Finish face Machine vice

7 7 5mm slot drill Mill slot Machine vice

(check with
Geoff)

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TASK:

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Please reproduce this operation sheet
 Introduction tutorial

Tooling

 So we need to create our tools

 Tool 1: 6mm drill

 Tool 2: 8mm drill
 Tool 3: 10mm drill
 Tool 4: 10mm end mill
 Tool 5: 4mm ball nose
 Tool 6: 20mm end mill
 Tool 7: 5mm end mill

Figure 16

 Enter the diameter of the tool (6 for this tool)

 Name the tool (6mm End Mill for this tool)
 Enter the tool number (1 for this tool) but this will correspond to the tool on
the carousel.
 Repeat this process for all of the tools
 Once you have entered the tooling information there will be a visual
representation on screen. You will also see in the tree on the left of the
screen all of the tool that you have created. To toggle the view of the tool
on/off, use the ‘light bulb’ in the tree. See 17.
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Figure 17

Use light bulb

to toggle view
of tool on/off

Figure 18
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Drilling the holes

 It may be more appropriate to drill the holes rather than mill them using an
alternative tool (this will be discussed on a later tutorial).

 To do this you need to specify the hole within the Powermill program so that it
can differentiate it from other features.

 First select the whole model (drag a window around it)

 Select the hole feature set ribbon

 Create

Note to self-get better

image
Figure 19

 Give an appropriate name in the detail box and click ‘Apply’. Then ‘Close’.
See Error! Reference source not found..
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Your holes might be upside down:

 You will now see some ‘cross hairs’ appear inside the holes.

 There are two components to the hole. The cross denotes the bottom of the hole
and the dot denotes the top of the hole. You may notice that they are in the wrong
orientation.

Figure 20

 If the holes are upside down select reverse in the ribbon at the top of the
screen

 If you expand the ‘Hole Feature sets’ you will see the 3 holes
named feature set 1, holes 1 through 3. Rename with
appropriately informative description.

Figure 21

 Do this for the remaining holes

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 Next we can now drill some holes through the block.

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Drilling cycles

 There are a number of ways to do this one way is:

Figure 22

 This will bring up the ‘Drilling’ toolpath options dialogue box

 . First choose the tool you want to use. In this case the 6mm drill. Then go to
‘Drilling’ and change the ‘operation’ to ‘through hole’. The next thing to do is
select which hole to drill. See Figure 1

Choose the
tool
Choose
The go to Drilling ‘Through hole’
from drop
down menu

‘Select’ which
hole (figure
24)
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Once all the options have

been made then

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‘Calculate’

Figure 23
 Introduction tutorial

NOTE: We will look closer at setting the rapid feed heights, and feeds and
speeds in the next tutorial

 Once the ‘Select’ pop up has come up the desired hole needs to put in the
‘Selection filter’ on the right. Click the 6.00 and move across. See Figure .
Once the 6.00 shows in the ‘Selection filter’ then click ‘Select’ at the bottom of
the pop up, then ‘Close’. Once this has been done click ‘Calculate’ as in
Figure 2. The ‘Calculate’ button will go grey and you will have to press
‘Close’.

Once selected it should show in the ‘Selection filter’

Select 8.00 and

then move over
to right

Then ‘Select’, then ‘Close’

Figure 24

 You will now see a red dotted line on the screen which is a visual
representation of the tool path, showing the drilling of the 6mm hole. You will
now need to repeat this process for the other two holes. Remembering to
‘Select’ the correct hole size and corresponding ‘Tool’.
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Area clear operation around raised boss

 We are now going to mill an area clear around the raised boss.
 The way in which powermill works is that it will try and machine anything the
cutter can get into, so for example if we used a 5mm end mill to area clear the
part it would try and re-mill all of the holes.
 So we need to stop the tool going into the holes
 One way to do this is to set a boundary
 There may options to create ‘Boundaries’ but for the purpose of this tutorial
we will use the ‘User Defined Boundary’.
 Select the top face of the part
 Boundary ribbon
 User defined under drop down

Take this tick out

Figure 25

 Once this has been done then you will see an outline overlaying your model.
This line shows the boundary lines. See 26. It is possible to select and delete
the lines that are not required. To do this toggle the model view off using the
view buttons on the right of the screen. Then select the lines you don’t want
and press ‘Delete’ on the keyboard. Delete all lines except those around the 3
drill holes. See 26.
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Boundary line

Figure 8

Toggle
view
on/off

Select unwanted lines

and press ‘delete’ on
keyboard
Figure 27

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Figure 28
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Just as a note. Once you have added your drilling toolpaths Powermill may
have re-calculated the ‘Block’ size to correspond to the drilling area. This is
easy to see by making sure that the view is toggled on using the view tools on
the right of the screen. If the shaded ‘Block’ is just around the hole rather that
the entire part then you will need to re-calculate the ‘Block’ as previously done.
This ‘Block’ has to be thought of as the area that you want to machine so it
needs to be correct before you complete each tool path.

 Now we have drilled the three holes the next thing to complete is the mass
removal or ‘Area clearance’ of the ‘Block’. Right click on ‘toolpaths’ in the tree
and go to ‘Create toolpath’. This time choose the ‘3D Area Clearance’ tab and
then ‘Model Area Clearance’. See 29.

Figure 29

 This will bring up the ‘Model Area Clearance’ dialogue box. First choose the
tool, click on ‘Tool’ in tree. Then choose the 6mm end mill from the drop down
list. See30.
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First click
‘Tool’
Then choose the
6mm end mill

Figure 30

 Next click on ‘Limit’ from the tree. You can now choose to use the boundary
you created earlier to stop the toolpath from entering the holes.
You can choose to limit the tool from its periphery which would mean the no
part of the tool would enter the boundary or by its centre line which would
mean it would overlap the boundary by its radius. The same applies to the
‘Block’. In this case the limit of the block should set as in Figure 31.

Choose the
boundary
First click created earlier
‘Limit’

Keep the
tool outside
the boundary

Choose which part

Choose which
of the tool is the
part of the
limit.
tool is the
limit, in
regards the
‘Block’

Figure 31

 Next click on ‘Model area clearance’ in the tree. Here we can enter the
specific cutting preferences. Here you can choose how much material is left
on the part once the cutting path has been calculated. This is so that you can
then finish the part with a different toolpath for a better finish.
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Also the ‘Stepover’ needs to be added. This is how far the tool can move over
on each cut. It therefor has to be less than the tools diameter or there would
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be material left on the part when it has finished its toolpath.

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 The other option of importance is the ‘Stepdown’. This is how far the tool is
allowed to move down for each cutting pass. This will vary dependant on tool,
material and speed of cut. For this tutorial use the information as in Figure

Give appropriate name

First click
here Change this to ‘Offset
Model’

This is how
much material This how much the tool
is left on the moves over to complete
part after the the next cut.
material
removal
How deep the tool is
allowed to go on each
cut

Figure 32

 You cannot plunge with an end mill as the tool is not designed to remove
material whilst traveling in Z (straight down onto the material), we have to use
a ‘Ramp’ ‘Lead in’. This allows the tool to travel in an arc as it moves down
onto the material. This is done by expanding the ‘Leads and Links’ in the tree
and selecting ‘Ramp’ from the drop down menu. Once this has been done
then press ‘Calculate’, then once it has finished close the window. See Figure
.

Choose ‘Ramp’
Expand ‘Leads
and Links’

Once all info has

been added then
‘Calculate’
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Figure 33
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 Now that you have ‘Calculated’ the toolpath you will see a visual
representation of the tool movement in the main display as in Figure .

Figure 34

 The green lines denote the tool moving at its cutting speed. The purple shows
a rapid traverse movement and the red dotted line show the plunge moves.

 Choosing a toolpath strategy is based on what best produces the finish you
require. For this reason Powermill has a simulation tool that allows you to see
the progress of the machining by virtually machining the block. Select the
simulation ribbon and then press the “off” button to enter simulation mode.

Figure 95
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Use ‘Play’ keys to run the simulation

Choose
toolpath to
simulate

Shows the
simulated
block of
material and
the hole
drilled by
the toolpath

Figure 36

Once you have simulated all toolpaths you have created so far you should see
just the material left to remove from the ‘Block’ to finish the part. See

 Figure 7.

Figure 37
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 If you need to change a toolpath to correct any problem you may have, you
will need to ‘Halt the ViewMill session’. This will delete any simulation and
enable you to re-simulated using the corrected toolpath.

 You will have noticed that there is a ridge around the island in the middle of
the part where there should be a radius. This is due to the fact we have used
an End Mill so far and we need to use a Ball Nosed tool to produce this
radius.

 But before we do this operation we need to create another boundary so that

the 4mm ball nose doesn’t try and mill the slot.

 Following the same procedure create a new boundary the same as the image
below: Fig 38

Figure 38

 Now create a new toolpath. Select the ‘Constant Z Finishing’ from the
‘Finishing’ tab. This means that it will cut anything that has a profile in Z. See
39.
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Figure 39

 In the new toolpath window select the Ball Nosed tool and use the same
‘Limit’ options as before except the ‘Block’ limit, change this to the periphery
of the tool. See Figure . Now on the ‘Constant Z finishing’ option in the tree it
will allow you to change the ‘Minimum Stepdown’. As before this will give you
the ability to change the depth of each move down. Leave as 1. Then
‘Calculate’ the toolpath and ‘Close’. See Figure .

Change to the periphery of

tool

Figure 40

Select the Ball As this is our finish

Nosed tool pass we don’t want to
leave any material on
the part

Use the ‘Limit’ Leave ‘Stepdown’

options as the as 1
‘Clearance’
toolpath
Once done then
‘Calculate’ the
toolpath and close
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Figure 41
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 Due to the nature of ‘Constant Z’ finishing that only machines faces that have
a profile in Z, it does not finish the flat faces of the part. This has to be done
with an ‘Offset Flat Finish’. Again choose this option from the toolpath
strategies. See Figure Figure

Figure 42

 From the ‘Offset Flat Finish’ dialogue box, choose the 20mm end mill tool and
use the same ‘Limit’ options as before. Then select the ‘Offset Flat Finish’
option in the tree. See Figure .

Select the
20mm end mill

Choose the same

limit options as
the ‘Constant Z’

Calculate then
close

Figure 43

 You should now be able to simulate all the remaining toolpaths to show that
you have competed the machining. See 44.
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Figure 44

Whats wrong with the component.

Yes we have used the ball nose to produce the slot!!!!!!!!!

How do you think we could have machined this better ??????

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