A mill-turn alternative to a driven tool lathe
Tony Bess, director of subcontract machinists Plalite in Sittingbourne, Kent, has invested £3 million in capital equipment in the last three years.
On the ball milling
Open Mind Technologies’ hyperMILL CAM software has been used to conduct the 5-axis programming of a replica basketball hoop.
As one of the leading developers of CAM software solutions, hyperMILL was used in conjunction with a Grob G350 5-axis machining centre using conical ball barrel cutters from OSG to machine the basketball hoop.
Starting with a block of aluminium weighing more than 80kg and using a 320mm cutting tool length, the finished basketball hoop was milled to a final weight of 565g, a 99.3% material reduction.
The hoop has an intricate design that was machined to high levels of detail. The application showcases hyperMILL’s extreme high-performance capability for complex 5-axis machining including milling deep pockets and finishing curved shapes. Superior collision control enables a long cutting tool to cut in extremely tight contours.
The outer regions were machined with hyperMILL MAXX Machining roughing applied with a 5-axis shape-offset roughing process. HyperMILL provides users with a broad array of features designed to improve their manufacturing process with high speed and flexibility.
Open Mind www.openmind-tech.com
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