Upcoming Shows:
June 22-24, 2011 | DMS Expo 2011 | Tokyo, Japan
September 12-14, 2011 | imX 2011 | Las Vegas, NV
September 13-15, 2011 | ALIHANKINTA 2011 | Tampere, Finland
September 19-24, 2011 | EMO 2011 | Hannover, Germany
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Arizona State University Polytechnic, a SURFCAM Educational Customer for the past 12 years, has been using SURFCAM in their Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Technology Curriculum to generate NC programs for their Haas CNC machines. Over the years, the usage of SURFCAM has grown and now has been incorporated by the Sun Devil Motorsports Capstone Baja Team to generate efficient tool path programs to machine components of the Baja vehicle shown below. This Sun Devil Motorsports Capstone Team is comprised of Department of Engineering Technology & Department of Engineering students whom compete in the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Baja competition as part of their senior Capstone course. The 2011 team was comprised of 12 students from the Arizona State University’s College of Technology and Innovation. Their goal: to put their engineering skills to the test in designing and fabricating a vehicle that would participate in the Baja SAE Kansas competition. Specifically, as seniors, they wanted to demonstrate the skill-sets they have learned during their ABET accredited undergraduate engineering education at the ASU Polytechnic campus.
Students from left to right: Joseph DiCara, Johann Elbertse, Rue Mawson, John Capps,
John LaFata, William Ybarra, Larry Harrell, Chris Newman, Benjamin Chavez
“We have been fortunate to have many skilled engineers in the areas of mechanical design, CNC machining and fabrication,” said John LaFata, Mechanical Engineering Technology major with an Automotive Emphasis. “Advanced engineering tools such as SolidWorks and SURFCAM were used to design and machine all of our parts in-house using our student operated HAAS Tech Center and Miller Welding lab. These skills were shown not only in the engineering and design of the vehicle, but in the fabrication, and unveiling at the competition this past May 2011.
“The entire vehicle was designed in SolidWorks—a completely paperless design (above, left). The CAM programming was then completed entirely on SURFCAM CAD/CAM Systems. (above, right). We manufactured of all billet aluminum parts in house on our HAAS CNC machines (below).”
The Sun Devil Motorsports Capstone Team competed in the Baja SAE competition in Pittsburg, KS from May 27-29th. The competition included technical requirements such as brake tests and sled pulls as well as maneuverability, suspension and acceleration events and an endurance race.
Throughout the course of the project, the students learned a lot and had a great time. From their complete design in SolidWorks to their SURFCAM programming and the actual machining of the parts, the students picked up many skills and a lot of experience that can be applied to industry projects in the future.
Surfware would like to congratulate the Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus’ Sun Devil Motorsports Capstone Team for finishing 61st out of 100 entries in this tough and rugged competition!
One of the most recent and exciting developments available in the V5 Series of SURFCAM is the new “Machine Simulation” Option. SURFCAM Customers can now add this functionality on to any SURFCAM V5.2 CAM system.
What is SURFCAM’s “Machine Simulation” Option?
SURFCAM’s Machine Simulation Option is a software tool that is becoming a critical aspect in the manufacturing process. SURFCAM’s “Machine Simulation” Option is a tool that provides SURFCAM customers with high performance Machining Simulation and CNC Verification of SURFCAM toolpaths from within SURFCAM. The toolpath machine simulator supports Milling, Turning and Mill/Turn applications with full machine simulation, toolpath and model analysis, and stock removal verification. SURFCAM’s Machine Simulation will identify problem areas such as potential collisions, gouges, and even over-travel conditions, allowing the user to make corrections prior to NC Code generation.
SURFCAM’s “Machine Simulation” Option provides full kinematic machine simulation with comprehensive collision and axis limits checking. The sophisticated, yet easy to use, machine builder allows effortless design of any CNC machines which supports Mills, Robots and CMM machines with specific support for an unlimited number of axes. The toolpath verification component of the Machine Simulation Option also provides fast, highly accurate verification of stock removal for Mills, Turning and combined applications.
The Machine Simulation Option also offers a full range of toolpath analysis tools for many critical aspects of toolpath behavior such as measurement of length segments, reversals, feedrate and height changes, allowing toolpaths to be refined for optimum finish and quality.
Machine Simulation and Verification brings virtual (and actual) manufacturing to a new level. Now a SURFCAM programmer can create a toolpaths in SURFCAM and simulate them for machine movement, collisions, over travel and even run detailed analysis of the toolpaths before ever running them on the shop floor.