GibbsCAM® SolidSurfacer®0 pages

GibbsCAM® SolidSurfacer®
Including Advanced 3D with High-Speed Machining (HSM)

POCKETING

POCKETING WITH CORE DETECTION

GibbsCAM SolidSurfacer provides powerful capabilities for machining
complex 3D solids, surfaces, and STL files with toolpaths tailored for high
speed machining and hard-metal cutting. Smooth corners, smooth stepovers
and arc fitting minimize sudden direction changes, improving surface
finishes. Minimizing tool retracts and maintaining a constant tool load helps
machine tools to run faster and reduce tool wear and breakage. Automatic
gouge protection, tool holder collision checking, and rest material options
make it easy to use short rigid tools and large efficient tools in combination
to cut parts faster.

HSM Rough Machining Capabilities
Pocketing

MATERIAL-ONLY ROUGHING

HSM Finish Machining Capabilities
Contour

Pocketing clears large volumes of material
efficiently. A series of offset or zig-zag passes
are generated at constant Z-depths calculated to
remove the maximum amount of material without
leaving uncut areas. The depth of cut is adaptive,
adding more cuts in shallow areas to improve
consistency of scallop height. Helix or profile
ramping entries are combined with smooth corner
arcs and smooth transitions between passes,
allowing for faster cycle times.

For components with steep walls, the constant-Z
slices provided by Contour leaves a good surface
finish. Boundary geometry can be used to control
the machining region and angle limits can be used
to eliminate passes in shallow areas. A helical
option allows one continuous path to be created
eliminating witness lines on the part and improving
surface finish.

Pocketing with Core Detection
CONTOUR

Automatic core detection allows the Pocketing
process to machine cores from the outside-in,
starting from the outside of the material, and
working in to the shape of the core. Processes that
include both core and cavity areas automatically switch between core roughing and cavity
roughing styles in a single process, saving
programming time.

Material-only Roughing
FLATS CUT

LACE CUT – RASTER

3D material-only cutting is achieved by following
the operation of a big tool with one or more
smaller tools in areas not cleared by the previous
operation. Finish part plus stock amount for
castings, user supplied solids or STL files, or
automatic rest material calculated from a prior
process can all be used to avoid air-cutting and
increase machine tool productivity. Flexible retract
styles and options add to toolpath efficiency.

Flats Cut
The Flats Cut process automatically detects all the
flat areas of the part clearing them with an offsetting
path at the Z-level of each area. Using a flat bottom
tool, helix and profile ramping entries, and smooth
positioning motions between areas, machining time
is reduced and surface finish improved. Any number
of Z-axial offset passes can be added.

Lace Cut – Raster
For many parts, parallel plane cuts generated by the
Lace Cut process are most effective. Unidirectional
or zigzag passes can be set at any angle. Normal
vector angles define steep and shallow areas
eliminating the need for complex geometry
boundaries. Optimized cross-machining can
automatically create additional perpendicular passes,
machining only the areas necessary to produce a
constant surface finish. Z-steps can be used to rough
and finish the part in one operation. Smooth stepovers
and tangential path extensions produce a better
surface finish and smoother running machine tool.