CAMTech - CAD/CAM Integration

Progress Report #1

April 7, 1997

CAMTech is an industrious corporation established at the University of Maryland to better the engineering capabilities of its manufacturing department. The current machining process consists of a CNC machine which is not directly connected with the computers that have CAD capabilities. As a result, in order to machine a part, it must be designed in a CAD program and a CAM file must be created in an external program. Then this CAM file must be sent through a post processor to translate the APT code into G-code, the only code the CNC machine will except. Then this G-code file must be transported, by floppy disk, to a 1987 Zenith computer in order to send the file to the CNC machine. This is a tedious and cumbersome process which needs improvement.

To improve and update this process, CAMTech is working on a software package which will integrate the CAD/CAM steps with the CNC machine. This will eliminate the outdated Zenith computer and the necessity for a dry run on the CNC machine.

Objectives

The mission statement consists of creating the integration between the CAD/CAM systems and the CNC machine. This will increase the overall efficiency of the current process. The documentation of the CAMTech software package, as well as tutorials of the CAD/CAM packages will further the education of Maryland's engineering students. To prove the validity of the CAMTech software, a projection model will be created.

Current Progress

CAMTech, in order to evaluate its competition, has contacted several other companies offering CAD/CAM integration software. Thus far, no direct integration with a CNC machine has been identified. Several post processors exist in the market, but the current one, created by the University of Maryland, will be utilized.

Since most CAD/CAM systems create files written in APT code, it is necessary to understand the basics of the language. CAMTech is in the process of researching the APT language to get a better understanding of the post processor.

The CAMTech software program, called COMPP (Computer Oriented Manufacturing Post Processor) is to be connected directly to the CNC machine. In order to accomplish this task, the system hardware connections need to be adapted from the old operation. A cursory scan of the hardware has been completed.

To complete the tutorial documentation of the CAD/CAM packages, knowledge of the different systems is necessary. CAMTech is familiar with the CAM package for both Cadkey (Cutting Edge) and Pro/Engineer (Pro/NCPOST). EZCAM, the CAM package for AutoCAD, has yet to be analyzed due to its recent arrival at Maryland.

The layout for the COMPP software is to be designed in Visual Dbase. The layout for COMPP has been established. The Visual Dbase software has been obtained from resources at Maryland and has been installed on a PC in Maryland's Manufacturing Building. CAMTech has vast experience with Visual Dbase and creation of the interfacing screens will be relatively trivial.