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www.ADandP.media AD&P; ∕ APRIL 2017 CAM Edgecam's turret-type lathe code wizard now supports mounting in a linear fashion and across the X, Y or Z axes. Radially and axially mounted tools are also supported in both single- and multiple-spindle environments. It also supports Swiss-type machines, wherein the tool is static but the workpiece slides in and out of a chuck or collet. For wire users, Edgecam 2017 has three enhancements: rotate and mirror transformations, support for Fanuc a-C600Ia, and wireframe feature finder. That last enhancement, useful for machinists working with 2D/3D wireframe CAD data, elimi- nates relying on linked and taper profile commands, making it easier to work with intricate profile shapes. Added features for milling profiling include control of the cutter's position during passes; an option to suppress helical cleanup, which leads to reordering the cuts in multiple passes; and a way for machinists to determine how a toolpath is distributed. Then there are a bunch of usability improvements, such as improved speed and part file manipulation, additional images for CAM cycle dialogs and more context-sensitive help. Another enhancement makes Edgecam automatically check and correct all index moves against stock and fixtures. Before, machinists had to pick a safe index position for the whole sequence of indexing moves. GOING FROM ALPHA TO ZED The enhancements in Alphacam 2017 R1, also from Vero Software ( alphacam.com ), focus on simulation and auto- mation. For instance, several new 3D machining commands have been added, including along intersection, constant cusp, cylindrical parallel, cylindrical profiling, drive curves and Z contour roughing. For example, a machinist can customize cylindrical parallel machining by entering how much stock to machine, width of cut (or cusp height), cutting methods, cut quality, cut direction and cut between specified values rather than across the whole length of a part. Alphacam will display a visualization showing the toolpath and any mechanical collisions. For cut spline polyline, machinists can pick the polyline to cut, then enter the tangency tolerance (for speci- fying how the tool follows sharp corners), tool angle, lead-in/ out and other properties. A major enhancement lets machinists control the depth of holes in drilling. This ability mitigates the feature extraction process, which provides only the location and diameter of the bottom of a hole, not its actual cone angle within the drilled hole. Machinists now have options to match the drill shoulder or drill tip, which gives them better control over drilling to the desired depth of a hole, and where any fouling should exist. For instance, a machinist might choose to replace a tapered drill with a flat-bottomed tool and then change the drilling to the depth of the drill tip, regardless of the fouling past the shoulder at the bottom of the as-designed hole. An auto-update material feature, a background process added to lathing, causes Alphacam to project the next Z-contour roughing operation based on previous roughing operations. This feature minimizes cutting empty air: unnec- essary machining where no material exists. UPDATES FOR A MASTER While the beta version of Mastercam 2018 from CNC Software, Inc. ( mastercam.com ) has been announced, here's what's what in Mastercam 2017. In the 2D realm, micro lifts in the dynamic mill toolpath use a line-of-sight approach when In Alphacam 2017 R1, new depth control settings for the tip angle of the tool and the cone angle of the hole let machinists drill the actual holes identified from automated feature extraction. 49