CADCAM SUPPLEMENTCADCAM & PRODUCTION IT SUPPLEMENT
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Full simulation with NCSIMUL at Evafl o
avoids expensive errors
Inset: Evafl o engineers save much time
through the application of NCSIMUL
November 2020 | www.machinery.co.uk | MachineryMagazine | @MachineryTweets
CASE STUDIES
32
Hydraulic block machining
made more ef cient with
NCSIMUL
A combination of toolpath simulation for G-code
verifi cation and cutting tool management signifi cantly
improved productivity for a company specialising in
machining hydraulic blocks.
Based at Saint-Germain-Laval in Central France,
Eva o uses NCSIMUL’s machine simulation module
from the Hexagon group ( www.is.gd/fenopu ) to help
create a complete digital chain, from receiving the
customer’s product plans, through to setting up its CNC
machine tool for cutting the prototype.
The Botellé brothers – Élysé, Valéry and Floréal –
were born into the mechanics industry and learned from
their father, an engineer who focused on milling. When
they acquired a machine shop in 2000, they diversi ed
the customer base and set about continuously
improving production performance.
Around 80% of the company’s income now comes
from machining hydraulic blocks, used for receiving all
or part of the components of a hydraulic circuit. The
connections between the various connected devices are
made by drilled holes that replace the piping. Eva o’s
sectors of activity are agro-industry and aeronautics.
Because manufacturing the blocks is highly
specialised, the brothers originally coded machine
programs themselves, through a mix of basic CAM and
code written manually using a text editor. “But checking
the code line by line on the machine was timeconsuming,
so we invested in simulation software that
would validate the checking stage,” says Élysé Botellé,
who continues, adding: “Installing the NCSIMUL
Machine module from Hexagon reduced the time taken
to complete that task by a factor of three.”
Having saved that time in the workshop, the brothers
then turned their attention to improving productivity in
the of ce, too. “We developed our own code generator,
dedicated to producing machining toolpath programs for
our ve Mori Seiki 4-axis machining centres and two
Mori Seiki CNC turning machines, which we simulated in
the digital twin created by NCSIMUL Machine.”
The NCSIMUL Machine module detects programming
errors and any potential collisions from the same NC
G-code that drives the machine tool, so the brothers
were guaranteed absolute accuracy before they started
to machine metal.
Based on the real characteristics of the company’s
machines, NCSIMUL provides Eva o with a dynamic
veri cation solution. But it doesn’t end there, as the
brothers discovered that the software has complete
synergy with another module: NCSIMUL Tool, which
integrates Eva o’s digital tools into the production
process and optimises the tool cycle, using simpli ed
import functions and pre-con gured master models.
“Registering each of the 1,200 tools we use in the
workshop into NCSIMUL Tool means the of ce can now
simulate the individual kinematics during the cutting
operations. And this database has also optimised the
workshop’s tool management.
“Finally, thanks to full data exchange, a tool identi er
in NCSIMUL Tool arrives in the simulation module, which
automatically recognises it without us having to make a
manual connection between the code generator and
tools held in the NCSIMUL Tool database. Again, this
saves us considerable time.
“Overall, the combination of NCSIMUL Machine
and NCSIMUL Tool works wonders for us,” concludes
Élysé Botellé.
/www.machinery.co.uk
/fenopu