NX + MKE or the magic of shape recognition. How to generate 100% automatic toolpaths for shapes with variable dimensions.
The origin of this necessity
By nature, LOUIS must reconcile ultra-configurable furniture with high-volume production logic. This means that each day of machining is different and therefore we machine more or less the same shapes (mortises, tenons, pockets, holes), but with increasingly different dimensions.
One of the problems was the following: How to define a generic toolpath once for a shape that could appear 20 times a day in the machining operations but vary in height, width, length, from one part to another ?
The Machining Knowledge Editor an effecacious answer
Recognize shapes and adapt tool paths according to size variations
"The MKE solution from NX has revolutionized our toolpath management. The MKE is able to learn a shape from a single example and then recognize any similar shape afterwards."
It doesn't matter if the example mortise is 40mm long and the day's mortise is 65mm long, the MKE still recognizes the shape. More importantly, it adapts the toolpath for the 40 mm mortise to the 65 mm mortise.
We have a product catalog of about twenty references, each product has about fifteen different shapes to be machined, with an infinity of possible dimensions on certain shapes. However, we were able to cover all our machining with only 15 MKE rules. The maintenance of our machining processes is thus extremely reduced and very quickly amortized.
Detect parts to be machined to get the right tools at the right time.
At LOUIS, automation of the machining process is a key element in reconciling customizable furniture with production volume.
Wood can be a fickle material and using the right tool at the right time is essential. In this vein, milling cutters with diamond blades produce an exceptional finish (we've eliminated any manual sanding of edges after machining!).
However, we have also learned that tools as rigid and sharp as diamond cutters are also much more fragile than carbide cutting tools, they are also much more expensive, and therefore it is impossible to use them in the entire machining process.
"With NX's MKE system we were able to define very fine rules based on the different shapes to be machined in our products, in order to use the diamond cutters at the right time."
For example, the algorithm does not use the diamond cutters on small parts that are likely to move and therefore cause breakage, but it does on large surfaces, where it is all the more interesting to have an exceptional quality of cut.
It is also able to know the minimum radii found on a shape, and to find out which tool diameter and therefore which tool would be the most appropriate.
Next week in an article dedicated to NX Open + Python you will discover how to bring more value to the CNC operator's job !
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