NCL NewsLetter

Perfecting Manufacturing, Increasing Production
With a growing number of CAM systems available to the machining industry, manufacturers are asking, "Which CAM system will get the job done?" Although a simple question, it follows with many possible solutions, depending on the complexity of the parts manufactured. Specifically within the aerospace industry, structural airframe parts require a high-end CAM system that allow for flexibility and considerable tool control. As such, perfecting the art of manufacturing is key in aerospace production.

Triumph Structures LA was challenged with remaining competitive in the production of integral aircraft components while keeping its customers satisfied. Because of a plethora of companies biding for many of the same jobs, Triumph Structures dissected its production process, beginning with the initial programming to final part production.

Triumph Structures LA, located in Southern California, has operated four facilities adding up to 365,000 square feet. Since the beginning, the company has served the aerospace and ground defense markets, specializing in precision parts of various materials. Its machining capabilities include high-speed three-, four-, and five-axis precision machining up to 120 ft. in length. The company specializes in manufacturing products including stringers, ribs, longerons, landing gear components/assemblies, bulkheads, frames, pylon components, engine mounts, and nacelle assemblies.

Pursuing Excellence
To remain successful in programming these specialized components, it became necessary to invest in the right CAM system with the greatest capabilities to handle the company's many CNC high-speed machining centers. After carefully considering all their options and specific needs, the company purchased the NCL 5-axis CAM system as its programming solution to complement its equipment.

NCL is a powerful computer-aided manufacturing package that generates simultaneous two- through five-axis NC toolpaths and provides parametric 3-D modeling. All geometric modeling and toolpath functions are fully associative. A change to the model results in an immediate change to corresponding toolpaths. NCL is ideally suited for environments in which design changes are frequent, such as the aerospace industry. NCL also supports full parametric programming, through which a family of parts can be machined by simply filling in a form. NCL is used extensively in the aerospace, turbomachinery, power generation, tire mold, and composite industries.

Triumph Structures LA found that to get the job done right, while maintaining customer satisfaction, there was only one option: implement the NCL multi-axis machining package from NCCS. With a large amount of money invested in its equipment for machining expensive parts, efficient programming was a necessity. Management moved forward with its decision to have the software package installed, trained its employees, and ultimately machined parts more quickly and efficiently.

Part Production
"At Triumph Structures LA, we continue the pursuit in technological advancements in all business facets to maintain an advantage on our competitors and remain a benchmark for which other companies within the aerospace community measure their success. To maintain our competitive edge in the aerospace industry, we continually upgrade our machines and software and are currently using NCL Version 9.5 to program the most difficult structural components", says Steve LaPlante, engineering manager.

With the purchase of NCL, NCL/IPV, and PostWorks, the company was able to increase its part production, improving production costs, on-time delivery, and overall customer satisfaction. Once the programmers were trained in the use of the software, they were given the tools required to develop time-saving macros that quickly create high-quality finished parts.

"Many of the NCL features, including the family of parts and macro capability give us significant time savings while programming and are utilized from start to finish. Each job begins with running the part through the IGES translator, along with the CAM module for part programming. Once the part is programmed, the part is run through the IPV (In-Process-Verification) module within NCL to verify the part and finished with PostWorks for the machine punch file," adds LaPlante.

With these benefits, Triumph Structures concludes that NCL is powerful enough to easily handle its five-axis work. Its wide range of capabilities brings confidence in building successful parts. With the use of macros and the family of parts capabilities, the company has become one of the best in their class for supplying machined aircraft parts.

"By mastering the specialized programming technique found in NCL," LaPlante says, "we have become more successful in manufacturing very large precision aerospace and airframe parts. NCL is one of the best software packages available today for part programming these type of intricate parts."

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Enhanced Capability For Advanced Multi-axis Machining
Available from NCCS, NCL multi-axis machining software is used in the aerospace, automotive and turbo machinery industry. Continually being enhanced is its waterline roughing feature designed to decrease programming time and machining of complex parts by generating time-saving tool paths.

Automated Roughing Strategies

Stock models can be included as part of the model to be machined, or have the system automatically calculate a contour or rectangular stock model, thereby enabling the user to quickly rough large imported models. At this point, the user can specify the bottom an top levels of the part or again, have the system calculate the extent of the area to machine. This is designed to minimize programming time and reduce inefficiencies.

The waterline roughing feature allows the user to either machine the entire model or only a selected portion of the model. The user chooses the machining parameters such as, axial and radial stepovers, entry angle, entry method, and pocketing strategy. This feature is designed to speed up the machining process while offering flexibility.

According to David Schultz, NCCS' Manager of CAD/CAM Applications, "We realize that programmers want features that are fast, efficient and easy to use. Using the waterline roughing feature easily minimizes tool wear, improves quality, and reduces programming time".
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Technical Tips
Did You Know.....?

...That if you are using a Network Floating USB Dongle for NCCS Software Licensing:

The environmental variable NSP_HOST can be setup to point to either the IP address or the name of the server that the Network key and SuperProNet drivers are installed on. For example:

NSP_HOST = 100.0.23.1 -or- NSP_HOST = NEPTUNE

This will improve the speed at which the license can be obtained, since the entire network will have to be searched if this environmental variable is not defined.

NSP_HOST is required if you are trying to obtain the USB Float License off the same machine that the SuperProNet Drivers are loaded on.

...That if you press lowercase-x while in dynamic viewing mode:

You will be prompted for a new dynamic viewing center point. Pick any entity on the screen. Dynamic viewing will continue with the point you picked as the new center of rotation.

...That while in pick mode with the cursor over several entities:

You can press the lowercase-x key to toggle between the possible selections. Each time you press lowercase-x a different entity will be highlighted. When the desired entity is highlighted, left-click to pick the entity.

...That you can easily display the shank of the tool using the following command:

CUTTER/DISPLY,SHANK,0,.75

The first parameter is the diameter of the shank. If 0 is specified, the shank will have the same diameter as the cutter. The second parameter specifies the length of the shank from the top of the currently defined cutter.

...That the CUTTER/PSEUDO command can be used to specify the cutter NCL uses to calculate the
tool path without changing the display of the cutter. For example:

CUTTER/DISPLY,1,.03,2
CUTTER/DISPLY,SHANK,0,2
CUTTER/PSEUDO,1,.03,.03

You can specify as many CUTTER/PSEUDO statements as you would like throughout the operation and the cutter display will never change. This is true for both NCL and NCL/IPV.

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Website Updates
User Discussion Board
Check out the new user discussion board at www.nccs.com for all users of NCCS software. It will require a username and password (the same one used for the secure area of our website). If you don't have your username and password, or have misplaced it, please register or request a new one. You may post questions, comments, or technical tips to other users of NCCS software. Please be courteous and check back often for new information.

Download the latest Patch
Visit the NCCS support area of our website to download the latest NCL and PostWorks patch. If you are not able to download the patch, contact us and we will gladly send you a CD. The new patch contains a number of corrections and enhancements to the various software products.
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Words of Wisdom
"He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
- J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) South African-born English Novelist, Scholar

"In science, all facts no matter how trivial, enjoy democratic equality."
- Mary McCarthy (1912-1989) American Novelist, Critic

"The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all is the person who argues with him."
- Stanislaw Jerszy Lec (1909-1966) Polish Aphorist, Poet, Satirist

"Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise."
- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Austrian Physician, Founder of Psychoanalysis

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit."
- Aristotle (384-322BC) Greek Philosopher, Scientist
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Class Schedule - Corporate Headquarters


	NCL General Programming September 10-14, 2007 October 22-26, 2007 December 3-7, 2007 January 28-Feb 01, 2008 *NCL/IPV* September 17-18, 2007 October 29-30, 2007 December 10-11, 2007 *PostWorks* September 19-21, 2007 October 31-Nov 02, 2007 December 12-14, 2007

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