Research On Automatic Programming System For Mould-electrodes Based On PowerMill

It is a fact that a lot of Mole-electrodes are used in mould processing, but there are many problems exist in the current CAD/CAM software on electrode processing, such as duplication of labor, long time for NC programming, difference of result from individual to individual, difficulty to preserve processing files and so on, The general way to improve the problems is doing re-development on current CAD/CAM software.In view of existing situation and problems in using CAD software as PowerMill to process Mold-electrode, a reusable Mold-electrode CNC programming method based on grouping technology was presented, and it was used in program Model-electrode NC Codes. The main content and results are as following:1. This paper presented a reusable mould electrode CNC programming method based on grouping technology. The special reusable Mold-electrode NC Processing library which based on the features of Mold-electrode PowerMill programming, and combined with production experience in mould enterprises, used grouping technology to group the general electrodes and used the macros in PowerMill to program process procedure for the grouped electrodes was finally set up. Then keep the library open so that users can input the expected processes.2. The developed Automated Programming System that based on the reusable mold-electrode CNC programming method was followed the grouping technology, and combined with the principle of the supremacy of users, Structured design, modularization design and Top-Down Approach to analyze the system. Its function blocks and data model was built up by IDEFO method, and expected functions and objectives by VB.NET NC codes. A very important advantage of this system was its convenient and practical man-machine interactive interface.3. An Standard Processing System database was built up. It consists of User management database, Mould Processing database, Processing strategies database, Tool database, Post-processing database and others important database. This system was managed by man-machine interactive interface, and could satisfy with requires such as improving mould enterprise efficiency and dropping production costs.4. The processing sample in this paper showed that the Automated Programming System is very easy to operate, and can reduce manual intervention and make the programming process easier. Also users can input defined process procedure by its Opened Processing Strategy Interface. It can improve the automatic level for user when programmed on Standard interfaces, because that user can not only chose the presented mature processes, but also input the ones they need when processing. In this way the intervals of computer can be fully used, so it provided a powerful tool for high-speed production.