New Compact Class CNCs

Designedto address the needs of complex turning and milling machines for job shops, theSinumerik 828D combines CNC, PLC, operator panel and axis control for six CNCmeasurement circuits in a single robust operator panel. Offering intelligentkinematic transformations, an efficient tool management system and 80-bitfloating point nano precision, the new control provides performance featurespreviously reserved for the premium CNC control segment.

"The828D is a new control platform focused on compact class CNC machines, says JonCruthers, manager of business development for Siemens. It is used in millingapplications up to six axes, and turning applications up to eight axes while alsosupporting live tooling."

Crutherssays that to bring advanced features to this compact class machine tool, they haveadded support for multiple CNC programming methodologies. Along with traditionalG Code and ISO code programming, the unit also supports the more intuitive,graphical style programming with Siemens' ShopMill or ShopTurn graphicalworkstep programming systems. Any of the programming options can be usedinterchangeably on a common HMI.

"Itgives the user flexibility to program in a format they are used to programmingor in a new way which can provide more simplicity and ease of use," he says.

Onecapability is Advanced Surface which allows users to do advanced mold and dieapplications on a simple three-axis milling machine. Advanced Surface providesbetter surface quality, higher machining speeds and optimizes the drives andcontrol of the tool to achieve an advanced surface finish easily on a mid-rangemachine.

Inaddition, 80-bit floating point nano precision provides highly accurate positionand speed control, features typically reserved for the higher end CNCs to achievethat level of accuracy.

CNCsimulations are also provided, so the user can run a part program in simulationmode on the CNC to get a full 3-D view. Users can zoom in on the part, and itallows the operator to estimate machining time prior to running the part.

Onecapability that Cruthers says is of great interest is called Animated Elementswhich creates short movie-like sequences instead of static bitmaps to show whata particular operation, whether it's a drilling operation or type of motionpath, will look like. The movie sequence helps the user see what they haveprogrammed prior to the actual machining of the part.

Anotherunique feature is Easy Message, which provides the capability to send simpletext messages through a GSM modem supplied by Siemens and to any number ofusers on machine states, tool data, alarms and production states. The feature,for example, enables an operator or job shop manager to set-up a part to run,and when the part is complete, receive a pre-defined text message.

"Manyof these features are unique to the 828D," says Cruthers. "We see that many jobshops are moving up into more complex five-axis style machining and are startingto take on more complex machining tasks. This allows an operator that has beenworking on a very simple three-axis machine to easily move into more complexmachining tasks without having to learn a whole new way of machining parts."

New Compact Class CNCs A