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About CAD/CAM Software
CAD stands for Computer Aided Designing and CAM stands for Computer Aided Machining.
All CNC machines, including ours, work on the numeric data, known as toolpath. Gone are the days when toolpath were manually calculated and entered through punched tapes or using front panels of CNC machines. Today, CAM software are available which do this tedious and time consuming job for you efficiently and quickly.
Sunita,SEC
A little information and difference between a CAD software and a CAM software would not be inappropriate here, as we observe a lot of confusion about this in the industry.
CAD stands for Computer Aided Designing and CAM stands for Computer Aided Machining. As obvious from their acronyms, a CAD by CAM software is used to design the artwork, drawings etc. which are further used by CAM software to make toolpath for machining. A CNC machine has nothing to do with the cad software to make toolpath for machining. A CNC machine has nothing to do with the CAD software as the basic design can be made in any CAD software. What is important for CNC machine, is the CAM software, which works on these designs and make suitable toolpath for the machining. Every CAM software has a separate driver for a particular CNC machine for it to generate appropriate toolpath. All major CAM software have many drivers with a facility to add more drivers not included with the software.
Normally, CAM software provide facility to modify drawings created in CAD software. Not only that, many software's have a CAD as well as CAM facility built into one module which is why they are called CAD/CAM software, capable of handling both, the designing as well as machining.
A lot of CAD/CAM software are available in the market, which cater to a distinct but broad spectrum of clients. Some examples are dedicated CAD/CAM software for jewelry segment, mould-makers, engravers, product designers having multiples of sub-components and assemblies to name a few.
Each CAD/CAM software have some strength areas as well as weaknesses and it is important for a buyer to know such details so that he makes a right decision. A CAD/CAM software indirectly controls the usability of the CNC machines and hence a wrong decision may prove fatal for the business.
Being in this industry for more than a decade and having worked on multitudes of such software, we have the knowledge and expertise a client may need in making a correct decision. After all, nothing can be compared to the smile of a customer which comes only after the system is set right and working to the expectations.
HOW SYSTEM WORKS(CAD/CAM Software)
The procedure to make every job more or less remains the same, regardless of the industry. i.e. be it a sparking electrode, a punch die, shoe sole or name plate, the process varies marginally. We summaries this procedure for our machine below.
Acquiring the CAD data
Acquiring the artwork or the drawing of the job in vector format i.e. combination of lines and arcs is the first step to do the job. In most of the cases, a 2D drawing created in any CAD software like AutoCAD, CorelDraw, etc. acts as the CAD source. Sometimes, a 3D model created in CAD software like Pro-Engineer, IDEAS is used as source for making 3D jobs. In case where the artwork is available on paper, the scanned image acts as the source. In cases where direct component is available, a 3D digitiser is used to acquire the CAD image.
Generating the toolpath
This CAD image is then taken in the CAM software and required toolpath is made using appropriate tools
Sending the toolpath
This toolpath is then sent to the machine. The operator has to ensure that the correct tool sequence, as written in the CAM software is followed to get the correct profile.
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Cad Cam Software