CENIT launches five-axis laser programmer for Catia

CENIT launches five-axis laser programmer for Catia

Keywords: Lasers, Programming

CENIT (UK) has launched Lasercut, a new software tool for programming five-axis laser cutting machines (see Figure 2). Lasercut has been developed by Germany-based CENIT GmbH, and is designed to work seamlessly within Catia.

The use of five-axis laser cutting machines has become more and more widespread across a number of industries over the past few years, largely due to the flexibility and quality of the machining process. In the automotive industry laser cutting has proven a cost effective trimming solution for prototype panels in vehicle concept and tooling development. It has also found a home in low volume production situations – prestige car manufacturers are a classic example – where it removes the need to develop costly bespoke trimming machinery. The aerospace industry has increasingly been reaping similar benefits.

Figure 2Five-axis laser cutting

"While the concept of five-axis laser cutting as a process is simple to grasp, the actual programming of these machines is, like all five-axis programming, far from simple", explains Steve Massie, business development manager at CENIT (UK). "Leading manufacturers were crying out for a way of programming such machines quickly and easily and that's exactly what CENIT has come up with in Lasercut."

Lasercut makes full use of Catia's powerful geometry manipulation capabilities. This has two major benefits: first, the programmer can work with a complete model of machine and fixtures, placing the component and programming it in situ; second, it enables a full simulation of the program to be visualized. This means that many of the problems normally associated with five-axis programming can be readily overcome: clashes between head and component or fixtures, for example, can be detected and corrected automatically. And because true component orientation is taken into account from the outset,there are no problems associated with transferring from an arbitrary co-ordinate system – far from easy when five-axes and complex fixtures are involved!

The software contains many powerful programming features including simple selection of trim lines, the support of complex geometry types, automatic setting of approach, retract and cutting conditions, special piercing manipulation routines, program mirroring capabilities and automatic handling of machine limit situations. The software also supports reverse engineering,enabling existing NC data to be read back into Lasercut for modification and editing, or conversion of code for one machine into code suitable for another.

Importantly, the software requires only a basic set of Catia licences,enabling it to be cost effectively implemented into environments where five-axis laser programming will be the sole task, although the full Catia suite can also be adopted for those situations where a complete CAD/CAM environment is required. All the leading five-axis laser machines are supported and Lasercut is"production proven" with over 100 licences already supplied and in use in leading manufacturing companies worldwide.

For further information contact: Steve Massie, CENIT (UK). Tel: +44 (0) 161 927 9273; Fax: +44 (0) 161 927 9274.