The supplier of technical plastic semi-finished components for different sectors including automotive and machine builders Merrem Kunststoffen B.V. is a part of the Merrem Kunststoffen Group who is a leading supplier of plastic components and technical rubber parts.
Merrem decided to invest in a 5-axis CNC machine tool to expand their machining capabilities to their customers, but on purchasing the machine tool, they found it difficult to find a good 5-axis CAM software package, that could also work well with CATIA part files.
NCG CAM was recommended to Merrem by one of their customers, who was using it alongside CATIA and said NCG CAM was affordable, easy to use and user friendly; so Merrem decided to evaluate NCG CAM.
Having evaluated NCG CAM, Merrem was very pleased with the simultaneous 5-axis capabilities, as they previously could only do 3+2 axis. One thing that really impressed them was the way that the 5-axis in NCG CAM automatically checks for collisions. If NCG CAM detects a potential collision with the head of the machine tool, it will turn the machine tool head on its side, whilst still keeping the cutter on the part; this is something that Merrem had not seen in many CAM software packages.
Merrem produces many large automotive parts, including for the inside of a wheel which can be up to 1500mm high. This part is machined using a ball-nosed cutter, with very large machining calculations of 2 – 3 million lines of machining code, so calculation times and also surface finish are important. The evaluation proved that calculations that had taken hours before, took just 50 minutes with NCG CAM.
Merrem also found that NCG CAM worked very well alongside the IronCAD software that they had; they initially purchased IronCAD 2 years ago to repair broken STEP files that they receive from their customers.
IronCAD is able to automatically recover broken files, by simply opening the broken file in IronCAD and selecting to fix the file; Merrem found that it works extremely well with CATIA and STEP files. The repaired file can then be read into the CAD software with no problem at all. It is also possible to take a DXF or a DWG file and create a STEP file. This is a very powerful feature in IronCAD and is something that Merrem had not been able to do with other software that they had previously used or evaluated.
Examples of products that Merrem now manufacture using IronCAD and NCG CAM together:
Moulds for making:
– Wheel house liners
– Engine compartments
– Luggage compartments
– Roof liners
– Poultry farming machinery
“For programming some of the CNC machines we use NCG CAM in combination with IronCAD. The company uses IronCAD to automatically repair and make adjustments to 3D models, before opening the model in NCG CAM to program the tool-paths. We use NCG CAM for programming semi-finished products which require 5-axis simultaneous machining. Using these programs together with the Belotti FLA 417 5-axis CNC machine makes the programming of the products a lot easier and faster. NCG CAM calculates very fast and is good at indicating visually what the machine will do. It is also possible to put in dimensions of the machine head for auto clash detection. The program will automatically twist the machine head to prevent contact with the material. Merrem Kunststoffen B.V. is very pleased with the use of NCG CAM and IronCAD for products that must meet the expectations of our customers from different industries.” Says Ramon Leonhardt – Merrem Kunststoffen B.V.
