Easy-to-learn knee-mill CNC

Manufacturing Engineering, Jan 1999

Control packages for two and threeaxis CNC knee mills can handle contouring as well as 25 separate machining cycles. Made by Sony Precision Technology (Lake Forest, CA), the mills have menu-driven software that is said to enable machinists with little or no CNC experience to quickly master advanced control features. The package runs on an industrial-grade PC with a Pentium processor and Windows 95 operating system.

A graphical interface provides visual programming aids with realtime simulation of the milling process. A graphic program editor lets the operator quickly create sophisticated programs by selecting machining cycles. A built-in trig-assist function automatically computes unknown positions.

Cycles such as drilling, facing, and island milling are graphically displayed and added to the program with the press of a button. Circle 205.