The Sandvik Coromant CoroPlus Tool Library add-in for Fusion 360 provides tool recommendations and cutting data strategies.
Autodesk has sponsored this post.
Tooling and cutting parameters can cause many problems for CAM programmers. Tediously entering tool specifications for every component is prone to errors and delays. And that’s if you know what specs to enter—but what if you don’t?
Say you’ve been tasked with machining an exotic nickel-based alloy. It’s a material you’ve never dealt with before, and you have no clue what feeds or speeds to use. Getting your cutting tool parameters wrong could risk damaging not only your workpiece, but your equipment as well. You briefly consider flicking through the tooling catalog, but remember how little sense it made the last time you perused it. You decide to ask your colleagues for advice based off of their experience, only for each to confidently respond with a different recommendation.
These common issues spurred Autodesk and Sandvik Coromant to make an add-in for Fusion 360 that provides users with digital access to Sandvik Coromant’s tool libraries. Released to the public in January, the Sandvik Coromant CoroPlus Tool Library add-in allows users to build tool assemblies and obtain tool and cutting data recommendations directly within Fusion 360.
What Tooling Challenges Does the CoroPlus Add-In Help Overcome?
In the past, CAM programmers have relied on static cutting tool guides when confronted with novel jobs. But these can be more painful than helpful, according to Richard Stubley, Senior Technical Consultant at Autodesk.
“Feeds and speeds tool guides are generally very difficult things to use,” Stubley said. “You’re confronted with acronyms of all sorts of different parameters. They require input, which can sometimes be just as hard to fill as deciphering the speeds and feeds themselves.”
The Sandvik Coromant CoroPlus Tool Library add-in aims to reduce this difficult and time-consuming process. Integrated in the Fusion 360 CAM environment, the add-in provides up-to-date cutting parameters delivered straight from the company that made the tools.
Today’s machine operators are faced with a plethora of tooling options. For example, Sandvik Coromant provides over 200 varieties of 10mm solid end mills. Regardless of a machinist’s skill level, this abundance of options can make it almost impossible to determine the best tool for a specific material or feature.
“There is this dark art of figuring out what type of tool assembly to use,” said Clinton Perry, Product Marketing Manager at Autodesk. “What coatings do you use on the tool? What flute angle? What rake angle? It’s mind-blowing how many variables are involved in the process. Your feeds and speeds depend on the characteristics and setup of your machine, and the material being cut. It’s very easy to pick the wrong tool and—fat-finger syndrome—type the wrong numbers into your software. Before you know it, your programs output to your machine tool and something very bad happens.”
The CoroPlus add-in assists the tool assembly process, specifying everything from the cutting part to adaptive items such as collets and sleeves.
The add-in goes beyond providing purely geometry-based recommendations—it also suggests alternative tooling options on the basis of cost, speed and more.
“When providing tooling and cutting data recommendations, it considers everything within your machining environment,” explained Jonas Ström, Product Manager for Design and Planning at Sandvik Coromant. “What feed and speeds limit do you have on your machine tool? What power and torque? What is the workpiece material? What is the task you would like to perform? It’s a dynamic recommendation that provides all the tools that can perform your operation. Then it ranks them on different criteria.”
Results could be sorted by which tool is fastest to machine a feature, or which is cheapest. Users could choose to filter for solid end mills, or look at more versatile tools for different materials and applications. A tool could be picked that is optimized to the specific material and operation.
“The add-in will go to the extent of recommending cutting parameters based on not just the material, but the feature that’s being cut—so a pocket, hole or doubly-curved 3D surface,” added Perry. “That takes you to a whole new level of optimizing your individual toolpaths in Fusion 360.”
Manufacturers aren’t obliged to buy new tools, either. The add-in provides machinists with information on achieving maximum efficiency with the tools they already have in their arsenal.
Once tooling decisions have been made, CAM programmers often have to spend an inordinate amount of time recreating data in their CAM program from 3D models of the cutting tool.
“If you have a component that requires a lot of new tools, you can spend as much as 70 percent of the CAM programming time just on finding and defining the cutting tools,” said Ström. “It’s only a fraction of the time that you’re actually programming or creating the toolpaths.”
Many manufacturers invest time in setting up a tooling database within their CAM software. However, this database can quickly become outdated, representing only tools that engineers had access to at a specific point in time.
“The Sandvik Coromant team, like many cutting tool suppliers, are evolving new tools all the time,” conveyed Perry. “The nice thing about this add-in is it provides a live connection to the very latest version of the CoroPlus Tool Library, plus all of the intelligent tried-and-tested feeds and speeds that are baked into that library. You might well find there’s a new tool that you didn’t have access to six months ago, that would massively transform the efficiency of your machining process.”
Installing the CoroPlus Add-In
The Sandvik Coromant CoroPlus Tool Library add-in is available for download through the Autodesk App Store. While the add-in itself is free for Fusion 360 users, a subscription to Sandvik Coromant’s CoroPlus Tool Library is required in order to link to the live tooling database. After a 30-day free trial, the CoroPlus Tool Library costs €200 (approximately $232) for an annual subscription.
The CoroPlus Tool Library is built on the ISO 13399 standard, which addresses the representation and exchange of industrial product data related to cutting tools and toolholders. As a result, the CoroPlus Tool Library not only includes Sandvik Coromant tools, but also tools from other suppliers who support the ISO standard.
“We have an interface that gives users access to data from more than 40 suppliers,” revealed Ström. “They have almost one million different tool items in their catalog that the CoroPlus Tool Library can get access to and import in their own system.”
However, the CoroPlus add-in’s feeds and speeds recommendations are limited to Sandvik Coromant cutting items.
“This makes sense, as the Sandvik Coromant team have in-depth knowledge of the capabilities of their tooling,” reasoned Perry. “It’s possibly unfair to expect the Sandvik Coromant team to recommend cutting data for a tool from another supplier. What this means is, if customers want to get the best value from the add-in, the sweet spot is Fusion 360 working with CoroPlus tooling.”
Watch this series of videos on Autodesk’s YouTube channel to see the add-in in action – including how the add-in was used to machine a large, titanium aerospace part on a Hermle C50 5-axis machine:
A Long-Term Vision for the Partnership
The CoroPlus add-in comes at a time where many machining shops are resistant to change, preferring to go off of traditional practices or Excel sheet calculations when determining feeds and speeds.
“The metal-cutting industry is conservative, so not everyone is jumping to the new solutions straight away,” shared Ström. “It’s sometimes very hard to convince the more experienced users that the cutting data we provide is accurate. But everything is about trust—so once they get comfortable with the data, they will continue to use [the tool libraries] instead of trying to keep everything in their head.”
Perry hopes that in time, closed-loop feedback within Fusion 360 can refine tooling and cutting data suggestions. The Autodesk and Sandvik Coromant teams both believe that the next logical step involves extending the add-in functionality to other tool types, such as turning tools.
“Currently, we only support rotating tools—so, milling and drilling,” said George Roberts, Product Manager for Fusion 360 Manufacturing at Autodesk. “Sandvik are also very prominent in the turning tools space.”
There could be opportunities to utilize Sandvik’s knowledge in other ways as well.
“Sandvik isn’t just good at the tooling side of things,” asserted Roberts. “They’ve got a lot of information on how to machine parts—which, quite frankly, isn’t really available for customers now in CAM systems. In the future, I hope we can partner to try and benefit people that are newer to manufacturing, by providing a way to get that information from our product seamlessly.”
“It could expand to the ability to develop completely new toolpath strategies that are optimized to suit the capabilities of a cutting tool,” added Perry. “I think that’s where there’s huge scope for this relationship to go beyond just an exchange of data between the systems.”
To download the Sandvik Coromant CoroPlus Tool Library add-in, visit the Autodesk App Store.
