Did you know that more efficient CAM cycles can drastically reduce the CNC power consumption also?

21.12.2022 — When considering a CAM system, you may immediately think of cycle times and compare how efficient the different CAM systems are at reducing machining times, but should this be the only factor you consider? With the current price of energy, this must be a large portion of your outgoing costs, so what if you could reduce your energy bills significantly?
It is obvious that shorter machining times, means that the energy used to machine the part will be less also, that is logical. But, did you know that more efficient CAM cycles can drastically reduce the CNC power consumption also?

For this reason, I want to share with you some information about a machining benchmark that OPEN MIND Technologies UK conducted a few years ago onsite at a prospects facility, comparing hyperMILL® against another popular CAM system.
Below are the statistics of the time savings and benefits of hyperMILL® – it was interesting to see the breakdown of just how many areas hyperMILL® outperformed their existing CAM system.
These statistics are all based upon the customer part used for the benchmark.

Energy Consumption

The customer requested a comparison of the energy required to drive the spindle between hyperMILL® and their existing CAM system:

  • Existing CAM system = 39kW to drive spindle
  • hyperMILL® = 3.5kW to drive spindle
  • Energy Saving: 35.5 kWh

Toolpath and tooling savings

Saving were 50% and over

Competitor way

  • 5 tool sizes
  • 43mins per slot


OPEN MIND way

  • 2 tool sizes
  • 21mins per slot

The information is taken from the roughing operations only

Programming Time

Programming time went from 1 week to 1 day after switching to hyperMILL®.

Their existing CAM system could only machine the components complex shape by following drive curves. This was often a trial-and-error approach to get the correct tool path.
Using their existing CAM system, they needed to create a new job list again on each new part, that required a skilled CAD user needed to create reference data.

Using hyperMILL®, it is not necessary to generate complex curves and the 5-axis cycles developed by OPEN MIND worked first time, without the need to tweak the toolpath to get the right result.

How did OPEN MIND Technologies UK achieve this?......
Using hyperMILL®’s unique methods of programming complex geometry and unique advanced cutting strategies.

Matt Coulson CMgr MCMI

hyperMILL® Sales Manager - North East England and Scotland at OPEN MIND Technologies UK

For further information and how you can achieve the same quick return on investment, please contact OPEN MIND.

Ask for Adrian Smith, Ken Baldwin, Simon Docker, Justin Talboys-Cotton or myself

mobile-s mobile-m mobile-l tablet desktop-s desktop-m desktop-l desktop-xl