It’s finally here! SOLIDWORKS 2019 is out and available for download. If you haven’t had a chance to attend a Reseller rollout head over to our what’s new page on the SOLIDWORKS website. The 2019 release has lots of significant improvements to SOLIDWORKS CAM Standard and Professional, but we are also adding some new features this year in some of the service packs. Because we don’t want to wait to get some of our new features, we will be adding Rest Machining to VoluMill in Service Pack 1.

What is Rest Machining?

You may be asking yourself, what is VoluMill and Rest Machining? Well, I am glad you asked. SOLIDWORKS CAM Professional is where you will find VoluMill. This technology was developed by Celerative Technologies and is the premier high-speed, science-based toolpath application in the industry today. Volumill creates highly efficient toolpaths by combining a high spindle speed with a variable feed rate, allowing the tool to cut faster and deeper while under greatly reduced stress. By reducing stress on the tool, you can extend the life of traditional tooling. This leads to shorter machines times and lower overhead for tooling.

To answer the next part of the question, what is “rest” machining, we need to take a look at some toolpaths. If we look at the first toolpath below, you can see that the 20mm end mill does a great job roughing out the center of the part but is too large to fit into the outer pockets. Traditionally, you will add a second operation to finish the exterior pockets with a smaller tool.

Starting with 2019 Service Pack 1 users will be able to machine the “rest” of the pockets with a smaller tool while utilizing VoluMill toolpaths to shorten machining time while extending tool life. If you look at the image below you will see the new strategies with rest machining turned on.

Notice how the toolpath that is created with the smaller tool starts where, the 20 mm tool left off this “rest” machining removes any cutting of air or additional run time. To see a video demonstration of this functionality, please check out the what’s new page of our website. You will also find all the other new features found in SOLIDWORKS CAM 2019. Catch up on some of the more significant new features in SOLIDWORKS CAM 2019 in this blog post.

NestingWorks Promotion

Along with our enhancements in SOLIDWORKS CAM 2019, our partners at NestingWorks are providing a promotion until December 28th, 2018 for new SOLIDWORKS CAM Professional customers. Any new purchase of SOLIDWORKS CAM Professional with a subscription will receive NestingWorks for the cost of Subscription (Limit license per company). This allows SOLIDWORKS users to Nest their assemblies or multi-bodied parts based on material type and thickness automatically. Once this nested assembly is created, SOLIDWORKS CAM Professional can be used to program the components while maintaining associativity to the original design. This benefit expedited the design-through-the-manufacturing process. To learn more about NestingWorks, please watch the video or go to the NestingWorks website.

Mike Buchli

Michael Buchli has 20 years of design and manufacturing experience throughout the Midwest ranging from Aerospace to recycling systems. A number of those years were spent learning and understanding workflows and processes to improve efficiency and productivity. From running CNC equipment to welding and painting Michael has been hands-on in all aspects of bringing products to market. Michael is also certified in many areas of mfg and a CSWP. He has also written the CAMWorks Handbook.