Plunge turning and grooving with ShopTurn
ShopTurn supports grooving and plunge turning with practical cycles for stock removal and for residual material machining.
The technologies of plunge turning and grooving
In addition to the standard ISO turning, in the meantime, additional procedures for grooving and plunge turning have established themselves. Plunge turning is a very productive alternative, especially for deep, continuous grooves and for difficult contours with relief cuts that would require several tool changes when using standard turning tools.
Grooving is only realized perpendicular to the direction of rotation.
However, plunge turning is realized in both the transverse as well as longitudinal axes. This machining operation requires rugged tools that have been specifically designed for the purpose, which have a grooving cutter for the transverse and one or two lateral cutters for the longitudinal (plunge) turning. For conventional machining, this task could only be handled using several cutting plates, and the associated holders; this also takes up space in the revolver. This means that a plunge turning tool replaces several standard tools.
Programming
For plunge turning, new programming methods must be applied. There are hardly any idle passes, as stock is removed when moving forward as well as when moving backward. This must be taken into account when writing the program. ShopTurn provides excellent support here. Just as before, you only have to define the contour of the turned part and for the stock removal cycle, you can select whether you wish to remove stock conventionally or by using grooving or plunge turning. ShopTurn automatically calculates the cuts and traversing motion of the tool corresponding to the cycle.
In the simulation run, you can easily analyze the calculated traversing motion of the tool. Conventional turning and plunge turning can also be combined, e.g. for roughing, a standard tool is used, and for residual material removal, plunge turning; this means that the contour is completely machined.
The benefits
Plunge turning has the advantages that ...
- idle passes are avoided,
- tool usage is reduced and, as a consequence, ...
- tool change times are shortened.