Drilling is one of the most important machining processes within the CNC industry. Currently, the programming of drill holes is almost completely automated through numerous developments in this area. An integrated drill-assistant assumes the entire drill machining, starting with centering up to lowering.

In our new vectorcam 2016 drilling has been completely revised. New dialogue boxes and a new integrated drilling-assistant enable an even more efficient programming of different drill holes.

Drilling on different Z-levels

The slide of local axes of coordinates to the particular drill flat is not applicable. vectorcam automatically identifies the Z-height, where the drill flat is located. The appropriate Z-height will be as well transmitted automatically to the drill assistant.

The drill-assistant

The drill-assistant supports the user with the complete definition of drill operations from beginning till the end. After starting the assistant a dialogue-box appears with the necessary information like:

- Every necessary operation for the manufacturing of drill holes

- The current operation with the automatically selected tool

- The real geometry data for the drill hole and many more

The user can see the current status of the definition anytime. Of course he always has the full control. If necessary he can influence every individual process and change the automatically generated data according to his individual requirements. Once a drill operation, which can consist of several individual drilling operations, has been defined it can be saved and reused for future jobs.

The user will be supported by deposited drilling tables with information about the minor diameter of different thread types, diameters and depths for lowering of screw heads and many more. vectorcam offers extensive drilling tables. Those can be adapted by the user at any time.