"With SolidCAM, we can now do parts that we couldn’t do before - also our goal of utilizing the same model through CAD/CAE/CAM has been achieved," explains Product Development Manager Rob Hardesty of Peregrine Falcon Corporation. For Peregrine, precise, high-quality tooling is paramount because of the specialized scientific hardware for spacecraft and satellite applications that they develop.
"We are a low-volume big-performance product development company. The thing we’re looking for is capability and precision. SolidCAM gives us a tremendous amount of capability while increasing our accuracy and decreasing the time required to create complex 5-axis CNC programs."
The materials Peregrine works with are somewhat exotic – beryllium, MMCs magnesium and more. The scientific components Peregrine Falcon produces are often of unusual shape – using aspherical, concave, or parabolic surfaces. For the sophisticated manufacturing process to function, the curved parts must be produced with a very high degree of precision.
"We can now do everything in one set up, in one mounting, with one CNC program, and achieve very tight tolerances for the dimensions," Hardesty says, "We have 5-axis capability here – we can mount the part from one side and attack from every other surface without ever taking it off the machine. SolidCAM allows us to do that effectively and easier than any other software we have looked at."
