Welcome to this first PowerMill getting started tutorial. In this tutorial you'll
be given an introduction to the PowerMill user interface showing how to import CAD
data, how to define the stock material and part datums, and how to save a
project. The PowerMill user interface is laid out
with a ribbon toolbar across the top, an explorer and browser window to the left,
some viewing and shading functions to the right, and a status bar at the bottom.
The rest of the interface is dedicated to the interactive graphics window.
We'll begin by importing a CAD model from the examples directory that comes
with the installation of PowerMill.
Select the file tab and choose import examples.
PowerMill can import a range of different CAD file formats.
Scroll through the list of examples to locate the speaker core .DGK file or
simply start typing the name to reveal it quicker.
Choose open to import the file. Items created or imported into PowerMill
will then appear in the explorer window tree.
You can view the model in any orientation you like. The preset views
in the view tab allow you to see the model from any angle.
For example top, front, isometric, and so on.
You may also use the view cube. Simply click on the direction to look from and
the graphics view aligns accordingly. The shortcut keys from CTRL + 0
through to CTRL + 9 will also orientate the view.
The view can be rotated interactively. Press and hold down the middle mouse button and
drag the cursor to rotate. To zoom, simply scroll the middle mouse
wheel, the zoom will focus towards the cursor location.
To pan, hold down the shift key and the middle mouse button to pan around.
To zoom to a specific location, hold down the CTRL and shift keys with the middle
mouse button and drag a box around the desired region. To resize the view to fit
everything simply press F6. The icons in the right-hand toolbar give you access
to many of these functions also as well as controlling the different viewing
styles for wireframe and shading. In order to start machining our part we
need to establish the initial stock material and part orientation.
We define the stock material by entering the block form and, in this case, setting
a simple box shape, setting the coordinate system to use the global transform or
world coordinate system, and then pressing calculate.
By default this will generate a block of material around our model faces.
This can be edited to suit, for example adding five millimeters of material on top of
the part as well as changing the block display properties. Viewing from the top of
the part we can see that the major orientation lies along the Y-axis. We
want to change this so that our X-axis is our major axis. We can also see that
the global transform lies in the middle of the part which we would like to shift
to the top corner. To create a machining datum or workplane
we select from the workplane pulldown list, the option to create a workplane
positioned on the block. Select the corner position like so to
create it. Note that the workplane has appeared in
the graphics window and also in the explorer tree.
To realign the workplane we can select it from the explorer tree and from the
right-click context menu, select workplane editor.
We can manipulate the workplane through the icons in the ribbon or graphically. In this case we
will select the blue axis arrow and simply drag its orientation towards the
opposite corner of the block. Note how it snaps to the corner marked block top
Hit accept to keep your changes. Since we want to use this workplane
for our machining datum we will activate it by simply double-clicking on it.
We can now save the project for use later to complete the tutorial