Step 5 - Your First CAM Assist Toolpath Strategy

This page contains the final step of the ‘Getting Started with CAM Assist' tutorial. In this step, you’ll use CAM Assist to compute your first toolpath strategy for your part.

Only some of CAM Assist’s features are covered here (just the bare essentials). If you’d like to know about all of CAM Assist’s features, refer to the CAM Assist User Interface section.

The following step-by-step instructions assume you’ve already opened a relevant part. If you’ve not yet opened a part, see Step 3 - Opening a Part.

For the purpose of illustration, CloudNC’s ‘Demo part 1’ is used in the following step-by-step instructions.

Step-by-step instructions

From the CAM Assist ribbon, click CloudNC CAM Assist.

From the CAM Assist ribbon, click CloudNC CAM Assist.

CAM Assist opens within the part’s tab (as shown in the image below).

CAM Assist ribbon

If this is the first time you’re using CAM Assist for Siemens NX, or if you've just installed the latest release, you may be asked to Sign in.
For details of how to sign in or sign up, see Sign in/Sign up Process.

CAM Assist within the NX part’s tab ‘Demo part 1.prt’

Note the following within CAM Assist:

‘Setup’ tab is automatically selected.
‘3-Axis’ Machining mode is automatically selected.
'Target setups’ contains two workpieces - this reflects NX’s Operation Navigator.

Setup tab

Machining mode - CAM Assist supports ‘3 Axis’ and ‘3+2 Axis’ machining.
Target setups - notice that each Workpiece has an accompanying ‘Setup' checkbox:
- CAM Assist will compute a toolpath strategy for the workpiece only if it’s setup checkbox is checked.
Workholding security - when a ‘Setup’ is checked, its Workholding security is displayed:
- Workholding security is set by adjusting the slider from ‘poor’ to ‘excellent’
- This allows CAM Assist to select appropriate tools.
- If your workholding security is not set to ‘Excellent’, CAM Assist will opt for smaller tools in the tool library.

For this Tutorial: For Machining Mode, select ‘3 Axis’ For Target setups, check ‘Setup 1’ For Workholding security, move the slider to ‘Excellent’

For this Tutorial: For Machining Mode, select ‘3 Axis’ For Target setups, check ‘Setup 1’ For Workholding security, move the slider to ‘Excellent’

Machine tab

This tab is especially useful when you’re using session tools as the main source or when using a hybrid selection of tools.

CAM Assist uses CloudNC’s Cutting Parameters engine to calculate appropriate cutting data. The values you enter here will be used by that engine.

For this Tutorial: Keep the current values for the GENERIC_MACHINE.

For this Tutorial: Keep the current values for the GENERIC_MACHINE.

Tools Tab

Material - workpiece material to be used by CAM Assist.
Tool Source - source of the tool library you want to use:
- Tools from session - the tools that are available in the current NX session.
- Built-in Metric toolset - CloudNC CAM Assist tools using metric units.
- Built-in Imperial toolset - CloudNC CAM Assist tools using imperial units.

For this Tutorial: For Material, select ‘Aluminum’ For Tool Source, select ‘Built-in imperial toolset’

For this Tutorial: For Material, select ‘Aluminum’ For Tool Source, select ‘Built-in imperial toolset’

Running CAM Assist

Once you’ve completed steps 1 - 7 (above):

Click OK to run CAM Assist for the first time.

Click OK to run CAM Assist for the first time.

CAM Assist will compute a toolpath strategy for the part using using the configuration you've specified in the CAM Assist tabs.

Examining the Toolpath Strategy in Siemens NX

Open the ‘Program Order View' of NX’s ‘Operation Navigator’ to view CAM Assist’s computed toolpath strategy (the image below shows a typical example).

What next?

This tutorial covered just a few of CAM Assist’s features. If you’d like know more about all of CAM Assist’s features, refer to the 'CAM Assist for Siemens NX' Section section.