Hello,
I stumbled upon this video from Mtdcnc a few months back of CloudNC. They claim to have developed the world's first fully autnomous CAM system that's capable of programming CNC machines automatically and more effecient than any human could. Just wondering what other people's take on this is?
DMG MORI UK offers the perfect solutions to CloudNC - YouTube
Personly I'm very skeptical and I'm yet to find any substantial proof such a system even exists, nevermind any evidence to back some of the rather outlandish claims from the CEO.
Firstly, a CAD file is basicly just wireframe with surfaces. It containes no information regarding manufacturing requirements such as tolerances, hole features, surface finishes or gd+t. Hence why pretty much every component needs to be supported with a technical drawing to communicate this missing information. How is a computer supposed to figure out the corrrect way to manufacture a component that functions correctly when this information is missing?
Unless we fundamentally change the way we embed information into a cad file, I cannot see how any Ai, no matter how intelligent could work without human input.
Secondly, as a subcontractor I can say programming accounts for probably less than 10% of our overall lead time. Most of the time is tied up in sourcing tooling, fixture manufacture and machine setup. So unless someone designs a machine that's capable of producing everything without needing setup, I cannot see how reducing the programming time can substantially reduce overall costs?
I have no doubt that cadcam will eventually become more intelligent and I'm glad to see a British company driving this, but I do doubt some of the claims about the capabilites of the system currently.
What are your thoughts?
I stumbled upon this video from Mtdcnc a few months back of CloudNC. They claim to have developed the world's first fully autnomous CAM system that's capable of programming CNC machines automatically and more effecient than any human could. Just wondering what other people's take on this is?
DMG MORI UK offers the perfect solutions to CloudNC - YouTube
Personly I'm very skeptical and I'm yet to find any substantial proof such a system even exists, nevermind any evidence to back some of the rather outlandish claims from the CEO.
Firstly, a CAD file is basicly just wireframe with surfaces. It containes no information regarding manufacturing requirements such as tolerances, hole features, surface finishes or gd+t. Hence why pretty much every component needs to be supported with a technical drawing to communicate this missing information. How is a computer supposed to figure out the corrrect way to manufacture a component that functions correctly when this information is missing?
Unless we fundamentally change the way we embed information into a cad file, I cannot see how any Ai, no matter how intelligent could work without human input.
Secondly, as a subcontractor I can say programming accounts for probably less than 10% of our overall lead time. Most of the time is tied up in sourcing tooling, fixture manufacture and machine setup. So unless someone designs a machine that's capable of producing everything without needing setup, I cannot see how reducing the programming time can substantially reduce overall costs?
I have no doubt that cadcam will eventually become more intelligent and I'm glad to see a British company driving this, but I do doubt some of the claims about the capabilites of the system currently.
What are your thoughts?