Nineteen students and four instructors at
Wabash Valley College, a community college
Illinois, developed a customised motorcycle,
with most of the parts manufactured using
Delcam’s FeatureCAM CAM system.
CAM used
for college
motorcycle
project
THE college team started with a bare frame and added
everything that could reasonably be designed and machined
at the college by the students. Before starting the project,
Mark Pettigrew, Lead Instructor of Machine Shop
Technology at Wabash, knew his students would need CAM
software. ‘We went to the IMTS exhibition in Chicago and
looked at the CAM packages available’ he explains; ‘we found
that FeatureCAM was the only company that was willing to
work with us on a package we needed and could afford.’
FeatureCAM was the key to creating manufacturing
programs for the custom bike parts and to assuring that they
would fit together precisely when fastened to the frame and
to each other. It also opened the door for the students to the
world of computer-based manufacturing. One of the reasons
the students could program their parts so quickly without a
lot of training was the feature-based technology in
FeatureCAM. It allowed them to enter the dimensions of a
hole, for example, and then leave the software to generate
automatically the appropriate machining operations in the
correct order. FeatureCAM speeded up the programming
process for the parts further by automatically selecting tools
for each operation, determining feeds and speeds, generating
toolpaths and creating NC code.
‘Our goal was to produce a true one-of-a-kind custom
motorcycle that didn’t cost an arm and a leg; it turned out
that the real benefits were that our students were able to
exercise their creativity and problem-solving skills while
producing a unique item that they are proud to have been a
part of creating. In all my years of teaching, I have never seen
more enthusiasm, attention to detail and teamwork. When
we unveiled the bike to the public, you could see how proud
the students were when they heard the applause.’
www.delcam.com
march 2008
Easy to use machining centre turns as well as mills at start-up
motorcycle factory
Following the dream
EVER since the early 90s mechanical
engineer graduate Steve Atkins had wanted
to produce his own motorcycle. A designer
for Peugeot, Jaguar and Aston Martin, he
spent his spare time designing his own bike
and four years ago built a first prototype. His
first order and a small amount of
Government funding convinced him to
start BFO Motorcycles and press ahead with
series production.
Based on the Honda Fireblade, BFO
makes a kit costing £6,500 and converts the
donor bike into a bespoke motorcycle - the
‘switch:BLADE’. Only the Fireblade’s
wheels, suspension, brakes, wiring and
engine are retained; the rest is replaced in
the makeover. The plan is to build 100 kits
before moving on to a second donor bike,
the Suzuki Hayabusa, and repeating the
exercise in collaboration with international
motorcycle stylist, John Keogh. This second
bike is already attracting a great deal of
interest following release of the initial
artist’s impression.
To mill the components, Atkins uses a
Hurco VM1 machining centre which with
its 660 x 356 x 457mm working volume he
says is the ideal size for the parts. Under
financial constraints while growing the
business, he uses a 3-jaw chuck and circular
interpolation on the machine to produce
most of the turned parts for the bike as well,
postponing investment in a lathe.
Atkins chose the Hurco on price and ease
of use; a designer, not a machinist, he had
hardly operated a manual machine tool, let
alone one that is computer controlled.
automotive sector report
Manual machines would have been too
labour intensive for series production,
making the kits too expensive, added to
which there is potential for inaccuracies to
creep in due to human error. Learning
conventional CNC programming using Gand
M-codes would have been very timeconsuming.
All he wanted to do was get
accurate bike components off the machine
quickly. He comments: ‘I knew of the
conversational programming capabilities of
Hurco control systems through local
subcontractors that had made prototype
parts for me on Hurco machines. The way
the Max control manipulates geometry is
similar to my I-DEAS CAD system, so I am
in a familiar environment. The touch screen
control makes it very easy to build up a
cutting cycle based on the geometry of the
part and the tooling I have available. You
simply redraw the part on the Max screen,
input feeds and speeds and the program
writes itself.’
For machining more complicated 3D
parts such as patterns for producing areas of
the carbon fibre bodywork and the seat,
Atkins has installed a OneCNC CAM
package that will allow input of complex,
3D cutter paths directly into the Max
control.
‘I calculate that there is about £2,000 of
machining in each switch:BLADE kit,’ says
Atkins; ‘so together with the saving in
pattern machining, the Hurco will have
paid for itself after nine bikes. Everything
after that will be for free, except for tooling
and running costs.’ www.hurco.co.uk
MWP
59
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