Electronically controlled machine tools and computer aided manufacturing software together may be utilized to create and/or form a manufactured component. This process often may include forming one or more features, such as holes, threaded holes, and/or slots, in a workpiece to transform the workpiece into at least a portion of the manufactured component.
Historically, programming an electronically controlled machine tool to form the feature has been a labor-intensive process in which the computer aided manufacturing software is utilized to describe each feature that is to be formed in the workpiece in detail. This process often becomes highly repetitive, especially when a plurality of similar features is to be formed in the workpiece.
In addition, newly designed cutting tool formations are continually being developed for more efficient processes for the formation of certain features. Current computer aided manufacturing software algorithms are not always capable of producing the most efficient or applicable tool path motion for a given cutting tool. The current computer aided manufacturing software algorithms also may cause significant and/or uneven wear of a cutting tool that is utilized to form the feature and/or may require that one or more manual machining operations be performed to ensure the integrity of the feature. As an example, machining a threaded hole with an electronically controlled machine tool may include drilling a hole into the workpiece and subsequently threading the hole to define the threaded hole. The machining process may utilize a combination cutting tool consisting of a drill, a thread mill, and a chamfer in one application. This combination tool is required to extend from an entrance of the hole into the hole to define the minor diameter of the threads within the hole and to chamfer the top of the hole at a specific surface feed rate. The combination tool then forms the threads of the threaded hole at a different surface feed rate. In such a machining operation, an endmost drilling portion of the tool removes a majority of the material, with a remainder of the combination tool, which includes a threading portion and a chamfering portion, removing less of the material. Thus, endmost thread milling cutters of the combination tool generally wear at an accelerated rate relative to a remainder of the combination tool. This may require that the combination tool be sharpened and/or replaced frequently and/or may require that the threaded hole be manually chased with a tap subsequent to formation of the threaded hole by the electronically controlled machine tool. Current tool path algorithms within computer aided manufacturing software do not have the capability to utilize such a combination tool in an optimal fashion and limit user control. Thus, there exists a need for associative templates, which may be defined by user inputs, for machining operations and/or for systems and/or methods that include and/or utilize the associative templates and thus may not limit the user to existing computer aided software algorithms and/or may decrease and/or eliminate repetitive tool motions when forming the feature.