Founded by Roberto Casappa over 60 years ago, this multinational company retains ownership by the Casappa family, now its third generation.
With a constant evolution and passion for hydraulics: following these guidelines, Casappa has transformed from a manufacturer of hydraulic pumps into the current entrepreneurial reality which, brings together 7 owned companies and 5 investee companies, with holding controlled entirely by the Casappa family.
The company offers a wide selection of gear or piston pumps and motors for open circuit applications and filters. They serve a wide range of customer sectors that includes construction, industrial vehicles, materials handling, agriculture and others.
Casappa uses numerous innovative and industry leading software platforms for their design, engineering and manufacturing applications. One of these is a product called Eureka G-code from Roboris SrL.
Virtual Digital Twin
Eureka provides a highly accurate virtual digital twin of any CNC machine tool and verifies the actual G & M code programs from any source. Eureka checks the program for any possible errors before loading it to the CNC machine control. This eliminates collisions, part gouges, damage to expensive workpieces and breaking tools.
Andrea Basili, Head of Times and Internal Processing Methods of Casappa S.p.a., retraces the steps of implementing Eureka software to Casappa’s manufacturing processes: “It began with the integration of the CAM at the post-processor level. We usually place several pieces on the “tombstone” of the machine tool to work them all together, but the machining path had to be replicated for each of the components and Roboris made the post-processor for us. After the first meeting with the Tuscan company, we quickly found that Eureka could also be very useful for simulating the behavior of the machine tool. For many years we have been using ISO programs (handwritten and highly parameterized) in very uncommon languages, very different from today’s Fanuc or Siemens. These are often very large programs, within which jumps and subprograms abound, resulting in a difficult understanding of the code. There is complexity in extracting the movements, perhaps to modify them in some operation; yet it is an event that occurs frequently, given our large case history in mechanical processing ».
The Casappa catalog is in fact organized into families of components, within which there are numerous variants, even hundreds: each piece differs even only for some characteristics, and in any cases the ISO program must be created ad hoc, perhaps starting from the main model. making the necessary changes. This means having to intervene continuously.
So, in addition to the obvious advantages of simulation, Eureka has additional value in Casappa for training operators, because it allows verification on machines two decades old and to personnel with limited training on minimally used CNC languages with some complexity. Basili continues: «The software allows us to observe all the movements of the machine on the computer screen, since the operating space and the entire chip removal process are perfectly simulated; even the minimally experienced operators can check all the lines of the program, with a perfect understanding of each movement. Intervention on programs made by others is facilitated; this is the case of those commissioned to external collaborators, who create a program perhaps optimized for cycle time. The pieces to be built have very tight tolerances; the processes must be very, very precise, especially in some critical areas. However, the components do not have complex shapes or 3D surfaces, but rather a series of material removals, holes, pocket milling, tapping, boring, in all possible combinations. In other words, the ISO program can also be written manually on the machine, and therefore the possibility of having a tool to “test" the program without physically sending it to the machine, but only virtually on the computer screen, is of great advantage. the certainty of getting what you see. We naturally appreciate Roboris’ strong vocation for customer service, which, for example, has been able to create an efficient and accurate interface even for almost obsolete languages ».
Useful functions
Another reason for choosing Eureka in Casappa is the possibility of using the software at various levels, starting from the complete simulation of the entire machine with the three-dimensional model of the workpiece, tools, spindle, equipment, including the display of chip removal.
With Eureka they can add, delete or modify any tool, defining it by means of directly entered numerical values, or by importing its graphic form. All the company’s tools can be stored in a database to be immediately recalled as needed. Within Eureka, the modification of the ISO code is very simple, as Basili confirms: “Macros, canned cycle instructions, subroutines: the simulator acts like the machine, interpreting and executing the G codes exactly as the machine would. Accurate simulation allows for analysis and evaluation; for example, as regards the cycle time, our Times and Methods office can verify that it is included in the assumed and desired duration, that the machine movements are efficient, and so on. The simulation of the handwheel is interesting: the operator can control the display as if physically operating the handwheel on the machine tool. The simulation takes place in real time, in accordance with the drive, faster or slower. You can thus discover any interference, make sure that the tool holder does not touch the equipment or that the safety distance is correct. Another function that we use with satisfaction is the one that brings all the parameters relating to the machining in progress to the screen in real time, updating them continuously: coordinate position, active G codes, values assumed by a given variable at that moment, pointers, table positions , and so on. It is a very powerful “debugging" tool ».