Abstract

CNC machines have been becoming popular in manufacturing sector for the last fourdecades. It still costs a lot of money to afford some aspects related to the operations of these machines, such as  the hardware, the software and the brainware. One important aspect is the programming stage where this activity requires a skillful programmer and an appropriate programming media. To hire a good programmer is not a cheap and the best solution while having a commercial programming media is also not affordable for Small Medium Enterprises (SME) in Indonesia. This research was focusing on the design and development of a kind of program checker to see whether the program for a CNC turning machine is correct and ready to be fed to the machine. At once, this program was also capable of displaying cutting simulation of how the product to be cut in the machine. Therefore this program will help a small manufacturing company to avoid hiring an expensive expert or buying a special programming media. This program was specifically developed for a CNC Okuma Howa ACT 3 turning machine but it can be extended to other machine types. Some results were showed that the program can easily point out error location if there is a logical or syntax error in the NC program. Moreover, the simulation can be executed only if all errors have been corrected. This feature ensured that the simulation can run properly. To run the simulation, one has to set up some variables such as workpiece dimension, tool position with respect to the machine, cutter dimension and so on.

Key words: CNC machine, turning operation, G-Code checker, cutting simulation.