The Product Development Technology Station (PDTS) owns various Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines that cater for different machining needs. The facilities include a 3-axis CNC milling, a CNC lathe with live tooling capabilities and a CNC wire EDM machine.
CNC controlled machines are highly accurate machines that move according to a pre-programmed path. This path is created by Computer Aided Manufacturing software (CAM).
The process starts with a CAD design, which will be the final product. This design is used in the CAM software to program different cutting tools and movements to cut the product from a solid block of material. In this way the PDTS is able to generate a physical product from a program generated by a computer.