Generating STEP-NC files for a circuit board milling system

Since G-codes have been proved limiting the modern manufacturing industry, ISO14649 was put forward. This paper presents a solution to generate ISO14649 files for circuit board milling. The process planning is given, and all the processes needed are contained in the ISO14649 file. Features and machining operations are identified for each process, such as the closed pocket having a "General-closed-profile" attribute and bosses, round holes, slots, the planar face, contour parallel strategy, contour bidirectional strategy and etc. The scenario of one feature with multi tools are put forward to promote the milling efficiency and an entity "Combined-Machining-workingsteps" is proposed. Besides, some other extensions are made, such as entities for representing circuit geometries in machining features. Algorithms for tool paths generation are demonstrated for contour parallel milling and bidirectional milling, where a new algorithm based on pixels is used. The new algorithm can be used in other functions such as detecting uncut regions.