Apps for Machinists—CNC Kutepov Lost in Translation

App suffers from unit confusion and poor translation from Russian.

The CNC Kutepov application is available for Android devices at a cost of $3.59. There is no free version. This application is available in both English and Russian. 

Figure 1. CNC Kutepov main menu.

Figure 1. CNC Kutepov main menu.

It appears to have been written in Russian and translated into English. It suffers from major spelling errors (see Figure 1 and Figure 2), poorly-translated phrases and even incomprehensible words. Unlike other applications such as Machining Mate and Machining Buddy, this application does not state the units of the calculators. However, after a bit of trial and error, you will soon realize that the default units are metric. Some of the calculators are available in both imperial and metric units.

Figure 2. Misspellings in the calculators.

Figure 2. Misspellings in the calculators.

The benefit of using this app is that it contains numerous useful functions and calculators. However, it requires a comprehensive understanding of basic CNC programing, and the G/M code is not error free. There are actually too many functions to cover in one review. This review will focus on one of the more helpful calculators. All of the calculators I tried worked reasonably well, but all required patience to understand how they work.

When using any of the calculators, you can return to the main menu by selecting the “***BACK***” button or exit the calculator by selecting the “end” button, found in the lower right hand corner of the screen.

Figure 3. Basic external turning part sample.

Figure 3. Basic external turning part sample.

The “Turning-Patterns” option contains twenty-five calculators. Each one will generate the G/M code for commonly turned geometrical internal or external profiles. For example, if a profile, such as the one shown in Figure 3, was to be turned from the front of the part to the back of the part with the diameter increasing toward the back, then you would select the “Kontur free – turning outer”  button and complete the following steps to create the G/M code for a Fanuc-controlled lathe.

  1. Set the “Inch” and the “Fanuc” radio buttons as the input type.

  2. Set the Z start point at 0.1 and the X start point at 1.175 and select “Insert STPoint.”  This will display the X/Z positions as metric values and add a feed rate of 0.2 mm/rev to the input box.
  3. Set the outer diameter to 3.9.
  4. Select the icon to indicate that you wish to turn an outer contour.
  5. Tap inside the input box, correct the initial X/Z position back to the inch values and set the desired feed rate.
  6. Enter the remaining X/Z part coordinates.
  7. Press the “NC calculate” button and the canned cycle code will be generated for a two-line Fanuc-controlled CNC lathe as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. NC code for turning a part profile.

Figure 4. NC code for turning a part profile.

For those who are familiar with G/M code, you will notice many errors in the generated code. The most prominent one is that it does not switch the default values to inches, thereby creating half the code in metric and half in inches. This application performs better in metric. If you were to use this code, you would first need to convert all of the metric values to inches, then reprogram the spindle cap and constant surface speed values as well as check the G72 facing values, which are also metric.

I would not encourage anyone who is not capable of reading G/M code to rely on the code generated from this application. The tables included are useful to anyone working in a machining environment and appear to be error free. A help menu, some improved translations and the inclusion of units would greatly improve this application’s usefulness.

About the Author






Fred Fulkerson is a graduate of the Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario, and of the general machining program at Conestoga College in Ontario. He is a Canadian Red Seal certified general machinist and CNC programmer and a certified Mastercam and SOLIDWORKS instructor.