Tapping the Part

In the following section of the tutorial we will generate a Tapping NC program. In order to select the Tapping operation the below described steps must be performed.

You can watch the related video for this part of the tutorial here:

Generate a Tap Cycle

Ensure the file type (NC Format) for our taping example program is ISO Turning.

Then select the feature Drilling by clicking on the End Drilling icon in the Turning Operations toolbar.


This will open the End Drilling pane to the left of the drawing area. Now insert the values shown in the dialog below.

  • Comment: This comment will be shown in the final NC Program. It is always good to include a comment in order to distinguish the various operations in the final program.
  • Clearance Height: The position to where the tool is moved before the actual operation, and where it will end after the tapping is finished.
  • Retract Height: The distance from the start of the operation where the feedrate will switch from rapid to feed.
  • Start Depth: The depth at which the actual operation is started.
  • End Depth: The final depth of the operation.

The Tapping operation is defined by the above parameters, after the entry of which the screen will look something like the one shown below.

The four distances entered are shown as crosses on the drawing.


Click on the button Parameters in the End Drilling pane to open the parameters dialog. Enter the following values into the parameter dialogs shown below.

Notice that the dialog is different from the one in the previous drilling operation. It is no longer possible to use pecking because the Operation Type is selected as CW Tapping.

Drilling Parameters


Click on OK to use the values and close the dialog.

Try experimenting with the various parameters and see how they change the generated toolpath.

Exporting the Toolpath and Backplot in the Editor

Click on Export Clipboard in order to generate the actual program. The program is now in the computer's clipboard and is ready to be inserted into the CNC program.

Change the window to the NC program and move the cursor to the very end by pressing Ctrl+End. Insert the text from the clipboard, either by pressing Ctrl+V, or selecting the icon Paste from the Edit toolbar in the Editor tab.

Now the NC program should look like the following screen.


To verify the generated toolpath, we must simulate it using the integrated Graphical Backplot.

To open the backplot window, click on the Backplot tab at the top of the Ribbon and then on the Backplot Window icon in the File toolbar.

Now a window like the one below will appear.