Can anybody come up with a method to change a toolpath into a chain automatically ?

[pullo]

 I can do this manually by saving the toolpath as geometry and then chaining it manually , but the process can be tedious ...

Gracjan

[crazy^millman]

1 hour ago, pullo said:

 I can do this manually by saving the toolpath as geometry and then chaining it manually , but the process can be tedious ...

Gracjan

Gracjan, what are you doing to create the toolpath? What kind of shape and feature are you trying to cut? Got an example we can dig into? If you are linking operation to control 5 Axis movements between paths sorry I still back plot the starts and end and then make my own geometry to link those moves. If it is something else then let us take a look under the hood with something you can share. 

Have a good day and look forward to seeing if someone can help. 

[pullo]

the only toolpath that  outputs a correct polar conversion in my post at the moment  is a profile. I could not find an error in the post , but by manually converting 3x-toolpaths to a 3-d profile and the post correctly working in this "mode" I was able to move forward with the project....

All the 5-ax posts I tried did not have polar conversion working so I don't even know if it's an Mcam bug or my post. The part is 500 mm in diameter , but my DMU60 moves a little over 160 mm in linear X over the centre, so polar conversion keeps my tool stationary in the - X work zone while the C chugs away .

Gracjan

[crazy^millman]

1 hour ago, pullo said:

the only toolpath that  outputs a correct polar conversion in my post at the moment  is a profile. I could not find an error in the post , but by manually converting 3x-toolpaths to a 3-d profile and the post correctly working in this "mode" I was able to move forward with the project....

All the 5-ax posts I tried did not have polar conversion working so I don't even know if it's an Mcam bug or my post. The part is 500 mm in diameter , but my DMU60 moves a little over 160 mm in linear X over the centre, so polar conversion keeps my tool stationary in the - X work zone while the C chugs away .

Gracjan

Yes Polar Conversion is not supported by most 5 axis posts. I have had to request that from the 3rd party Post builders. There is no Generic 5 Axis Post I am aware of that supports it. The work around to get that to work is to use a 4 Axis post for each place you plan to use that process. If I am doing a Vertical 5 Axis and plan on the process along the X or Y Axis then I use a 4 Axis VMC to get code. If I am going to be doing along the Z then a HMC and then Vice Versa for the HMC 5 Axis. If they are not along a standard axis then the 5 Axis roughing is proving to do exactly what I want. The trick is to make Fence surfaces to mimic a 4 Axis shape to not get full 5 Axis if you are trying to lock an Axis for Rigidity when 5 Axis roughing your part. In reality we are 3+1. The next thing is use the Stock with 5 Axis roughing it helps to get rid of a lot of air movements with that toolpath. I went head to head against a VTL roughing a Big Aluminum Forging. The engineers told me I was crazy the 5 Axis could remove material faster than a VTL. I took just a 2" Facemill and used Axis Sub to rough the OD of the Forging. I removed about 3000 lbs of metal in less than 8 hours of time. Thing was the part was ready for the next operation that was on the same machine. That alone should won the argument. The VTL was going to take about 12 hours to machine off the same material. Funny they decided that 8 Hours was better spent on other parts so it turned into a wasted exercise, but they were paying for it so give them what they asked for. 

[pullo]

There is no  automatic method to convert a toolpath into a chain , so I added a C-angle  routine to pline$ , as Polar Conversion is nothing more

then outputting the C angle of a  point  to the  three other axes on an NC-line (at least in Heidenhain). 

Gracjan