Keeping the part visible during 5th axis machining.

[[email protected]]

Hi everyone, what are your favorite methods to keep your part rotated toward the operator while doing 5 axis? So far I have been lucky by doing a little re arranging of ops to keep the part visible but I have this part where I am machining the left and right sides and when i post them individually they rotate to the operator but when i post both the second side rotates to the back of the machine. Also curious about which way positive A and B axis rotation should be on your standard 5 axis...on the 5 axis machines here if i rotate to A-90 the rotary platter faces the doors/operator....which is opposite of how our 4th axis rotaries move....Anyway just looking for some good resources. 

[crazy^millman]

There are switches in most posts that control this. Get familiar with them and your process will go that much better. On certain Trunnion machines Defining the planes has no real control on this. It is the switches that control this the best. Planes do help, but only to a point on Trunnion machines. Head Head machine the part don't move normally the head.

That said on a DMU or Toyoda Nutating Head machine planes are all I use. Currently doing 30 thread milled holes and keeping the part facing the operator through all 30 holes. We have 48 Backspot holes and gain keep the tool facing the operator through all 48 holes do they can easily add and remove the back spot tool by hand. There was not way to get an Autofacer into this part. The thru hole to backspot face ratio was to great to overcome.

[[email protected]]

Any Resources you would recommend to learn more about these "switches" in the post control? what I did for a quick work around is use the code I posted by itself where it oriented properly and put it back in as a manual entry(sadly due to the length it took 4 manual entries to store all the code).

[crazy^millman]

39 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

Any Resources you would recommend to learn more about these "switches" in the post control? what I did for a quick work around is use the code I posted by itself where it oriented properly and put it back in as a manual entry(sadly due to the length it took 4 manual entries to store all the code).

That is going to come from whom you got he post from. Reach out to your post supplier and ask for the documentation for them and that should help you.