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CAM Limitations


Metallic
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I wanted to post this to get some general feedback regarding a problem.

Is it possible to set G54 on a tilted workplane? If you have your A or B axis at 90 degrees, can you then set your G54 with that A/B tilt and still have workable code from a CAM system?

 

The issue I see is that CAM will rotate the part correctly in space, but the table will not show that in simulation. The software inherently expects that the table be perpendicular to Z at it's G54 origin. There are also problems posting workable code doing this. A solution has been reached but I wanted to know if others have seen this. Before you ask, yes the  G54 has to be tilted

 

Thanks

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12 hours ago, Metallic said:

I wanted to post this to get some general feedback regarding a problem.

Is it possible to set G54 on a tilted workplane? If you have your A or B axis at 90 degrees, can you then set your G54 with that A/B tilt and still have workable code from a CAM system?

 

The issue I see is that CAM will rotate the part correctly in space, but the table will not show that in simulation. The software inherently expects that the table be perpendicular to Z at it's G54 origin. There are also problems posting workable code doing this. A solution has been reached but I wanted to know if others have seen this. Before you ask, yes the  G54 has to be tilted

 

Thanks

Yes if only doing 3 axis work from that position never tilting or rotation the part from that locked position. No if you want to to rotate or move that part from that position without some means to physically track that movement with either an artifact or tooling ball. Sounds to me like this is being made 100 times harder than it needs to be. 

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1 hour ago, crazy^millman said:

Yes if only doing 3 axis work from that position never tilting or rotation the part from that locked position. No if you want to to rotate or move that part from that position without some means to physically track that movement with either an artifact or tooling ball. Sounds to me like this is being made 100 times harder than it needs to be. 

Yes I agree that it is being made more complicated by the design of the part.

Fundamentally the entire datum structure of the part is driven from a feature that is located at B90, the part can only be held in an orientation that puts said feature at B90. Datum feature A must also align with feature B which sits 180 degrees opposite, and so the part must be machined in a single holding. Not to mention a bunch of other planes that require features as well.  This is where the issue of CAM freaking out comes in. The machine has no limitation on correctly setting the part up in this way and executing it, it is merely within the CAM side where issues have arisen.

The reason it must be held in such a way is because we're dealing with a near-net casting type part. If this was billet i would just slap g54 on the top of the part and create planes. We have to use the features that exist on the casting as setup. The only features that are acceptable as G54 is this datum at B90. So when it machines the first side, and tries to rotate around 180 degrees on C axis, CAM is not allowing that code to even post because it basically thinks that the tool is trying to drive straight through the table.  The table in CAM is not rotated 90 degrees initially during verification and this is a rather big issue.

Unfortunately I can't share any code because it isn't really a code issue necessarily and I can't post screen because of NDA

As I say the solution we have works it is just completely bypassing the CAM side of things to fix the problem.

This CAMplete pamphlet basically describes what I am trying to do and it is also convoluted. Also we don't have CAMplete currently.

I hope I am descriptive enough and thanks! If I had my way the part wouldn't be design so annoyingly...

 

CAMplete-TruePath-Working-With-Tilted-Probing.pdf

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With stuff like that cant u just post from top, Then write yourself a drill cycle at 90 so it uses G68.2. Use that drill cycle to indicate your feature, adjust your work offset at the control and let er rip? at 90 X outage will be used to adjust Z of your work offset. Or what ever your machine kinematics are. Been a while since I had to lie to the control but always worked for me. 

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I have machined many printed parts that had datum points and not even features, but only had 3 points we had to pick up then machine the part. This is sounding more like a limitation of the machine and not the CAM. Code is Code and if you are rotating the part then that axis of rotation needs to be incorporated into the C-T Planes to get the post to do what you need. Since you cannot share it not much more I can think of to say to help.

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5 hours ago, Metallic said:

Yes I agree that it is being made more complicated by the design of the part.

Fundamentally the entire datum structure of the part is driven from a feature that is located at B90, the part can only be held in an orientation that puts said feature at B90. Datum feature A must also align with feature B which sits 180 degrees opposite, and so the part must be machined in a single holding. Not to mention a bunch of other planes that require features as well.  This is where the issue of CAM freaking out comes in. The machine has no limitation on correctly setting the part up in this way and executing it, it is merely within the CAM side where issues have arisen.

The reason it must be held in such a way is because we're dealing with a near-net casting type part. If this was billet i would just slap g54 on the top of the part and create planes. We have to use the features that exist on the casting as setup. The only features that are acceptable as G54 is this datum at B90. So when it machines the first side, and tries to rotate around 180 degrees on C axis, CAM is not allowing that code to even post because it basically thinks that the tool is trying to drive straight through the table.  The table in CAM is not rotated 90 degrees initially during verification and this is a rather big issue.

Unfortunately I can't share any code because it isn't really a code issue necessarily and I can't post screen because of NDA

As I say the solution we have works it is just completely bypassing the CAM side of things to fix the problem.

This CAMplete pamphlet basically describes what I am trying to do and it is also convoluted. Also we don't have CAMplete currently.

I hope I am descriptive enough and thanks! If I had my way the part wouldn't be design so annoyingly...

 

CAMplete-TruePath-Working-With-Tilted-Probing.pdf

Does Camplete actually share that spreed sheet? I would love to have a copy of that thing

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On 3/23/2022 at 10:42 AM, Werktuigbouwer said:

I am working on a simular project to use a pyramid. Therefore I recreated the Excel file (to make it eventually to a macro), use at you're own risk.

Be aware it is depended on the machine.

kinematic point.xlsx

Thank you for the share. I will plat with it and see how it makes since for my purposes. 

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I'm working on a project where I can't exactly get to the feature thatbwould be best because of an access issue, so I created my fixture design so as to be able to calculate it. I am probing with TWP (G68.2) AND WSEC (G54.4) active. If I didn't have those two options and the latest Renishaw InspectionPlus probing software, it would be beyond my skill level to solve.  

I also use CAMplete.

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On 3/22/2022 at 10:06 AM, Metallic said:

Yes I agree that it is being made more complicated by the design of the part.

Fundamentally the entire datum structure of the part is driven from a feature that is located at B90, the part can only be held in an orientation that puts said feature at B90. Datum feature A must also align with feature B which sits 180 degrees opposite, and so the part must be machined in a single holding. Not to mention a bunch of other planes that require features as well.  This is where the issue of CAM freaking out comes in. The machine has no limitation on correctly setting the part up in this way and executing it, it is merely within the CAM side where issues have arisen.

The reason it must be held in such a way is because we're dealing with a near-net casting type part. If this was billet i would just slap g54 on the top of the part and create planes. We have to use the features that exist on the casting as setup. The only features that are acceptable as G54 is this datum at B90. So when it machines the first side, and tries to rotate around 180 degrees on C axis, CAM is not allowing that code to even post because it basically thinks that the tool is trying to drive straight through the table.  The table in CAM is not rotated 90 degrees initially during verification and this is a rather big issue.

Unfortunately I can't share any code because it isn't really a code issue necessarily and I can't post screen because of NDA

As I say the solution we have works it is just completely bypassing the CAM side of things to fix the problem.

This CAMplete pamphlet basically describes what I am trying to do and it is also convoluted. Also we don't have CAMplete currently.

I hope I am descriptive enough and thanks! If I had my way the part wouldn't be design so annoyingly...

 

CAMplete-TruePath-Working-With-Tilted-Probing.pdf

 

So you're on a 5x mill and the surface you need to start machining on puts the trunion at B90. C0. and you want this orientation to post as G54?

Then you're rotating the C 180º to machine features on Datum A side of the part and I assume using another fixture offset for this rotation is ok?

Is there a reason you can't/don't want to use tilted work planes?

Here is sample code I posted right out of Mastercam with no editing on our Mazak VC-500 5x mill. I started with a block at machine B90.C0. G54/G55 X0 is left side of my block, Y0 is the centerline of the block and Z0 is the face of the block at it's specific rotation. I can put X0,Y0,Z0 anywhere I want at either orientations.

N1T1M06(3/4" INGERSOLL 4D DRILL)
M01
M46M43
G00G90G54B0.C0.
M47M44
X4.8654Y.0445S1222M03
G43H#3020Z4.
G98G81Z-2.R.1F2.93
G80
G91G28Z0.
G90G55B0.C0.
X.9111Y-.0388
G43H#3020Z4.
G98G81Z-2.R.1F2.93
G80
G00G91G28Z0.M05
G28X0.Y0.
M46M43
G28B0.C0.
M47M44
M30

The motion looks just fine in Backplot and Verify, but it's not good in the machine simulation as it doesn't show the B axis being rotated. Now I haven't tried this but I believe that if you really want this to work in machine simulation you can edit the stl file that is for your "B" axis and rotate it 90º so it's at the orientation you want it at "B0". However I don't know if it will respect the C axis motion. Honestly you would only need this if you think the head of your machine will hit your fixture or table.

Is this what you're looking for?

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