Question regarding G43.4 behavior with fanuc controls.

[thatonegii]

Hope I am in the right sub-section of this form to ask this question, my apologies if not. I am curious about the behavior of G43.4 on head-head 5-axis mills with Fanuc 31i controllers.

 

According to the documentation from our machine builder as well as from what I recall reading in Fanuc's documentation the machine must be orientated at A0. C0. prior to activating G43.4 and the machine should be at A0. C0. before cancelling G43.4. This is not how I have approached utilizing TCPC in the past with our other machining centers. We typically use G43.4 to transition in and out of orientation for tilted working plane so we may be activating G43.4 while both tilt and rotary are not in home position. So far, this strategy has been successful on our first Fanuc equipped 5-axis machining center. We have experienced issues with G43.4 causing collisions when hand loading tools and manually manipulating the A-axis 90 degrees and back immediately prior to reading G43.4, but other than that have had no problems with this approach.

The documentation for our newest Fanuc equipped 5-axis machine states pretty explicitly in the post building instructions that the tilt and rotary must be at home position prior to activation of G43.4. I questioned the Applications engineer on this while they were here during installation and they stated that we shouldn't have any issues activating G43.4 when not in home position and so far I haven't experienced any issues but would like to make sure I'm not missing anything that may cause expensive issues in the future.

Edited May 23 by thatonegii
posted without most of the message

[cncappsjames]

To the best of my knowledge there's no requirement for activating G43.4 when the rotary axes are home. You want to make sure the parameters for activation/deactivation are set for "shift" instead of "move". 

The only issues coming to mind with activation are depending on the positioning need it could present collision opportunities if you're not far enough away from the part on the reposition. 

[thatonegii]

1 hour ago, cncappsjames said:

To the best of my knowledge there's no requirement for activating G43.4 when the rotary axes are home. You want to make sure the parameters for activation/deactivation are set for "shift" instead of "move". 

The only issues coming to mind with activation are depending on the positioning need it could present collision opportunities if you're not far enough away from the part on the reposition. 

 

I assume the parameter you are referring to controls whether G43.4 activation triggers movement or just a shift in coordinate system, if so, the machine is configured for shift and not move.

 

With our post setup most rotation changes should be occurring at a safety plane above the part and all programs are ran through vericut before running on the machine.  Thanks for the sanity check.

[crazy^millman]

2 hours ago, thatonegii said:

Hope I am in the right sub-section of this form to ask this question, my apologies if not. I am curious about the behavior of G43.4 on head-head 5-axis mills with Fanuc 31i controllers.

 

According to the documentation from our machine builder as well as from what I recall reading in Fanuc's documentation the machine must be orientated at A0. C0. prior to activating G43.4 and the machine should be at A0. C0. before cancelling G43.4. This is not how I have approached utilizing TCPC in the past with our other machining centers. We typically use G43.4 to transition in and out of orientation for tilted working plane so we may be activating G43.4 while both tilt and rotary are not in home position. So far, this strategy has been successful on our first Fanuc equipped 5-axis machining center. We have experienced issues with G43.4 causing collisions when hand loading tools and manually manipulating the A-axis 90 degrees and back immediately prior to reading G43.4, but other than that have had no problems with this approach.

The documentation for our newest Fanuc equipped 5-axis machine states pretty explicitly in the post building instructions that the tilt and rotary must be at home position prior to activation of G43.4. I questioned the Applications engineer on this while they were here during installation and they stated that we shouldn't have any issues activating G43.4 when not in home position and so far I haven't experienced any issues but would like to make sure I'm not missing anything that may cause expensive issues in the future.

That is because that builder doesn't work closely enough with Fanuc to use the control the best way. Going through this very dance with a customer now and a builder. Now people blame the Fanuc control for not being like XYZ when the builder is not implementing the control to do what it is meant to do.