solids in Mcam lathe

[notso]

Can anyone tell me the secrets of dealing w/ a solid in mcam lathe? I was given a solid model from UG in IGES format. I've got it into Mcam lathe. But I'm having real trouble trying to select geometry to machine. It seems like there are no lines to be able to select/chain. We don't deal w/ alot of solid models here so I'm not sure how to handle it. thanks in advance.

[Hardmill]

If it was iges format you got surfs.

Have them give you a parasolid file.

 

PEACE

[notso]

are surfaces useless for developing lathe tool paths?

[notso]

They also sent it to me as an .stp file but when I tried to use the converter on it I was prompted for an access code. Does anyone know anything about this?

[Hardmill]

Not a lathe guru by any means, but I would guess

if your going to create geometry off the surfs

I'd just create-curve-slice and drive off the 2d

geo.

And yes step translator is an add-on.

 

PEACE

[Steve Biehl - Cimquest Inc]

STEP you need to buy.

If you have Solids, you can 'stitch' the surfaces to a solid. 'Solids'-'Next menu'-'From surfaces'.

If the IGES isn't very good, it might not stitch to a single solid.

You can 'Create'-'Curve'-'Slice' on the surfaces to get the cross-section of your part.

[notso]

I just talked to the guys in design and they said that they can export parasolids from version 7 to version 15. They are going to send me a ver.15 to try. Do any of you guys know what the latest version parasolid that Mcam will read is? I'm running Mcam ver 9.1

 

Thanks again

[notso]

I got the parasolid. sliced it like Hardmill and steve selected. So that goes great, as soon as I try to rough it I get this:

 

GetComponentsFromDb() Boundary Endpoints Not Connected!

 

Does anyone know what is happening?

[notso]

I figured it out. Somehow the dotted lines that were defining my chuck took off into space for some unknown reason. Just redefined my chuck and all is well.

[Tom Szelag]

For future reference you can also have IGES models that give you the trimmed surfaces AND line geometry. Its what I like to use for milling complex crap. That or ACIS.