Prima Laser question

[Bisc]

Has anyone had experience with using Mastercam or other solids capable CAM software on a Prima 5-axis Laser? Is there a postprocessor that can be generated for this or is it not possible due to proprietary nature.

[gstephens]

Any machine that can accept external text based programs can be posted to with Mastercam. Just be aware that the more complex and proprietary the machine/control, the more expensive it gets. (Multiaxis) lasers are kind of tricky since there is no Mastercam product that addresses their specific issues (power settings, etc.), but I've seen posts that do really cool welding on very complex parts.

[Charles Davis]

Solids are just another type of geometric entity. When you get ready to contour something, you can select the edges of the solid. Behind the scenes, lines, arcs and splines are extracted, and those are used to drive the tool.

What comes out in the code will be lines and arcs in an ASCII text file. How your machine likes to see that information, depends on how the control is designed.

Mastercam can format that data in about any way imaginable. So basically, if it's run by numbers, we can run it.

The trick is getting a Post for that machine that translates the code into a format compatible with your machine. Call your dealer.

[Charles Davis]

In my experience, lasers are one of the easiest machines to program (unless 5-axis). Issues like power settings are handled by setting up some Misc Integers. Shutter on/off is easily accomodated automatically.

They are a bit intimidating at first because you think "wow, laser, high tech" and you're not familiar with the terms. These are really just routers for the most part. Instead of a spindle you have a laser source.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

I've programmed a Fanuc Robot with Mastercam. Though I was only able to use it for 4 Axis (one being full rotary motion) because we did not have a post it worked like a charm. Did have to do some hand editing for the 5th and 6th Axis Position angles but Mastercam's analyze was able to give me those values so it was not a big problem. BTW, robots are pretty cool for repetitive stuff and can pay for themselves quite quickly in the right application.