Horz set-ups

[Reece L Gibson]

I would like to hear a brief description of how people set up their horz machining centers and where they place zero when using "B" axis on Tombstone set-ups,like center of rotation of the B axis, upper left using fixture offsets etc.

[Sem001]

IS IT POSSIBLE TO KEY THE THOMBSTONE CENTRAL TO THE TABLE IF SO THEN YA CAN USE THE CORNER OF THE ACTUAL MACHINE TABLE TO USE AS A REFERENCE THAT WILL TRANSFER TO ALL 4 SIDES wORKS GREAT WITH INLINE BORES AND MACHINE TOOL DETAILS

[Mgrenier]

Hello Guys,

Here we have a lot of big horizontal milling machines. We work with 2 different methodes. On of the mathods is the center your part on the rotary table and place your work origin in the center of the table which is the center of the part. The other method we use, involves a macro that I have made that rotates the table and calculates the position of the point you picked for your first origin and puts it in a new work offset. Both methods work well but we found out that we had less errors from our machinists when we used the first method simply because it is easier for them to check if everything is good.

Hope this is the information you requested

[Simtech]

I would agree with Martin, the easiest way is to set up the part and/or fixture to the center of the rotary table (B axis) and to program everything in Mastercam with this position.

You can use different machine offsets (G54, G55, ...) for each tombstone face if you want, it depends really on the application.

Luc

[Kerry]

on a machine i use to work on..we just used the G54,G55..etc settings

then master cam positions are free to the programmer..

we did alot of parts on one machine..and found that we ran out of fixture offsets..

and it was a pain for the setup..so then i put in a macro G53 position offset..so each program offset the 0 from the center of the tombstone..

this way it allowed us unlimited offsets..and after the first pickup the program was set..just put on the fixture and run..program was made and the macro settings were on the first line of the program..