Not having a good day with X

[PGW Steve]

I've got this very important job on the go and did up the solid in MC and got down to the toolpaths.

 

First problem is with the HSM raster, I tell it 0. stock on walls and face and a max depth of -.675. I post it off and the comment at the start of the code is (MAX - Z2.) (MIN - Z-.7476) (STOCK LEFT ON DRIVE SURFS =.05)

 

I verify the ruff and finish and even with the goofy stock left it appears to clean up all the ruffed surfs. Bottom line is I don't trust it so I turf the toolpath and code. I've double checked the min/max setting and the stock left and everything is good. I don't trust it and that is my problem.

 

So I choose parallel finish and that looks good with the max depth and stock left. I trust it, a good thing!!

 

I post off the rough and finish and drip it to the machine and the ruffing does a rapid right through the side of the part.

 

I only have 5 bars left and no faith in the software and an important job.

 

I think that I'm going to have to buy Cimco 5 so I can see if this thing is going to wipe out my remaining material with bad code.

 

Other than the fancy fillets I can put on all the corners of this part, MC can't do anything that a good M97 P101 L300 couldn't do without a million lines of code.

 

I don't get it, I'm not having a good day.

[Rick Henrickson The Boeing Co.]

what are you using for a retract?

min vertical

full vertical

min distance?

[New Job]

Get MCULite demo, download for 30 days free. Shows toolpath very well. We use liscened version here all the time. Nice to have a little independent verification.

 

www.nwdesigns.com

[PGW Steve]

Thanks for the tip cascadeclimbr, retract was set at the default of .25 incremental. I changed it to .1 absolute and will give it a try.

 

dcapps4150, I hate free trials, it makes me spend money.

 

I went out and bought the ingredients for some BBQ nachos for me and the two guys in the shop, that helped me cool off.

[New Job]

After gouging (read scrapping) two mold plates the less than four digits price of MCULite was very worth it!

[bestguest]

PGW STEVE,

 

Make sure that under "Linking Parameters" you have retract set to "Full".If your machine doglegs on a rapid you will violate every time.

The other thing that happens when using the HSM routines is that when any change is made to your tool the system will reset itself to the default surface stock settings

[Jim at Gentex]

Steve,

Another thing I found is that if you check the 'rapid retract' box in the parameters menu you will often get a simultaneous axis movement instead of a z retract followed by an x or y move. This can cause a big-time crash.

 

I found it MUCH safer to program a retract feed rate than to use the 'rapid retract' check box.

 

If I'm short on material and not comfortable with my program, I will run it in a piece of scrap material first to see if there are any major surprises. This may work for you in this case too.

 

Good luck with this job. I know sometimes it can be frustrating, but hang in there and keep trying. You'll be a better programmer in the long run when you experience problems like these and are able to overcome them.

[gcode]

Steve,

from ealier posts, I think you are running a Hass.

Hass machines dogleg, in other words, they do not rapid in a straight line.

If you program a rapid move from X0Y0 to

X20,Y10,Mastercam will backplot it and verify it

as 1 straight line.

On the floor, the Hass will rapid at 45° to X10,Y10 then run a straight line to X20.

If you had a holddown bolt at X5,Y5., it looked great in Mastercam and crashed in the real world.

There are several solutions.

 

The simplest is to always be sure you are in clear blue sky from rapid moves.

another is gcode verification with Vericut or Predator VCNC so you see the crash on your screen instead of real time.

 

The high speed toolpaths have to option of outputing G01 rapids so instead of

G0X20.Y10.

you get

G01X20.Y10.F1000. with the feedrate being the fastest F your machine is capable off.

That way, what you see in Backplot and Verify

will be the same as what happens at the machine.

You can allow edit your post to do this with all toolpaths.

One downside to this is it makes feedrate edits at the control almost impossible because there with be thousands of F values in your code.

[Keith @ Solid Code Solutions]

Steve,

 

quote:

---

The simplest is to always be sure you are in clear blue sky from rapid moves.

another is gcode verification with Vericut or Predator VCNC so you see the crash on your screen instead of real time.

---

+1000

 

I've use Vericut for years knowing what I see is what I get.

 

I'm assuming that Haas doesn't provide a parameter toggle to eliminate the dog leg. i'm more of a Okuma guy and it is one of the first things we change when we get a new machine.