C-AXIS and live tooling

[Dave-Newcastle]

Is it possible to perform surface machining on a lathe with live tooling and c axis? eg: finish parallel?

[Dave-Newcastle]

Anybody?

[crazy^millman]

Sure it is possible just not going to be easy IMHO. Most C axis machines are really only capable of simple contours and axis wrapping. You might be able to accomplish this using the Mill inside of lathe with axis substitution. Since I have never tried it and do not know your machine this is all just a guess on my part. I have Y axis capabilities on our Mill/Turn's so I can do this very easily by having the "Y axis".

 

HTH

[Guest SAIPEM]

Sorry Crazy^Millman,

 

You're way off in your assessment.

 

It's not a problem and is done all the time.

2d contouring through 3-D free form machining.

 

The most common applications I've seen are on Integrex type machines but I've done it on simple Haas Lathes with live-tooling.

The concept is the same as doing it on a mill with a rotary 4th axis with simple axis substitution.

A Y-axis extends the choices but isn't required.

 

It's all in having the right post.

 

[ 08-09-2007, 02:42 PM: Message edited by: SAIPEM ]

[crazy^millman]

That cool I don't mind being off got him a response from someone that knows for sure. Appericate you clearing that up.

[GoetzInd]

We do it all the time and actually chose XC over XY for some applications where we want consistant concentricity of the 3d features. Just go into rotary axis and choose C. Your post has to be set up right though.

 

Mike

[Reece L Gibson]

Dave, can you share a file?

[YoDoug®]

Reece, Are you looking for a MCX file or a sample of Gcode?

[crazy^millman]

This posting is about 4 months old. I hope he solved his problem by now.

[Reece L Gibson]

I was hoping for a MCX file

[gcode]

Ron,

you remember those P&W casting we did that looked like a big tapered beer mug??

 

The bottom half of the ID was kellered on a mill/turn including the undercut to the angled exit bore.

I used a lollipop cutter and Surface Finish Contour toolpath with gouge checking turned off.

It was scary business proving it out, but it worked very well.

 

I tried using Y axis milling on that part, but it was too big. Ended up using C axis to do it.

The C axis was wound up about a million degrees

when it was done . If I remember right, it took about 10 minutes for it to unwind back to C0

at the end of the finish pass

 

I've never tried the new advanced 5X toolpaths on a mill/turn, but all the other mill toolpaths

can be used on a mill/turn lathe with no problems

 

Very few lathe's have enough memory to support

surfacing toolpaths so you'll probably have to DNC them.

[crazy^millman]

Yes I have had some good sucess with the advanced 5 axis toolpaths, but I got as much Y as I could ever need on the Integrex. I have had not had a need for only C axis toolpaths, so no going only into. I keep hoping for a job to try things like this out, just nothing coming across that really pushes for this. The work we did there was fun and had its challenges. We just keep learning and hoping to get better at this.