WCS Positioning and rotating

[Code_Breaker]

My question is "How are you creating the original new WCS?"

[Dave.L]

Eric,

 

I was not ignoring you, I was asking code_breaker, please don't take it personal.

[Code_Breaker]

My second question is "Why do you want to rotate your original WCS?"

[Code_Breaker]

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was not ignoring you, I was asking code_breaker

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How about answering my two questions?

[3R!< W3NG3R]

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please don't take it personal.

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Never do. It was said in jest

I see your mission is to get a couple of people to admit to something.

 

[Code_Breaker]

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I see your mission is to get a couple of people to admit to something.

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And I thought he was WANTING help ...

[Dave.L]

Eric,

 

My mission was to get the facts, no conspiracy here. And while I DO appreciate help from the users, often people get the questions asked mixed up with there opinions on how to handle a particular issue. And I mean no disrespect whatsoever, I was just asking for a factual answer to my question. And I am happy and appreciative to here other suggestions, but those suggestions should not push aside the question as originally asked.

 

Code_breaker, I was at lunch, so I am happy to answer your questions, however, I am not interested in arguing with you which seems to be your motive.

 

1) I create my original WCS (s) of the part geometry.

 

2) I sometimes wish to rotate the WCS for several reasons, most commonly when I do a save-as on another file to use a template for a new (similar) part.

 

Thanks again for all your suggestions and help, it is appreciated.

[Grievous]

Dave, Mastercam is missing that functionality witch other software have and you wanted. You can rotate a view around that view Z axis but will always create a new view even that view it's not asociated with 2 lines.

Maybe in the future they will implement such a feature..I mean when you do "Rotate Plane" command, they can put a option to ovewrite current plane and if that plane is asociated with 2 lines , to breack association (with a warning will be nice..and maybe also to do a copy).That way you don’t need to do what g-code said before …to create a new plane and replace the op witch use that plane with the new one…

[Code_Breaker]

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I am not interested in arguing with you which seems to be your motive.

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Sorry, that was and is NOT my motives ... just trying to get it straight in my head ...

 

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My mission was to get the facts,

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If you just wanted FACTS and NOT HELP you will need to rephrase your question to say so ... or take it to Off Topics ...

 

But, as for your answers, everything said to HELP YOU, you should use ...

 

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1) I create my original WCS (s) of the part geometry.

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part geometry, or two lines, all the same ... do what gcode said about making it associated ... but be careful when using part geometry, if you change it, the WCS will update as well ... better to use two lines (in my opinion) ...

 

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2) I sometimes wish to rotate the WCS for several reasons, most commonly when I do a save-as on another file to use a template for a new (similar) part.

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Exactly what I do, but when I rotate the two lines, the WCS update and no new views are created ...

 

Again, I am not arguing, but since I have been using Mastercam from v3.11 thru X4 MU1, I have had a need to do it any other way ... I also am familiar with programming in SmartCAM, CATIA, and Unigraphic ...

 

Are we still friends?

[Dave.L]

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Are we still friends?

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Of coarse

 

BTW, I am doing this stuff right now and learned that I can rotate the WCS and then save the view as the original name, it asks to overwrite and I accept. Then the system creates a view on it's own. I then use G-codes suggestion about editing common parameters, select my original view (since MC replaces it with the new view). Then I delete the new view coz it's no longer associated to any tool path.

 

I am sure that sounds confusing, but it works. I don't like it but it works. In my eyes, that's another work around....

 

Happy Friday

 

[SydwazShawn]

I, in know way mean to hijack this thread, but I feel I need to chime in here. WCS is always a complicated topic to explain, and since everyone is talking about it I would like to share my thoughts to everyone to see what they think.

 

First of I’m am going to write this like I know what I’m talking about, but please by all means correct me if I am wrong, because I have changed my way of thinking over the years of using WSC and I hope I’m on the correct path.

 

Ok first let’s start with the WCS movement. I feel you should determine what the top orientation of you part is going to be, and locate your zero point by 2 lines mentioned in above posts. What wasn’t mentioned was you should draw your X+ line and your Y+ line and pick the X then the Y line when creating the new named WSC. That should most of the time make your orientation of the part (model geo) perfect without toggling thru the other options of part orientation.

 

So now I have a new named WSC, and I name it like so (WSC OPP-1). Now at this point I NEVER move the WSC again for that part.

 

Now if you want, you can move the WSC around the part to work on, if that is what you like to do (what I use to do). But there are some disadvantages/ advantages to this. One of the advantages is that when you hit Top with your right mouse dropdown, it will flip to that WCS view, because ultimately every new WCS view you create around the part will be the top view, and have another 6 views associated to it.

 

Mentioned above works okay when you’re only running three axis machines! If you ever want to get into running 4axis or 5axis you MUST use T/C planes to work around the part for rotary output (force rotary moves). This is the main reason I have changed my ways. At some point you will be forced to learn how to use T/C planes, if you want to program more than 3axis machines. I have found that you can manage the T/C planes with a few tricks that X4 has.

 

As mentioned above I have my new WSC created with a name called (WSC OPP-1). What I do now is hit the relative button to create the new 6 standard T/C views that I want based on the new WCS I created (don’t create top, uncheck). I rename them like (OPP-1-FRONT) and so on. At this time you can create new T/C plane views that are not standards and name them like (OPP-1-32.5 DEG. HOLE). I label them like that if they are rotation moves. I will assign new work offset numbers to each if not forcing rotary moves, and label them like (OPP-2-FRONT).

 

Now the biggest complaint I had with a non standard T/C plane, was always trying to quickly snap to that view. I since then added a dynamic mouse which helps me navigate around the part, but MOST of all I added at the top of my right click mouse drop down page Gview=Tplane function. So now you can move around with the dynamic mouse then quickly snap back visually to the T plane you were working on.

 

The other helpful thing I have been playing with are the viewsheets. In X4 you can now save view sheets with T/C plane, along with the last graphic view locked in, and other attributes. I name and save my viewsheets to reflect each of my created T/C views in the view manager. Now I can just hit the viewsheets tab at the bottom of the screen and tab thru all my different named viewssheets with my T/C planes locked in place. All those things have helped me get over moving the WCS around, just so I could easily pop to my top view VISUALLY for each T/C plane.This may seem like overkill, but on complex jobs organization is key. This leads me into the next reason for not moving the WCS around.

 

Some guys are the only programmers, and no one else touches there program’s or jobs. This makes it easy to be free and move the WCS around for small jobs, and on big jobs utilize T/C planes how ever they want. There is no problem with that except there is no rime or reason to it. It makes it hard for someone to understand what they are doing, unless they can name everything thoroughly.

 

Our shop has a few programmers @ different levels. To make things more productive we had to create STRUCTURE programming. If someone programs a part, and then for some reason another needs to follow up, it makes it way easier if we all do it the same.

 

Even if some of the programmers only program the 3axis machines, I feel they need to know how to use T/C planes. It’s only going to help them in the long run for when they graduate to a 4axis rotary/5axis programming. It’s best to teach them early so they develop good habits for the future.

 

I have thought of ways to try and explain how to use the WCS in words for people to understand ( I myself was pulling my hair out when I first started using it in V9). It’s hard to grasp at first, but hits you like an epiphany.

 

The rules I use are as follows:

 

For every part (solid model/geo) there will only be one WCS attached to it, which will be the top! You then use T/C planes to work around the part. So if you only have 1 part on your screen there should only be one WCS for that MCAM file.

 

If you have multiple parts (solid model/geo) in a Mcam file, then you assign only one WCS to EACH of the parts. Examples would be Assembly parts all brought in, or different opps modeled in different vices. I would then label them (WCS OPP-2 CENTER VICE)

 

Multiple WCS’s can also be used for working on tombstones in a horizontal. If you have four faces on the horizontal, and have four parts on each face, you then would have four named WCS’s. If you had 8 parts, 2 on each face you would use eight WCS’s. If you have to do work on any of the sides of each individual part, then you would use T/C planes to force rotation. Obviously there are other ways to do this, but it was just one example.

 

For me to understand and keep it straight in my head, I see the WCS like an upper level part in a BOM. The WCS is the (main part) TOP, and all the individual T/C planes of the part are like the labeled Items in the BOM. That might not be a good analogy but I figured I would throw it out there. Lol!

 

Ok so what do you guys think? Am I way off or is this a good practice?

 

Thanks Shawn.

 

P.S. Sorry Dave L. for throwing this in you thread!

 

[ 11-07-2009, 03:00 AM: Message edited by: Shawn'ald ]

[Dave.L]

Shawn, I am reading this from home so I cannot open MC and play around now but I will latter.

 

I will explore the T/C planes more.

 

Thanks for this very detailed post, I appreciate it. Often I think it's very difficult to explain this stuff thru text. I am sure it would be much easier if people where speaking.

[SydwazShawn]

Dave, I wrote this from home so I hope I didn’t say something you can’t actually do! Lol I, not to long ago started doing it this way and haven’t had problems yet. Also when I use to move the WCS around, I always had problems with the verifier not working correctly. I was probably just doing something wrong.

 

I did however forget to mention that I have 2 different posts for the output of the T/C plane. One post forces rotation, and the other forces G54, G55, G56 and so on.

 

I hope others chime in and say if this is a good approach or not, but it seems to be working well for me.

 

I myself have the hardest time reading something an understanding it! I need someone to walk me thru things physically before I can grasp the concept. Its just how my brain works. So I was bored last night and decided to try and explane it in an easier way, or not .

[Dave.L]

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I did however forget to mention that I have 2 different posts for the output of the T/C plane. One post forces rotation, and the other forces G54, G55, G56 and so on.

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I don't like that at all. (No offense).

 

I am working now and I am having a hard time grasping why t/c planes would be used in place of WCS.....I guess I probably don't fully understand the MC logic.

 

As of now, we only do 3-axis mill work with MC and we often build fixtures to hold multiple parts w/ multiple operations. In the future I know we will be adding a 4-axis and will probably make tombstone type fixtures (you know, use a vertical as a horizontal). We will also be adding a horizontal mill at some point.

 

With that said, are you saying we will need a different approach for those applications?

 

If so, I really need to get a better understanding of this NOW.

 

Thanks Shawn.

[j.nguyen]

Dave -

I agree! Why can't you use the Dynamic WCS rotate and have Mastercam save the rotation matrix in the background and build geometry relative to the current Dynamic WCS. It's redundant to me to save a Plane and then delete it a minute later after creating some geometry. The same should go for toolpaths. If you have to lay over the toolaxis and use contour you should be able to use the position to the Dynamic WCS and not have to save it. It would also be nice if there was window on every toolpath that showed the Current Matrix and toolaxis vector of any planer milling operations.

 

My two cents

 

Jamey

X4

[SydwazShawn]

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I don't like that at all. (No offense).

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It ok!lol I understand why you dont like it. I use 2 different machine def. One 3axis machine, and one 4axis machine.

 

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I am working now and I am having a hard time grasping why t/c planes would be used in place of WCS.....I guess I probably don't fully understand the MC logic.

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When you start doing rotation work, you need to use T/C planes to force rotation from that one WCS you set on that ONE part.

 

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With that said, are you saying we will need a different approach for those applications?

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Yes and no! We have a tombstone that we use on our Haas. Lets say you have a part on each of the four sides. If you only need to machine the top of each part then by all means set 4 different WCS loacations on each face of the tombstone. But if you need to do side work on these parts, the WCS should be set to the top of the part which establishes G54, then use your T/C planes to force the indexer to rotate to the side of that one part.

 

You will need to move the part in the graphics view in location on the tomstone, and then program everything from center of rotation. Its alot easier for set up time because you only need to set the g54 for each part. If you need to do multiple side of the part, all the gcode output comes from that one WCS point. This makes the setup faster in that respect because you dont need to set a bunch of work offsets.

[Dave.L]

Shawn,

 

Very, very good explaination.

 

Thank you.