Block drilling has me stumped

[PeterDnz]

Can anyone provide some clarity for me by way of example code or guidance as to what to expect from MC block drill operations and how to configure the MD. I've been trying to get the post processor (via developer) to output suitable origin shifts for a variety of diameter drills used in the block drill. So far all I get is a temporary origin shift at the start of blockdrilling cycles which is calculated for the corner drill #25(which is my lead drill)and a cancellation of the temp origin shift at the end of blockdrill cycle. But when drill #26 or #24 is called individually, it still uses the same temp origin shift, which puts it 32 mm out of position in X or Y. I hope you can see my problem and the probably obvious solution. Any feedback on this would be really welcome.

[cdhastie]

If you have extended work offsets on your machine(s), that is G54.1 P1, G54.1 P2, etc., you can easily set up the X and Y axis offsets for your drill block.

[PeterDnz]

I'll investigate this. Thanks for the pointer.

[timhochs]

Peter,

 

I was hoping someone would clarify this issue for you so I could see how people configure Mastercam for drill blocks. I am still using our old software for block drilling, but will switch once I figure things out.

 

As far as the actual code goes, I do it the way cdhastie suggested, though I expect with your OSAI they are refered to as User Absolute Origins or something of that nature. When I use multiple drills I designate one of them as master, and the rest as slaves, selecting only the master drill's geometry for cutting.

 

Do you by any chance have horizontal drills on the unit?

[PeterDnz]

Haven't found the work offsets in the control yet. The post developer set up the .RMD for me with the standard block drill configured in it, which I can edit according to my requirements. No horizontal drills exist as we are nesting only. I'm really just looking to use the block drill as a tool changer so I want to know how configure Mastercam to output the code required.

[timhochs]

Ok

 

I'm going to verify a few ideas I have. I'll get back to you.

 

Tim

[timhochs]

If you are still looking for an answer to the block drilling problem....

 

As far as I can tell from my experiments, if you have the block correctly defined in the machine, definition, and a drill block selected as your tool, Mastercam will deploy the correct drills automaticly based on the geometry that is present. There is good info on this in the help and the Mastercam resource guide.

 

As for work offsets, I think you only have to define the lead drill by way of a work origin or distance from the origin that you are using.

 

As for getting the correct tool codes, I would try to get help from the post developer or machine manufacturer.

 

sorry I cant do any better than this. Let me know how it goes.

 

Tim