Haas 5 axis Post

[sandkuhler311]

I just got X5 in the shop I moved to. I also purchased the Haas 5 axis post. I wrote a program and posted it but when i started looking through the program i noticed i didn't have any A or B moves. I'm not familiar with post but i was sure i was going about the program right using different WCS views. Any help or info would be greatly appericatied. Thank you.

[Guest]

How about going to the point of purchase and asking them how the post works?

 

Seems to make the most sense

[Chris McIntosh]

The WCS is used to locate your part zero on the machine. The toolplane/construction plane are used to position the tool relative to your part zero.

 

So if you use a WCS of Front and a toolplane of front, the post recognizes that the toolplane and wcs are the same, which would result in 0 rotation. If, however, you were to use the top wcs and the front toolplane, the post would recognize that the tool was machining along the -ve Y-axis and would calculate/output the necessary rotations to position the part/tool correctly.

 

To summerize, the WCS position is used to locate the part zero. The orientation of wcs axis determine the part orientation relative to the "real world". The orientation of the toolplane and construction plane axis determine the tool position relative to the wcs. So I would suggest to start with, orienting your part as it will sit on your machine and using top wcs for all your operations, only change the toolplane and construction plane in operations to get the rotary output.

 

I should also note that for 5-axis toolpaths, the toolplane does not drive the rotary axis output, the operation itself has a number of different methods to control the tool axis.

 

Are you running a VR (tilting head) or a VF (rotaries on table)?

[sandkuhler311]

Thanks for clearing that up. I got myself all kinds of backwards in my thinking. Now thats taken care of its on to my next problem...cutting colbalt chrome.

[gcode]

cutting colbalt chrome

+ Haas...... that's gonna be a problem