How to organize operations?

[BenK]

I'm trying to find the best way to organize my Mastercam operations so it is easy to look back and find what you need. We have three programmers here and it can be a pain to find what your looking for in some of these long programs.

 

What I'm thinking is:

 

Machine group

Operation 1 (Toolpath group)

Tool 1 (Toolpath group)

tool 2 (Toolpath group)

and so on

 

Every tool change would have its own toolpath group under the operations toolpath group.

 

 

I'm interested in seeing how others organize there Mastercam files.

[mayday]

thats how we do it

new group for every tool, named either the tool or the operation. then if a mod is needed down the line. copy the group and name it modified. that way your original toolpath is still there

[Joe788]

+1

 

Depending on the parts, I'll break them up into each tool, for each face. Sometimes a .250 endmill might have 20 toolpaths on the top, 20 toolpaths on the left, and 20 toolpaths on the right. So the op manager will have a separate toolpath group for each face that tool works on.

[huskermcdoogle]

Most definately depends on the parts and how many operations.

 

I usually at the very least start by doing them by operation(10, 20, so on...)

 

Then if there are lots of operations in the op I will then usually break it down by general operation type (roughing/finishing/drilling and tapping) And depending on how the tools fall or how many MC operations it takes to get the job done I will break it down from there by feature and tool.

 

One way is the not comment every opertion in MC but only comment when you are doing something new, but if you have 16 whosywhatsits that are the same basic thing you type whosywhatsits in the first of that type and nothing in the remainder, and that will suffice to visually break it up and give you an idea where you are in a program.

 

 

Husker

[dforsythe]

This is how we do it. when i was first learning mastercam a few years ago we had a contract guy in house doing some work for us. he showed me this style and i have used it ever since. same in NX but not catia.

[Thee Rickster ™]

I make muld and i have a machine group for each component and a 1 toolpath group in each

machine ( more if there is two ops or a temp file needed.

 

CAVITY(machine group)

FC001B (tool group)(b - for cavity base)

 

CORE(Machine Group)

FC001A(Tool Group)(a - for core base)

 

COREINSERT(Machine Group)

FC001AINS(Tool Group)(ains - for core Insert)

 

SLIDE 1(Machine Group)

FC001S1OP1(Tool group)

FC001S1OP2(Tool group)

 

and so on

 

There can be as many as 20 tools and many or more paths in each group

the tool group name is also the program name ie: FC001B.ncc

[robk]

Most of my programs have hundreds of operations. I organize mine by sequence numbers. My post is tuned to output the sequence # that is in front of the operation. My programming software is NX, but maybe it is possible to do the same in Mastercam?

Here are screenshots of program order view (mostly collapsed) and tool order view (collapsed completely).

[NOTW Programmer]

What if you want to use a tool 5 to make a feature in order for tool 7 to machine another feature inside then you needed tool 5 again to finish, do you have to make 3 toolpath groups. You can't have the tool 5 ops in the same subgroup because that would make them run one after the other. Do you insert a group per tool even if it only machines one feature, do you name each toolpath, and do you have the post remove the tool comment as the operation comment would be a duplicate, or do you not output the toolpath group heading?

[MotorCityMinion]

"thats how we do it, new group for every tool"

 

OK, I'll bite. I never new you could have a new tool path group as a sub-group. Whats the purpose/benefit of this style?

 

I've been posting a new Machine group and naming it for each op, sequentially or by face, then have all tools for that op in that tool path group, then done. Repeat for next face.

[Newbeeee™]

"thats how we do it, new group for every tool"

 

OK, I'll bite. I never new you could have a new tool path group as a sub-group. Whats the purpose/benefit of this style?

 

I've been posting a new Machine group and naming it for each op, sequentially or by face, then have all tools for that op in that tool path group, then done. Repeat for next face.

 

MCM - You're not alone. Your way is exactly the way we work.

I must admit, after reading the other posts I'm thinking why do they do it that way? What's the benefits?

[MotorCityMinion]

I should clarify that some. I'll post a new machine group for each new operation, meaning set-up. All operations on one face get their own Machine group, flip the part, start a new Machine group and so on. If I want to keep the same tool numbers or settings from a particular group, I'll drag and drop it.

[BenK]

What's the benefits?

 

 

When you start to get 100+ operations it starts to get hard to look back through and find what you are looking for. Also we have three programmers and I want to make finding operations easier for the next person that looks at my files. Anything to save us some time is worth doing.

[Newbeeee™]

Thanks Ben.

We are usually <100 operations, but it's worth considering because as you say, clarity is king.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

The Group name only needs to be different from the other groups. You could add an "A" or a "1" somewhere in the group name to make it different. This is usually what I do when I will be recalling tools.

 

HTH

[dforsythe]

The Group name only needs to be different from the other groups. You could add an "A" or a "1" somewhere in the group name to make it different. This is usually what I do when I will be recalling tools.

 

HTH

 

 

you can also just hit the space bar. this will alow you to have the same name as another tool group without an "A" or "1" after it. if i was on op3 i would just type the name then hit space bar three times.

[Code_Breaker]

I vary the way I use the Operation Manager to each project, but mostly follows this format ....

[BenK]

Here is what I ended up with, works great for keeping everything organized.