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General Programming Question


Jon @ NOWHERE
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I know in setting up a coordinate system for a part that you are programming on a 4th axis machine you normally want the coordinate system based on center of rotation. Same with setting up the coordinate system for a part for a 5 axis machine that is TABLE/TABLE. My question is how would you handle the coordinate system for a HEAD/TABLE 5 axis machine?

 

Never set up a file for programming a HEAD/TABLE configuration and we have some parts coming up that we are buying a machine that is a HEAD/TABLE 5 axis machine. Trying to get a leg up on things before we are down to crunch time.

 

Thanks in advance

Jonathan

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The way we got it currently set is X is at the face of the rotary Y and Z are at center of the the rotary. Rotary rotates about the X axis. The head rotates about the Y axis and the spindle is offset from the pivot point of the head, which further complicates things. We have played around programming the parts some and ran through vericut to see what we are producing and we are getting mixed results which leads me to believe that maybe we are looking at the wcs setup wrong.

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I'm with gcode in never using one either.

with most modern head/table 5ax machines, wouldn't it have an auto tool setter?

wouldn't this mean you would setup zero like a 4axis (to center of table rotation) and the z or y (depending on kinematics) be set in combination with the existing TLO? i would think the manufacturer would have some settings in the control that are based on their measurements of the exact machine they are configuring.

 

maybe if we knew what machine u were talking about, we could talk in those terms

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That could be the case, as is we haven't gotten the machine yet so it could also change from a head/table configuration. Me nor my collegue has ever programmed a head/table config. and as there are 31 of these part numbers that we will most likely have to complete in an insanely short time, we are scrambling to figure out as much as we can and prepare ourselves for what we are about to embark on. I came here to see how others may be handling doing things on a similar machine. We had to get the post to put out G43.4 which cleared up some of the undesirable results we seen in vericut. I just want to make sure that we are not overlooking a way of setting up the wcs that would make programming easier.

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Jay,

 

I think it does, unfortunately I don't have the quote on the machine to see what options they have quoted for us. I have the machine data sheet here that lists the horizontal and vertical distances from the spindle face to the swivel axis. Is the pivot point something that we have to calculate directly on the machine with a tool?

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The way I do 5-axis programing is you have a 3-axis origin X Y Z that is say what I would call my top work plane then for my 5-axis it would be X Y in ref to a surface at angle I wanted and with Z being in the Z direction of that surface and would be refrenced to the center of the top work plane. and I would program in the 5 axis work plane and my working coordinate system would be top work plane and the tool plane and comp/ construction plane would be set to my 5-axis plane if thats what your talking about or askinf what kind of machine and controls are you useing?

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I have done similar to you Terry, for programming the 4 axis Makino's at my last job, but that XY location was based on the center of rotation of the B axis and the Z was top of the pallet. It still followed the convention that your Origin was at center of rotation. And that is easy to do with TABLE/TABLE machines. The machine that the company is looking at buying is a Chiron FZ 12K S with a Fanuc 31i A control.

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Jay,

 

I think it does, unfortunately I don't have the quote on the machine to see what options they have quoted for us. I have the machine data sheet here that lists the horizontal and vertical distances from the spindle face to the swivel axis. Is the pivot point something that we have to calculate directly on the machine with a tool?

in most cases yes. when I used to program these types of 5axis after fined the pivot distance this was add to the post then we add a integra to add the tool gauge length to now the post will calculate the pivot distance from you tool gauge and pivot legnth in regards to your part location as you can see there are to factors that come to play as I was talking about earlier. as for a newer machine some of them hand this info in the machine to hand this based on the the gauge length as it knows the first the pivot point. but most are handled by post using the to factors.

You really should look at getting Secrets of 5-Axis Machining book. this great for this type of info. or take the course you see posted here in the forum about the book on Eapprentice.

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