Change drilling depths within a drilling cycle in mastercam

[powerfulp]

Hello,

 

How do you change drilling depths for certain holes in a drilling cycle in Mastercam? I know this is basic stuff, but I've been trying to figure it out long enough so I come here for help.

 

I have a drill/counterbore cycle. I selected the holes to be drilled by "entities". Some drilled holes have different R-planes and final Z's. On my "linking parameters" screen, there is the Retract... Top of stock.. and Depth... I can enter, but what if they are different hole-to-hole?

 

Thanks for any help.

[BOATDUDEGUY]

I dont know if you can do that

I never heard of different depths in a canned cycle

[Glenn Bouman]

I never heard of different depths in a canned cycle

 

I think he meant different depths within a Mastercam Drilling Operation.

 

For holes with different depths but the same R level, just select positions that represent the bottom of each hole and set the depths in Mastercam to incremental 0 and the Top of Stock and Retract Level to Absolute.

 

Or if the R planes are different for each hole pick the the top of each hole and set the Retract, Top of Stock and Depth to incremental. This assumes that each hole is equal depth from the R plane.

[Watcher]

AFAIK you can do that with a custom cycle. The Mastercam UI and MP allow you to do that.

[Roger]

Open your geometry, highlight the point that you want to change, right click on it, click on change at point. Is that what your looking to do?

[Reece L Gibson]

Roger is the man!....

If your points or arcs are in 3-d

Space, just select the bottom of the hole

And your depth to incremental. The canned drill

Cycle should pick it up. Lot more options

Doing it Rogers way.

[powerfulp]

Ok, Roger, I used what you suggested and it worked great for changing the Z-depths to different values for holes that go to different depths with the same diameter drill. Thanks. However, I still cant get it to use different R-planes for different holes. The R-planes AND the final Z-depths are different for each hole. I tried to select on each hole individually with Top of stock with Absolute selected and it just uses the last one I selected....

 

ALSO, I have another problem, I don't know if I should start another post for it, but it's kind of related. I am drilling on a horizontal machining center and using this same drill, I have to rotate the B-axis to B90 and drill a hole there. How on earth do I get the orientation correct to drill that hole at that angle along with drilling the other holes at B0?

 

Thanks again for any help.

[powerfulp]

Here's what I did: I just did all the drilling at one B-axis position, then started another cycle with the same drill and rotated the T/C plane to where I was machining at the other B-axis position and this looks like it worked. I'm sure there are countless other (probably better) ways to do this, if anyone would like to share I would appreciate it. Thanks!

[Rotary Ninja]

Rotating the T/C plane is the correct way.

 

Here is an example drawing of a part with varying drill point depths and varying top of hole positions:

 

Create a drill point toolpath and select the drill point for each hole:

 

Setup the linking parameters as so:

 

Hit OK and you should have this (which would make tooling manufacturers VERY happy):

 

Now open the geometry window back up and edit the first point as mentioned earlier in this thread. (Highlight the point, right-click it and select "Change at point..."). When the window opens place a check next to retract. Right-click in the text field and select "Distance between two points". Pick the center-point of the top of your hole and the drill point.

 

My first drill depth is 1" to the breakout of the drill. So the distance from the top of the hole to the actual drill point is 1.060386". Now, just after the 6 type +.1. So you will see 1.060386+.1 in this text field. Click OK and regen and your toolpath should now look like this:

 

Do the same for the remaining points and you should have this:

 

Hope this helps.