question about reselecting Z depths

[Guyinthedesert]

So, I have a new part I'm working on. It's a 5 axis part with a bit of detail, so I'll probably end up with 300-400 operations. I'm going to be running this on either a Mazak E420 or a Haas trunion.

I want to have everything contained in one file, so I was planning to program the toolpaths for one machine, then copy and paste them into a new machine group for the other machine. Then I can create a new set of WCS planes and origins for the other machine and regenerate the toolpaths. Problem is, I need to go through each toolpath and re -select all the Z depths. With 400 operations, that's a lot of work.

 

Is there some better way to do this?

[Guest]

Use incremental depths

 

Then wherever you move your geometry, the depths stay relative to your part

[Guyinthedesert]

Use incremental depths

 

Then wherever you move your geometry, the depths stay relative to your part

 

Hmm, I've never used incremental. I'll give it a try, thanks

[Guyinthedesert]

I thought switching to incremental mode was pretty straight forward. I'm using opti-rest for several operations, and for the steep/shallow selections there is only absolute, I think. Am I doing something wrong?

[Glenn Bouman]

I thought switching to incremental mode was pretty straight forward. I'm using opti-rest for several operations, and for the steep/shallow selections there is only absolute, I think. Am I doing something wrong?

 

You will need to re-set those values as they are not associative to the geometry

[Guyinthedesert]

You will need to re-set those values as they are not associative to the geometry

 

Well I found a solution for the time being. The E420 only has a 7k spindle, so I programmed everything to run at 10K, so now it has to run on a Haas.

 

Still, it seems there should be an easier was to change your origin.