X5 and WCS issue

[within a thou]

First I must say so glad to be at a company that has mastercam again, but running into a issue, maybe this is known but it is new to me. We have some existing programs for a repeat job we do regularly that we use to run on one of our verticals which has a post from in house. Part of me coming on here is because they bought a HMC with pallets they want mne to move a lot of our vertical work onto so we can set up thombstones and run lights out. Currently we are using the Fanuc generic 4 axis hmc to post (while

 

So I am taking the existing proven mcam file copying and pasting all the ops within my operations manager by tool and then changing my WCS in my planes page to reflect which of the multiple parts I am doing.

 

The problem I am having is some tools are not posting the G54 ,G55 etc..... but some do.

 

In my plane page in my op they are all set to use WCS and set to 0 and 1 (G54 and G55) but for some reason only half the tools post the G54 and G55 and the ones that don't rerun the same tool path twice on the same part as opposed to once on each.

 

Does anyone know if this is a issue with the generic post or a known bug in X5? While I await a call back from In House figured I would pick a few of your brains. I am yet to try and put it into X6 and try to post mainly because we also have off site programming done here and that is done in X5 so I am just matching what the other guy is doing so files can be swapped back and forth.

[Sticky]

Good to hear you got a new job! What kind of machine and pallet system is it?

 

As for your code problem, have you checked the offending tool paths to see that you have the correct WCS selected? And also double check the Misc Values, you want "lock on first wcs" set to 0.

 

Are you using transforms?

[SGarofolo]

Whenever you are programming an HMC, WCS is always TOP because the center of rotation on the part never changes.

 

Lets say after you do all of your work on the first face of your tombstone you want to rotate it 90º and do work on the "right" side. In this case, you're going to want to set up a plane on the right side, on either the part or the tombstone. Once you set this plane up with the correct axis orientation, you can then accept it and give it the correct work offset #. When you're writing your toolpaths for the right hand side, you need to set the tool plane and construction plane equal to the plane you've just created. However, WCS should still be TOP.

[within a thou]

Good to hear you got a new job! What kind of machine and pallet system is it?

 

As for your code problem, have you checked the offending tool paths to see that you have the correct WCS selected? And also double check the Misc Values, you want "lock on first wcs" set to 0.

 

Are you using transforms?

 

Sticky you are the man when I go into Misc values as long as everything is set to "automatically set to post values when posting" my problem goes away. I have never understood the misc values or have any idea what they are used for so I never even thought to look there. For some reason some were set others were not and it is the same type of operation that was causing the conflict (contour).

 

And no I am not using transform as of yet (atleast). I am setting seperate co ordinate systems on the machine for each piece.

 

The machine is a twin pallet Hitachi Seiki with Secos (fanuc based) control. They picked it up a couple months ago and it has been sitting idle up until I started. Still designing my tombstones and fixtures for all the repeat parts we want on this machine.

 

To keep up with orders I have just been taking existing programs they have ran on the verticals here and flipping my planes and using multiple co ordinate systems to set my xyz's

 

Probably not the best way but until we get the tombstones and fixtures drawn up and made it works for now.

 

One nice thing about this new place is they have a few 5 axis mills along with a few mill/turn machines that I will get to play with and try to program which should be fun to learn something new

[within a thou]

Whenever you are programming an HMC, WCS is always TOP because the center of rotation on the part never changes.

 

Lets say after you do all of your work on the first face of your tombstone you want to rotate it 90º and do work on the "right" side. In this case, you're going to want to set up a plane on the right side, on either the part or the tombstone. Once you set this plane up with the correct axis orientation, you can then accept it and give it the correct work offset #. When you're writing your toolpaths for the right hand side, you need to set the tool plane and construction plane equal to the plane you've just created. However, WCS should still be TOP.

 

I ment the WCS in the operation not mcam in general. These parts were originally programmed for a 3 axis vmc and I am switching them to a HMC. To do this Top is actually what normally wou;d be front (B0.) then I am rotating left and right (b90 and B270.) so my Y+ points to what would be back in a normal HMC configuration. I know it sounds dumb but as opposed to rotating all the top to be front and then also redoing left and right I am just redoing left and right.

[Sticky]

Sounds like the machine TCS was selling.

[within a thou]

Yes that is the machine actually. Good little machine so far. The only downside I have found is with the tool changer and staging the next tool. It shakes the machine and causes my surface finish to diminish. The tool changer is mounted to the machine with no floor support so i may look at gabbing extra legs to try and dampen the vibrations. Other than that it is a nice little HMC.

[Sticky]

Yes that is the machine actually. Good little machine so far. The only downside I have found is with the tool changer and staging the next tool. It shakes the machine and causes my surface finish to diminish. The tool changer is mounted to the machine with no floor support so i may look at gabbing extra legs to try and dampen the vibrations. Other than that it is a nice little HMC.

 

If its shaking the machine that much there is an issue with the actual machine level and squareness (tool changer aside I mean).

[within a thou]

If its shaking the machine that much there is an issue with the actual machine level and squareness (tool changer aside I mean).

 

We had a tech out and they say it is square and level. I haven't seen the issue yet since this is the first run I have done on this and I didn't use tool staging. I am going by what the owner has told me. It is a 60 tool carousel mounted just to the casting and no support underneath. It is just held on by a few bolts. I know it is mounted at the bottom but haven't spent enough energy checking if it there is also a bracket at the top because the table moves in Z as opposed to the spindle colume you would think their would be top brackets.

[Sticky]

We had a tech out and they say it is square and level. I haven't seen the issue yet since this is the first run I have done on this and I didn't use tool staging. I am going by what the owner has told me. It is a 60 tool carousel mounted just to the casting and no support underneath. It is just held on by a few bolts. I know it is mounted at the bottom but haven't spent enough energy checking if it there is also a bracket at the top because the table moves in Z as opposed to the spindle colume you would think their would be top brackets.

 

There aren't any techs locally that even have a square large enough to square that machine, let alone do the procedure.

You've got problems other then surface finish if you can't stage a tool while the machine is running.