KME Tombstone and Mastercam Help

[AlexC]

   Our company has just gotten a KME tombstone with two  5^th axis rotary’s chucks on B0 and B180 ( 4 total). I have used Mastercam in the past but this Shop doesn’t use Mastercam and our current programming system will not support the KME tombstone, this may be my opportunity to get Mastercam in our shop (yea). Has anyone used Mastercam to Program the KME tombstone and how do you use Mastercam , Can you use post a complete program. I use Solidworks to Build complete pallet model and would bring it into Mastercam, will verify show the parts being machined properly. I truly miss using Mastercam

[jlw™]

So if I understand correctly, this would make you have a 6 axis machine? If so then not directly inside of mastercam. It is 5 axis only. Having said that I have zero doubt you could do it with some post trickery. I program a 6 axis machine daily with no trouble. I recommend Portability for a post. Little shout out here to Brian Kweon at Postablilty, great job on my post!

[AlexC]

   The KME tombstone has 4 rotary chucks mounted 2 on B0 and 2 on B180 that you can index 360 degrees by wireless M code commands from inside the program. 

So on B90 you can index each one Independently Wirelessly to all 4 sides of a part and do the top on B0 thus machining 5 sides of a part in one holding.

The other chucks are so you can machine 4 parts on the tombstone. I am guessing that you would use Axis Control/Rotate Axis around X in Mastercam to index the part.

Just not sure the best method to program and simulate in Mastercam. We are putting the KME in our Makino A51nx Horizontal line.

[jlw™]

I don't think you'll ever get simulation in mcam and outputting mcodes to control indexes could be done with misc integer or reals. You're program would look weird on the mastercam side and you'd definitely need some post trickery but I can see that being done with indexing. I don't know about full 5 tho, I don't see that being possible. But after working with Postability I can already see how I'd set it up and ask them to handle the mcode indexes.

 

Decide how you want to handle the indexes and get with a top notch post developer and have at it.

[AlexC]

  Thanks jlw for your Thoughts and input I agree that it’s going to take some post work. I can use text input statements to manually index chucks but there must be a better way. I have seen posts here that some have used mcad to program KME tombstone. I don’t have Mastercam now to play with, but if I can see how it’s done may be able to talk the management into springing for it and dumping our current system.

The code is             (M##)  C1 thru C4 (for Chuck) (angle) that’s it.

[mkd]

man i need to get one of those.

Quanto Es?

[jlw™]

Do you have solids of the tombstone? If you do I'll mock you up a sample file and show the way I'd attack it. You'll want to control the indexing with 4 miscellaneous reals so that you can have decimal output. That will eat up some of your MR but it will control all four independantly. Does the machine it's going in have dynamic offsets and TCP? That'd be the next step. That would determine if I used one WCS and planes as if programming a trunnion from COR or if I used multiple WCS and multiple offsets in the machine as if programming a multiple part tombstone on a horizantal. This will probably be much easier than your expecting given the adaptability of mcam by post. This has intrigued me and after I've thought about it some it would be fun to tune this up and see it truly utilized. First things first, figure out what goodies the control has to make it easier on you. The mcam side will be the easy part.

[jlw™]

Having said all of that I must be fair... I've used Esprit and Edgecam professionally and they will do it too. Edgecam will do it but good luck on the post side. Esprit will do it and accurately simulate it too. The post will be nailed down by an actual Esprit employee but will cost you dearly and you will be their guinea pig I'm sure which will take some time. There's a reason why Esprit can charge those prices btw...

 

The fastest, best bang for the buck that I have used professionally will be Mastercam. I've never used an In-House post that was purchased but all of my 3 axis and lathe posts are MPMaster or MPLMaster that In-House so graciously bestows on Mcam users for the price of clicking and downloading. I have 3 bought posts from from Postability and am very pleased. To be honest, the reason I have that is that's who my reseller recommended and at the time I was brand new to mcam. I however bought the other two because they knocked it out of the park with the first one.

 

One thing I can assure you of, the support network for mcam totally destroys the rest. This one website alone dwarfs the support of the rest together in my opinion.

 

I watched several of the videos on their website and it shows the pros and cons. Axis sub will do you no good here in my opinion. If you notice in the one video they machine it like a 4th axis, the spindle pulls back and it keeps spinning. My guess is they fired an mcode with a predetermined amount of rotations that exceeded the time needed for the cut and thats why it kept going. I don't see it doing simultaneous 5 axis with out some mind blowing timing. Actually I don't see it at all being wireless but I digress.

 

However you attack it I'd love it if you'd update us and share how you do it.

[AlexC]

I have a solid of tombstone from KME that I put a sample part on ready for our A51nx Makino that I will upload.

The Makino is wired to a control box that wireless controls the 4 chucks on the tombstone, so M code chuck number and angel is sent from Makino program to control box then the control box sends movement info to chuck. Its good program practice to position next chuck while machining current chuck like staging next tool.

I will keep posting as I work out the details, this Tombstone wasn’t cheap almost the cost of a whole machine. The management is anxious to see it working.

[AlexC]

KME Pallet and part Layout.stp

[Guest]

Programming isn't going to be a problem....

 

Getting a good quality post and lack of accurate simulation will be small hurdles...

 

I've looked at adding these to a machine and believe me, the post is the biggest issue....

 

I think I can deal with the limited simulation based on a good post.

[mkd]

Not sure what the bugs could be with simulation. 3+2 is 3+2, right?

 

Back in the 90's I did a Sin plate "full" 4 axis job with a haas control box on a Hitachi Seiki. you just had to coordinate feed rates between CNC and Fourth axis.

 

 

wonder what those tombstones use for a power source if signalling is wireless?

[Guest]

Not sure what the bugs could be with simulation. 3+2 is 3+2, right?

 

Back in the 90's I did a Sin plate "full" 4 axis job with a haas control box on a Hitachi Seiki. you just had to coordinate feed rates between CNC and Fourth axis.

 

 

wonder what those tombstones use for a power source if signalling is wireless?

Depends.....I haven't looked but if they're rotary heads only, then yes, 3+2

 

You'd still have rotary limits you'd need to deal with and clearances...

getting an accurate depiction will not be possible as Mastercam currently runs...

in this setup you'll have multiple rotaries on each face.

 

I stand by my statement, the post is the biggest issue

[mkd]

right, i totally spaced on the MULTIPLE rotaries.

 don't see Machine Sim working for more than one Fixture offset. Fake it one by one i guess.

[jlw™]

Yeah, I don't see simulation being possible as I said.  There will have to be some trickery in the programming side of it too, dependent on control options.  I don't see the post being a problem either as these are positional only by Mcode.  The "full rotary" as in the demo would be a point path with a dwell for however long it takes to make the cut.  Use Misc Reals to fire the Mcodes.  The trick will be in setting up the solids/geo for programming.  There will not be accurate simulation but I use my solids of my machines, fixtures, parts and sometimes tools to check clearances.  Also, like I said the post will be the hard part but I think it's entirely doable and won't be as bad as it looks.

 

I wouldn't be scared of it all.  What are you going to start out programming it with if you don't have mcam?

[AlexC]

  I was brought into this shop to help get their Makino A51nx line up and running. They mostly have Mazaks so use Mazak control to program,

so they got  FeatureCam thinking it is fast and automatic (yea right).

It’s very different than Mastercam that I have been using for the last 15 Years.

After using FeatureCam for the last 3 months I really miss Mastercam.

   I will never grumble about Mastercam again…. LOL

[neurosis]

I'm about to find myself in the same boat. We just purchased one of these tombstones and will soon be looking for some kind of post solution.

 

Who are the best options to look in to for something like this?

[crazy^millman]

I'm about to find myself in the same boat. We just purchased one of these tombstones and will soon be looking for some kind of post solution.

 

Who are the best options to look in to for something like this?

 

The people who host this board and Postability.

 

For simulation NCSIMUL 9.2.4 can support this.

[neurosis]

I'm going to try to contact someone about a post for this tombstone next week. Im also going to try to get more information on simulation capability as well. 

 

We just got a quote and a demo from another company and the post looked like the least of the worry and the machine simulation was outstanding. I want to see what Mastercam has to offer in comparison since about 99% of our part files are now done in Mastercam.

 

I would post a link to the demo that we were shown but it would probably just get removed. 

[Dont]

I just went to 2017 roll out and there was a guy there with Makino and kme that was working with mcam Northwest on a post for this.

 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

 

[Colin Gilchrist]

The post won't be an issue with a good Post Developer. It is just a 5X post. The issue is driving simulation.

 

I would set this up inside Mastercam using both "Miscellaneous Values", and "Axis Combinations", if there was Simulation involved.

 

Machine Simulation inside Mastercam could support this if you had a post tied into the Mach Sim. There isn't really any issues with doing that besides paying for it.

 

Since the rotaries are M-code driven, you are limited to 3+2, but that still gives you plenty of capability.

 

Both NCSimul and Vericut could be setup to handle the simulation. Vericut has a pretty awesome deal where you can get a single machine, and the software, for a reduced price. That would be a great option for you if this is your first foray into 5X work.

 

The bottom line though is that this won't be cheap, no matter which route you go.

 

The least expensive option would be to configure the Generic Fanuc 5X Mill Post to output your code, since just about any developer could do this, or if you know how to edit posts you can do it for yourself. That would leave you "flying blind" without simulation, and require you to prove out the programs on the machine though. I've done that for a customer of mine that had a custom KME setup on a Vertical machine. They had a standard 4th Axis rotary table, and the KME bolted to it with a bearing support block on the end.

 

It worked great for when they were making 4 identical parts, but got pretty tricky when doing different parts (or subsequent ops) at each station. For ease of programming, I had them use Canned Text to output the Mcodes.

[neurosis]

Colin,

 

Could you send me a private message and let me know what a post mod like this would cost if you were to do it?  I'll worry about the machine simulation after.

 

We already have the "other" software in our shop that fully supports this tombstone and know what the post mod will cost for it. I want to try to get a fair comparison.

[Watcher]

TopSolid V7 can handle the post & simulation for this. 4 years ago I was programming 7 axis HBMs with V6 with full simulation.

[Watcher]

Just visited KME website and they have wireless versions now. That makes it a killer solution.

[neurosis]

TopSolid V7 can handle the post & simulation for this. 4 years ago I was programming 7 axis HBMs with V6 with full simulation.

 

 

We already have TopSolid in our shop for Mill/Turn work.  We are strongly considering it to support this tombstone.  They already sent a demo and it was very impressive.