Plane offset question

[Colin Gilchrist]

Greg,

 

What version of Mastercam are you running? In X9 and 2017, if you go into the Planes Manager and set all the Planes to use a specific number, it will ask if you want to update all the Planes in the existing Operations to "use that number".

 

So just go into your Planes Manager, and set each of the Planes you use to "0" for G54.

 

If that is always how you want to program, then just create a Template File that has all the Planes set to use "0" for the Work Offset Number. This is especially handy if you do Vertical or Horizontal 4th Axis Programming, because you can create your "default" planes, and set all the Work Offset values. For any 4th axis machine, I create 8 default planes, at 45 degree increments.

[Greg_J]

Colin,

I currently go into the planes manger and set the plane I'm working on to 0, as I create each plane I set the value to 0 but occasionally I forget to do this.

 

Other times I forget are:

When I use Transform toolpath

When I import toolpaths and it's either grayed out or sets the value to 1 in the particular program.

When I haven't had enough coffee...

 

The way I catch it is to ALWAYS check in Cimco.

 

It's too bad that there isn't just a switch to force G54 on all planes in Mastercam, when I do any rotary work on a VMC G54 is always center of part so Top, Front, "New" Bottom, and "New" Back and any other planes I create are G54 but on the HMC I use a new work offset for each plane so it would be a nice switch.

 

Speaking of "New" Bottom and Back planes I would be nice to be able to tell MC which way to flip the part when selecting planes so by default would rotate around the X axis instead of Y axis.

[crazy^millman]

 

Speaking of "New" Bottom and Back planes I would be nice to be able to tell MC which way to flip the part when selecting planes so by default would rotate around the X axis instead of Y axis.

 

What I have done for years is just take the top plane of the new plane that represents this and use relative. In 2017 you will also get the workoffset carried over and done.

[Gary]

There should be a check box use multiple offsets. Check it to turn on the option, by default its off.  Alot easier than adding 0,1 ect. to each plane.

[Eric Rawls]

I don't have "use_frst_wcs" in my post.

 

Its MPFAN.pst

 

Any ideas what to change in this one?

 

 

There should be a check box use multiple offsets. Check it to turn on the option, by default its off.  Alot easier than adding 0,1 ect. to each plane.

 

I just added a switch to my post to handle this. By default multiple offsets are not allowed. You can flip a switch on your first toolpath to allow multiple offsets.

 

Here's what I did:

 

In the User-defined Variable section:

# --------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Common User-defined Variable Initializations (not switches!)
# --------------------------------------------------------------------------
multi_wcs : 0 #Allow multiple work offsets, 0=no, 1=yes
sav_workofs  : 0     #Saved work offset

In the psof$ postblock:

psof$            #Start of file for non-zero tool number
      multi_wcs = mi10$
      sav_workofs = workofs$
      if sav_workofs < 0, sav_workofs = 0

In the pwcs postblock:

pwcs            #G54+ coordinate setting at toolchange
      if multi_wcs = 0, workofs$ = sav_workofs

In the [misc integers] section:

[misc integers]
10. "Allow multi WCS [1=On] Must be 1st op."

That's it. If Mastercam is open on your machine, then restart Mastecam for the changes to be visible on your Misc Values page.

 

Now in the first operation in your Toolpath group, under Misc Values, you can choose to allow multiple work offsets by unchecking "Automatically set to post values when posting" and entering 1 into the appropriate box.

Just bear in mind when programming that the switch has to be made in your first toolpath. Any change made to the switch after the first toolpath would be ignored by this post.

 

 

If  your post is already using Misc Integer [10] you could change it to use Misc Integer [1], for example,

by changing the following lines:

 

    multi_wcs = mi10$   #Change mi10$ to mi1$

 

    10. "Allow multi WCS [1=On] Must be 1st op."  #Change 10. to 1.

 

 

My post is a modified MPFAN.PST. This works for me, but your mileage may vary. If you take a generic MPFAN.PST and make these edits I believe it should work.

 

 

Edit 2/5/2017:  moved the line "multi_wcs : 0" to the Common User-defined Variable Initializations section. (It was originally in general output settings section, which wasn't the best place for it.)

[Guest]

Yup.

To repeat - this is a train crash waiting to happen.

You can change your post to disable it and enter 54 for G54 output, 55 for G55 output etc.

Do a search on here.

You're dam straight. There are few issues that get me riled up and this is one of them. The fact I cannot define a default work offset I find loathesome and completely moronic. Most who work in the 3-Axis world, it doesn't really matter, but those.of us that work un the 4 and 5 axis realm, this is such a PITA. That's some real bull $#!+ right there that we can't specify a default.

 

Crazy and I worked on a part together... there's like 50 planes. Such a chore.