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How to locate your part in Machine Simulation


Grievous
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Locating your part in Machine Simulation when you use Transform to WCS, give undesirable results when your WCS operation plane is not Mastercam default Top, and/or your origin of your top WCS plane for that operation, is not in Mastercam default Top (0,0,0)

Here are the steps I use to get my part on the position I want:

1. I measure the distance from Mastercam default Top origin (0,0,0) to my current top WCS plane orientation origin for that specific operation. I'm doing that in Mastercam WCS Top orientation. I record the values with the signs switched. So (+) becomes (-), and vice-versa. I call them 1st set of values. Also I draw a point in Mastercam default Top origin (0,0,0) and keep it on the same level with part model (I always have just my part model on a layer)

2. I switch to my current top WCS plane orientation for the operation I want to simulate.

3. I measure the distance between my current origin WCS Top to the point where Mastercam default Top origin (0,0,0) is (I have a point drawed there...remember?). I call them 2nd set of values.

4. I sum 1st and 2nd set of values.

Now... at this point, if you put those resulting values from step4 in "Translation in XYZ" field, your part will be positioned with your current origin Top, in your machine zero position.

From here you are able to add your shifts (to the results) to get your part in the desired position in machine.

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This works well.  I took the time to try it out and see if I could simplify it a little bit.   Not fully tested, but works with the part I am working on right now.  

Here is what I did to break it down, and reduce the amount of steps.

In the plane manager right click on your WCS > Report > Selected.   This will generate a report that looks like below.

Name                : Vise Op WCS
Comment             :
Coordinate display  : Mill
Color               : 1
Associative         : No
Reserved            : No
Locked              : No
ID                  : 52
View #              : 21
Work Offset         : 1
Origin (world)      : X331. Y-56.77945858 Z25.
Origin (view)       : X25. Y-331. Z56.77945858
Matrix              : X-0. Y-0. Z1.
                    : X-1. Y-0. Z-0.
                    : X0. Y-1. Z0.

Open the attached spread sheet.  There isn't any code in there, its just a simple calculation.

Enter Origin (world) as you see it into Input 1 

Enter Origin (view) as you see it into Input 2

Enter your machine work shift as you indicated it in the machine into Input 3

The result is what you put into the XYZ translation field in the MachSim setup.  Make sure Transform into WCS is checked as well.

Happy Simulating.

Sim Transform.xlsx

Edited by huskermcdoogle
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  • 2 years later...

Does this method allow for rotation? Does Machine Simulation have a way to tell it what plane to reference or a way to manually rotate?

In the attached SAMPLE MC file and the picture you can see that Machine Simulation is oriented to the MC top plane and ignores my WCS. I want the large cylinder (subplate) in the picture to lay flat on the table.

I understand that a solution is to move all of my geometry and planes so that my large cylinder is oriented to the top plane. This isn't practical in my actual file because I keep bumping the angles of the pyramid to adjust for clearance. There must be a solution to this!

Keep in mind this is a sample file using the stock Mastercam machine config and machine simulation. In reality this is a very complex job.

SAMPLE.mcam

SAMPLE.jpg

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34 minutes ago, Eric Allen said:

Does this method allow for rotation? Does Machine Simulation have a way to tell it what plane to reference or a way to manually rotate?

In the attached SAMPLE MC file and the picture you can see that Machine Simulation is oriented to the MC top plane and ignores my WCS. I want the large cylinder (subplate) in the picture to lay flat on the table.

I understand that a solution is to move all of my geometry and planes so that my large cylinder is oriented to the top plane. This isn't practical in my actual file because I keep bumping the angles of the pyramid to adjust for clearance. There must be a solution to this!

Keep in mind this is a sample file using the stock Mastercam machine config and machine simulation. In reality this is a very complex job.

SAMPLE.mcam

SAMPLE.jpg

Simple fix is to copy the TOP WCS and then move it .0001 in Z. Then check use WCS in Machinesim when using the interface.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 9/22/2017 at 8:38 AM, huskermcdoogle said:

This works well.  I took the time to try it out and see if I could simplify it a little bit.   Not fully tested, but works with the part I am working on right now.  

Here is what I did to break it down, and reduce the amount of steps.

In the plane manager right click on your WCS > Report > Selected.   This will generate a report that looks like below.


Name                : Vise Op WCS
Comment             :
Coordinate display  : Mill
Color               : 1
Associative         : No
Reserved            : No
Locked              : No
ID                  : 52
View #              : 21
Work Offset         : 1
Origin (world)      : X331. Y-56.77945858 Z25.
Origin (view)       : X25. Y-331. Z56.77945858
Matrix              : X-0. Y-0. Z1.
                    : X-1. Y-0. Z-0.
                    : X0. Y-1. Z0.

Open the attached spread sheet.  There isn't any code in there, its just a simple calculation.

Enter Origin (world) as you see it into Input 1 

Enter Origin (view) as you see it into Input 2

Enter your machine work shift as you indicated it in the machine into Input 3

The result is what you put into the XYZ translation field in the MachSim setup.  Make sure Transform into WCS is checked as well.

Happy Simulating.

Sim Transform.xlsx

Thanks again huskermcdoogle for your Excel file. I took it a step further and made it so you can just copy both lines from the report and paste it into the attached Excel sheet. Excel then picks out the proper numbers and fills the cell. I'm no Excel expert, but after enough Googling I got it to work for me.

Machine Simulation Translation.xlsx

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I'm programming the part with the blue face which is at 36 degrees to the C platter. I import my Parasolid to Mastercam so that the top plane is on the blue face. I do this since I play with the angle a lot to make all of my parts fit. If I made my Parasolid origin the bottom center of the subplate it would create a lot of other problems for me. I make my WCS for all operations the bottom center of the subplate. Due to the angle I must turn on "transform into WCS". With automatic position turned on it's off by a lot.

Am I doing something wrong? To me, I should be able to pick a plane in machine simulation (like my WCS) that aligns with the origin in my machine simulation models. FWIW, I create all of my own machine simulation files.

Thanks for any help.

image.thumb.png.9a26907a02b0ef6352fed95f4598c682.png

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