Stock Transfer/POCO

[BobaFettup]

I'm having some trouble in MC2019 getting all the parameters set for stock transfer, If some could provide some clarity to this it would be appreciated. Also when selecting the POCO my MC tells me I need to edit my post. Is it more straight forward to just write a sub program for the POCO rather than use MC?

Thanks in advance.

[nickbe10]

2 hours ago, BobaFettup said:

selecting the POCO my MC tells me I need to edit my post.

So, there are all sorts of things available in the post for various  Misc. Functions. This is commonly known as the POCO section because the main driver is chuck control for Part Off Cut Off operations. The other functions are just modifications of this.

On an out of the box generic post these are normally all commented out because each machine could require different output to achieve the desired result. Even two identical machines could be set up in  different ways using different parameters, requiring different code .

Mastercam got tired of fielding the phone calls that went:

Your software just crashed my machine during POCO! 

Did you modify the post to suit your machine?

No

So the fix for the problem is to comment it out and force people to modify. And if it isn't correct well that's pretty much down to you.

It was the same years ago when multi axis and multi axis verification were sold separately.

So after all that if the post has not been set up for this you will probably have to either get a third party, your reseller or start learning about post editing. I know Colin does a semi regular MT lathe post class and I am sure this is covered. Its not super difficult so if you are into learning post editing it is a good starter project

[BobaFettup]

Thanks for the reply, our reseller is coming by next week to mess with a few of our posts, so I'll have him look into that.

In the mean time regarding  stock transfer are there any general parameters that need to be followed? I just took over the lathe programming side of things here and after doing some searching I haven't found any solid guidelines to follow to transfer the stock.

[JoshC]

53 minutes ago, BobaFettup said:

Thanks for the reply, our reseller is coming by next week to mess with a few of our posts, so I'll have him look into that.

In the mean time regarding  stock transfer are there any general parameters that need to be followed? I just took over the lathe programming side of things here and after doing some searching I haven't found any solid guidelines to follow to transfer the stock.

Many 3rd Party developers like In-house solutions (https://www.emastercam.com/post-request/) or Postability (https://postability.com/) to name just a few developers do an awesome job of setting the Pickoff pull cutoff feature up to match your machine. from my experience they both do a nice job and postability even has a detailed vid on their website here on how to use their posts with POCO operations if you wanted to check it out so you can get an idea of what to expect https://postability.com/poco

[Colin Gilchrist]

I will try and put together something to show how I figure out a Stock Transfer Op. I have some good tips and tricks for this...

[BobaFettup]

Thank you Colin, I appreciate that. 

[BobaFettup]

Colin, was just curious if you had an opportunity to put anything together in regard to the POCO.

 

Thank you 

[jlw™]

On 4/13/2019 at 3:48 PM, Colin Gilchrist said:

I will try and put together something to show how I figure out a Stock Transfer Op. I have some good tips and tricks for this...

I would like to see what you do.  Just short of knowing the exact travel of the machine I don't know how to do it in Mastercam but once you know the travel you can set it up really easily.  So macro is the only way imo.  Just messed with my first Haas bar feeder yesterday.  I must say, Haas has done this one right.  I don't like not having manual control but you can G105 Q# whatever and it just works.

[BobaFettup]

This is what I inherited, it would just get copied and modified into each program requiring cutoff/transfer/eject. The machine is a DMG NLX 1500/500. I've just gotten into simple macros but nothing starting to approach this yet, but I agree a macro would be the most reasonable path since I do not have the corresponding post for the POCO.

[crazy^millman]

That is not complicated and your reseller should be able to help get this implemented. Is this with Lathe or the MT environment?

[JoshC]

On 6/18/2019 at 10:04 AM, BobaFettup said:

This is what I inherited, it would just get copied and modified into each program requiring cutoff/transfer/eject. The machine is a DMG NLX 1500/500. I've just gotten into simple macros but nothing starting to approach this yet, but I agree a macro would be the most reasonable path since I do not have the corresponding post for the POCO.

i would still recommend a professional post developer like the two i mentioned before. it will be done correctly without all the headaches of doing this on your own and you will then also get their support to go along with the post to ensure that everything is perfect. even for some of the more advanced post processors the price of a post would still come in cheaper than a machine collision if you run into any of those by doing it the hard way so if it was me i would have whatever company i was working for foot the bill for the post and i would have it done right but that is just my opinion. You could certainly drop that chunk of info into any program with lots of methods but for me i wouldnt want to be doing that all the time and would rather be able to simulate using poco and get g-code to match what i see in the software. The post is the most important part of a CAM system and is not the best place to try to cut costs.