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A ? about planes, and multiple operations...


JB7280
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I've been making a seperate MC file for each operation of my part., for no other reason than that's the way I learned in Esprit.  I've been told that in MC, all my operations should be in one file. 

I am currently working on a part, 3 operations, but we'll only worry about 2 for now.  The first op is a prep op for a dovetail fixture, and some roughing, held in a Chick 6 sided tombstone.  The second op puts the dovetail on the bottom, and machines the 4 sides.    My question, is how do I keep the planes correct, to output correct B rotations?   From what I understand, the part has to rotate about the Z axis in the top plane to output the proper B rotations.  But with the part in 2 different orientations, the top plane would be at 2 rotations, which isn't possible.  Am I totally missing something?  It seems like I'd just have a total clusterf**k with 2 or 3 fixtures, etc.

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How you deal with this depends on how you are setting up your system.

Sounds like you are running a 4 axis horizontal.

If you are programming on center of rotation then you simply have to construct a WCS A0 for each Op. (I personally always use MC Origin as my COR)

Then you generate your rotations for each Op. from its associative WCS. For each toolpath WCS goes in your WCS column, your rotation goes in Toolplane / Constuction plane columns.

Are you TOP /FRONT or TOP / TOP ? Doesn't really make a difference, just curious. 

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When I work on a HMC I copy my top so it says Top-1 and then I can adjust my origin for that plane. 

Then I copy my Front, Back, Right and Left to Front-1, Back-1, Right-1 and Left-1 and then I can set their origins as well, giving them their own offsets - G54, G55.. etc. 

You can add any plane with offset you need for your setup and the rotary will index to that position but all Planes need to have a Top-1 WCS for the indexing to work.

Ideally rotating on center is best but for us it not economically feasible.

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2 hours ago, nickbe10 said:

How you deal with this depends on how you are setting up your system.

Sounds like you are running a 4 axis horizontal.

If you are programming on center of rotation then you simply have to construct a WCS A0 for each Op. (I personally always use MC Origin as my COR)

Then you generate your rotations for each Op. from its associative WCS. For each toolpath WCS goes in your WCS column, your rotation goes in Toolplane / Constuction plane columns.

Are you TOP /FRONT or TOP / TOP ? Doesn't really make a difference, just curious. 

I usually program with top as the WCS, and B0 being front.  I have no idea if it's the best for my situation.  Just the way I figured out to do it.   And yes, a 4 axis horizontal.  I'll have to post a Z2G when I get further along in this particular part.

 

Also, no, I program each rotation with it's own offset so they can be adjusted independently.  Again, maybe not the best way, I dunno.  Just how I was always taught.  I'm only usually using 2 or 3 rotations, so its not a big deal.  I have a spreadsheet that will do the tooling ball calc for me if I know the pivot of that machine.

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Take a copy (on a new level) of your part model and a gnomon at the WCS for your first operation, rotate and translate them both together until the part is positioned for your next operation, and use the gnomon to define a new plane.  Then make a new copy of your stock model, referencing no operations, and set it to use the new plane.  I do this frequently in X9.

 

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3 minutes ago, Matthew Hajicek™ - Conventus said:

Take a copy (on a new level) of your part model and a gnomon at the WCS for your first operation, rotate and translate them both together until the part is positioned for your next operation, and use the gnomon to define a new plane.  Then make a new copy of your stock model, referencing no operations, and set it to use the new plane.  I do this frequently in X9.

 

So, in multi operation Mastercam file, you'll have multiple finished models of your part?  I've been trying to do everything with the part model in the same location.  

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2 hours ago, Greg_J said:

When I work on a HMC I copy my top so it says Top-1 and then I can adjust my origin for that plane. 

Then I copy my Front, Back, Right and Left to Front-1, Back-1, Right-1 and Left-1 and then I can set their origins as well, giving them their own offsets - G54, G55.. etc. 

You can add any plane with offset you need for your setup and the rotary will index to that position but all Planes need to have a Top-1 WCS for the indexing to work.

Ideally rotating on center is best but for us it not economically feasible.

So I can rotate the top1/2/3 to get my B0 in different places?

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Just now, JB7280 said:

So, in multi operation Mastercam file, you'll have multiple finished models of your part?  I've been trying to do everything with the part model in the same location.  

Yes.  I'll generally have one positioned for stock prep, one for side A, and one for side B.  Level 10 contains the model for op 1, 11-19 have toolpath geometry for op 1, level 20 has the model for op 2, etc.

This way if i need to I can have two or more ops on the 5 axis trunnion, the planes all still work out, and the stock models still work.

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1 minute ago, Matthew Hajicek™ - Conventus said:

Yes.  I'll generally have one positioned for stock prep, one for side A, and one for side B.  Level 10 contains the model for op 1, 11-19 have toolpath geometry for op 1, level 20 has the model for op 2, etc.

This way if i need to I can have two or more ops on the 5 axis trunnion, the planes all still work out, and the stock models still work.

Sounds like I was making things way difficult for myself.  I basically had 1 finished model, and everything based off of that one model. With stock models, etc added in.

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4 minutes ago, JB7280 said:

So I can rotate the top1/2/3 to get my B0 in different places?

That's one way.  You either rotate the planes to the model, or rotate the model to the planes.  Since I'm doing 5 axis I prefer to rotate the model to the planes, then my pre-setup planes for most used orientations are still aligned.

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46 minutes ago, AMCNitro said:

Ok, so i see that you have a stock model for the second setup, that refers to the previous setup.  If I'm simulating only the second setup, shouldn't my stock have the previous operations performed on it?  Also, any reason you didn't use a stock model for the third and 4th setups?  Is it just because they're simpler operations?

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1 hour ago, JB7280 said:

Ok, so i see that you have a stock model for the second setup, that refers to the previous setup.  If I'm simulating only the second setup, shouldn't my stock have the previous operations performed on it?  Also, any reason you didn't use a stock model for the third and 4th setups?  Is it just because they're simpler operations?

You need to select the correct stock setup on the Simulator Options, its the button to the left of the G1.  I didn't create stock for the other opps because its just holes and thread mill, its not necessary, it would have just wasted time.  You are correct, if they were more complicated I would have created another stock.

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4 hours ago, AMCNitro said:

If you have more questions just ask away.

Another nice thing about Planes is that you can set you XYZ 0.0 anywhere on the part without moving the part itself, you just select where you want it and all the coordinates on that operation come off that point.

I think most of my issue has been with not understanding how planes work in relationship to the B axis rotation that the post outputs.  For some reason I hadn't wrapped my head around the fact that top doesn't necessarily have to be "Top".  But just the relationship between the WCS and the t/c plane must be correct.  

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