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Metric to Inch


bigprody
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So all of my work in Mastercam is in Metric units. Most of the machines I am posting to are Metric machines. There is a few instances where I need to post to a machine that is setup for inches. I do not want to have 2 copies of the same Mastercam file. How would it be best handled posting from a single MC file to both Metric and Imperial?

 

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Actually, it will solve your issue.

We have a way of doing things here where everything is in inches, from TLO to fixtures and everything. 

When we need to run a metric program, we just use the proper G code.  We then add the G code to bring back to inch at the end of the program so that machine comes back to the way operators are used.

When reading your G21, the tool offsets, fixture offsets, system variables for positionning will all become metric.

The only thing that does not get scaled is the macro variables.

 

Hope that helps,

 

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Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately that is our problem we use the macro variables on every program that we run. I need to be able to post inch or metric, if I have to have 2 separate post processors I guess that is what I will have to do. It just means that if there is a post mod made that I will need to do It twice.

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I'm back.  It's been a while, but I am a Mastercam user again, by my choice.  Fanuc control?  If so, you can read the status of system variable #4006 which will tell you whether G20 or G21 is modal.  You can also track when it changes, if you do this, you can divert to a sub program that runs a mathematical conversion of your macro variables to the newly detected unit input.  This way you will only run a conversion when your unit input method changes.

Hope that helps.

 

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On 10/16/2019 at 2:12 PM, bigprody said:

Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately that is our problem we use the macro variables on every program that we run. I need to be able to post inch or metric, if I have to have 2 separate post processors I guess that is what I will have to do. It just means that if there is a post mod made that I will need to do It twice.

I think the post would be the SAFEST and easiest way. Get with a post developer and see if they can do the conversion in the post... I have recently done something similar and just ended up converting the source file.. Major pain trying to convert an existing program , I wouldn't recommend it .

Also , not all machines can just flip a switch and go metric like Fanuc, so good luck...

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Thanks everyone, I figured it would be a post thing. I was not sure if there was a function in mastercam to do that. I can not mess with what goes out to the machine too much, the setup guys here are limited and need to see the code a certain way. I will hit the post forum and see if there is any fairly simple ways to solve my problem.

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