If money is not an issue, but accuracy (with speed) is, then I wouldn't look anywhere else than Matsuura. In the old company, we had an R800 vertical and used to waterline ally at 20k rpm & 15000mm/min feedrates. Truly amazing machine. + it cut titanium well also.

Just to clarify, I am using shopturn. This is conversational. Not the ISO side of the control, so all programs are cycles and I just fill in the prompts. Easy peasy!

We bought a 2axis lathe with a siemens control (810T - Baby brother of 840) as it is light years ahead of fanuc for on machine programming. In my opinion there is no comparison between this and the manual guide. I have never worked a mazak, but I'm assured the siemens is very similar to mazatrol? The down side of the 840 is it usually has a hard drive. This will usually last 3 years before needing replacing. We went the 810 route because it doesn't have a hard drive. FWIW, I love fanuc controls. We have 4 machining centres with Oi and 31i but do all the programming off line for these. Just didn't want it to sound like a knock fanuc post. HTH

I thought the 18i was capable of 5 axis simultaneous (with the right options of course)?

Its probably a timer on the keep relay side of things

Thanks for the reply. I just looked through the settings and still can't find it?

Hi All, Can the shade settings default be changed to Outline Shaded Edges? Thanks, Terry

Slightly off tangent but Fanuc related, if you look at parameter 5203#2, this will automatically cancel G08/G05 if called in rigid tapping mode. We have our machines set for this as standard, although we try not to call it... There is also another paramter (7051) which doubles up on this. HTH

John, Can you output it straight into a word template? That way, specific comments to that job could easily be added to it?

Thanks for this. Had a job late last week where hole axis was worth its weight in gold!

I'm afraid that I'm with James as well on this. I don't think that pictures of cutters etc is very beneficial, and it does take up a lot of paper. We use a word template, and have tool descriptions + comments within the program to read. I nearly have the mill2set outputting just as I wanted it, if only I understood this editing game better!

Mike, Canned text isn't active, in either the ops or defaults? I'll go through both posts again specifically looking at the pretract/end of drill cycle coolant settings. Cheers

Thanks again for the replies. It works ok for all other ops (facing/pocket/contour etc), it's just drilling it does this. It's no big deal as the code is 'safe' (and easily edited), but it would be nice if it was *right*. Thanks again, Terry

Thanks for the help. Yes, coolant is on for all ops. OK, Newbeeee post editing questions so please treat me gentle... I have opened up both posts (mine + mpmaster) and looked at the differences (bucket loads). I have copied the following into mine: cool_zmove switch into general output settings (header) cool_zmove line into pncoutput (#movement) cool_zmove line into pcanceldc$ (#cancel canned drill) if coolant$ line into ptlchg0$ (null toolchange) Doing the above has made no difference to the way my post outputs. However, there is a bucket more additional code (such as ptlchg_com, pretract, pretract0 etc) that the mpmaster has over my post. So is this a lot more involved than my naive 1st thoughts??? Cheers

Hi All, When posting operations with the same tool [without toolchanging], our post outputs the below example. N0101 T1 M6 M1 [DRILL 10MM] [DRILLOP1] G54 G0 G40 G49 G80 G90 X-60.108 Y46.124 S1000 M3 G43 Z100. H1 M8 Z25. G81 G98 Z-5. R1. F100. X26.742 Y45.388 G80 Z100. M9 [DRILLOP2] M8 X-45.142 Y19.136 Z25. G81 G98 Z-10. R1. F100. X12.022 Y8.587 G80 Z100. M9 [DRILLOP3] M8 X-56.183 Y-22.571 Z25. G81 G98 Z-3. R1. F100. X.736 Y-42.198 G80 Z100. M9 G28 Z100. M19 G49 Is there a *simple* way of removing the not needed M8/M9's [either side of the comments]? Our post is an orginal V8.1 fanuc mill, but has been updated and heavily modified. I recently downloaded mpmaster from here and noticed it doesn't do this. Any pointers/help much appreciated. Thanks

Does anyone know if there is a manual that covers this (duplicate tools and sorting)? Thanks

James, I think if you're doing mold type work or machining with lots of small moves in your code, then the processor speed is very noticeable. If you're doing prismatic type parts, then not so. Parameter tuning really helped on our leadwell, to the extent that it way outperformed the previous hitachi's where I worked, and these were all 16 controls. They would only accurately contour at F1000. I guess its a case that some MTB's set up their machines, and some don't. For the work that we do (prismatics), our Oi machines are cutting at same speed/feed as our robodrill (31ia5), F7000 both on G05.1 mode. However, the robodrill is about 5mins/hour more productive because it is so damn quick at rapids and toolchange.

Oops, My Bad as they say. I read the original post as an OiM control, in which case the link would have been helpful IF G05.1 (or G08) was installed. I was told that G05.1 is standard on all OiM's, as it's the 'off the shelf' package from Fanuc? But, the G05.1 has 2x parts, lookahead only (standard), and contour control (option as the link says). James, you are quite correct ref MDI and seeing if the control has G8 or G5. If the machine doesn't have either, you could still tune the acc/dec parameters to contour more accurately. We did our leadwell (Fanuc 21M) quite successfully. As standard, it only fed accurately at F1000, any more than that and it cut corners. After we tuned it, it contoured accurately at F2500 (although could obviously rough faster). This was in standard (non G08) mode, as the machine had the option but the parameters were not set. I have a spread sheet of the 1400 (feed) before and after parameters if it would help?

If you want to see what spec of control you actually have, and if you feel you are up to tuning the parameters, this link will help. BUT, don't go playing if you're in any doubt. http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/showt...9.html?t=171099 HTH

For our Fanuc controls, we had to add *peck1$ and place it before the feed in the ptap canned cycle. This outputs a Q0 by default which the fanuc control is ok with. If (for example) you select a 4. in the mcam dialogue box, it then outputs a Q4. for the peck amount. HTH

The UK's at Mazak. Vericut are also there and you get to go round the factory as well.

Bumety bump??? The main thing we want to do is to sort tools in order with no duplicates. The excel/word query will be a later project. Can anyone help...please? Or do I have to wait for X4??? Cheers, Terry

Hi, Thanks for the reply. I briefly looked at the original one but by memory it didn't have lathe, so we stayed away. I haven't looked at the latest though, as we have never gotten around to loading X3. X4 is out soon, and we will be migrating to this. I also believe it has some set sheet improvements. Cheers

Hi All, We normally use a hand generated MS Word template for our set up sheets. I've recently been playing with the Mill Set and have it nearly (as always!) as we want it. But... How do I get it to sort tools in tool number order and stop duplicate tool calls? We want T1 T2 T3 etc. Also, is there any way that it could open a MS Excel template, and output the different fields into specific cells? I assume that it might be easier to do this and get things where we want them, rather than outputting to a Word template? Many thanks in anticipation, Terry

Our Siemens 810D lathe has only one switch. Its a rotary dual, with 50% setting = 50% rapid and 50% feed. We changed the rapid parameter so the switch = 100% = 100% rapid 95% = 50% rapid 90% = 25% rapid 85% = 20% rapid 80% = 10% rapid 75% = 5% rapid 50% and below = 1% This is much more user friendly to use and way nicer when proving out. Also, we can let the machine warm up nicely by running it on 75% for 5 minutes, and gradually increasing the override accordingly. As the machine is box way, it can cut at reasonable (75%) feeds, but only rapid at a slow rate while the oil's circulating/warming. Dig out your parameter manual or contact fadal. I'm sure you can allocate different values just like the siemens.