I'm looking for some help in developing a macro to speed up the tool setup procedure.

On our Haas machines there is a handy renshaw developed macro for setting your tools up off the tool setter. You basically tell it the first tool and last tool and it automatically indexs between the tools and runs the tool measeurement cycle.

I was hoping that some clever Heidenhain guru could help me to write one to do the same thing on our DMG with Heidenhain 540 controller ?

I understand the basics of the Heidenhain language but not enough to write a indexing style macro with adjustable start and end tools.

Any help is much appreciated.

Talking about that preview? I'm in Win7 x64

 

 

I was talking about the thumbnails that should appear on the active reports setup sheets that we are being forced into.

No thumb nails here either.

Man it's surprising how these little details can get an operator so wound up when they are taken away from them !! I guess a picture is a 1000 words though.

Never mind I figured it out , the tool I selected from my tool library had a custom profile and for what ever reason none of the surface tool pathes would regenerate right with it .

Hi

Can someone tell me why and how to fix the surface violation i am getting on this Advanced multi axis tool path. It is a morph between curves tool path with the tool axis set at a fixed angle of 30deg off z. i have experimented with all the little things i can think of but the cutter is always creating an undercut even though I have it programmed to be leaving 0.1mm of stock. have checked the surface normals .

http://s787.photobucket.com/albums/yy157/mrfish_2010/?action=view&current=CutterSurfaceViolation.gif

The Z-carb is ti al coated is it not ? so the hotter it gets the harder the coating gets (to a limit) so the heat shouldn't be too much of an issue , if you can i'd use MQL for cooling and lubrication to reduce the chip friction. Also i would check the run out of the cutter if you are only using ER collets as it could be loading up one cnr at a time causing the failure.

shrinkfit or hydraulic

We had our post adjusted to ask a question for what work offset number to use - it then outputs this number at every offset call.

This is a great insurance feature to make sure that you are using the same offset through out your program, especially important when posting 4 and 5 axis work and you forget to set your tool/construction plane when using custom WCS.

Also gets around this issue of mastercam indexing the offset number when using transform or rotate toolpathes.

By the way we also have a copy of the post without this feature for when we require multiple offset positions for multiple setups.

We use both Iscar and Kennametal versions.

The iscar inserts last longer and cut softer but the Kennametal cutter handles intermitent cutting better due to the flatter insert geometery.

We find that MQL gives the best insert life over coolant or dry in all tool steels and medical stainless.

You may want to divide the part into sections along its length and then rough and finish each section before moving onto the next section working towards the chuck to use the stock diameter to keep the part as ridged as possible. By this i mean that if you were to rough the whole part in one go it is now only as ridged as the centre diameter for subsequent operations.

Buck - are you using different WCS for your rotation, or is it a transform rotate operation - if it is transform rotate make sure you check the maintain source operation button.

I'd have to say, overall Dynamic maintained a pretty good MMR if that corner is the only spot it went up. You will have better control of the actual corners in your chains or fillets smaller than your tool's radius in X6...among other things.

Hey David how about a heads up as to when MU1 will be released ?

Sorry to hijack post

Internal Tool - http://www.internaltool.com/products/product_detail.php?series=76

Oh, you can also use Analyze- Database.

Click the geometry, analyze database, and it will check the ops associated with that geometry. Will show solid associations too.

Kinda paraphrasing as I remember cause I'm at home.

There you go I've learn't something new today, can I knock off and go home now !!

Thanks Zoober

Thanks Steve

Now just have to wait for MU1 and hope X5 will then run trouble free on our system !!

this is a right P in the A bug , I hope it has been fixed for X5 ?

If you use the select feature that Zoober mentioned you can select the geometry from the screen that is used in the tool path. might not be enough with 150 ops but you should have a fair idea of what geo was used to create the toolpath and it would probably narrow it down to a few tool pathes .

Thanks for imput Greg.

I have stripped down one of the default setup sheets to be a basic tool list generater but it still takes a long time to generate the list due to having to read all the ops (flashes picture of each op toolpath on screen). If you generate it form the tool manager it doesn't seem to do this.

Mark

Hi greg

Not what i'm looking for, if I use the method you are talking about the default setup sheets have to read all the ops to attain the tool data which takes forever on complex 3d/5 axis parts with lots of operations.

Maybe it is possible to make one of these read the tool data from the Tool Manager ?

Hi All

Does anyone know if it is possible to change the target "active report" that is used when you right click in the tool manager to create a Tool list.

I would like to be able to use a report that is somewhere in between the basic and detailed one - basic too little info - detailed to much irrelevant info.

Don't want to have to run it from the Operations list as it takes to long on complex 3d/5 axis parts to read all the ops just to attain the tooling data.

Thanks

It always blows me away that so many simple things, like the current coolant issue, get through to releases, don't Beta testers use coolant ?? just an example.

Thanks Gunther, works perfectly now, thanks for great application.

As subject describes mastercam has started locking up on me when I try to use X+ tool list ( the setup sheet icon with the blue T on it) and the only way to get out of it is to CTRL ALT DEL.

The full setup sheet works fine.

Tried a reinstall still no luck, anyone else had this issue ?

Bob

I cannot agree more with your post, was actually about to write my own rant and now don't have to

and

Mr Paris, this is the reason why i didn't ask for help or give enough info to be helped in this instance as we are sick of having to fix Mastercams F-ups in there new releases. Why should we spend the large sums of money that we do just to have to waste our valuable programming time fixing mastercam so we can use it?

At this stage we are going to stick with running X4 MU3 until CNC software do there job properly and fix all the known issues in X5 with MU1 !!! or will that be MU3 right before they release X6 - sounds like a familiar story doesn't it .

thanks guys

itching to try some of the new toolpathes but we have issues with it running on our system

tried reinstalling a couple of times but still won't work properly. hoping MU1 will fix these issues.