Ok, now that I feel like an idiot... I finally managed to get the spindle to rotate with the probe in the spindle (remember, I'm a newb at this). And the probe is most certainly not centered. Considering I can actually see that it's not spinning about the center of the spindle. Now I suppose I'm going to have to figure out how to fix that issue....

Nope, but that was going to be my next step before I got sidetracked on a couple other projects

And that's more or less what I've been trying to do. I've got the center of a 2" ring gauge set using an indicator, and have been trying to calibrate the probe from that. When I measure the ring gauge with the probe, I'm getting a centerpoint difference of 0.0050" in the X, and 0.0026" in the Y, and it tells me the diameter of the ring gauge is 1.98992", when it's actually 2". Seems like an awfully big error to me.

I'm still getting the "part probe readings exceed maximum deviation as defined by the max spread parameter" error, even after adjusting the max spread. I wonder if the probe itself is off center? I know there's some adjustments in the probe head, but I don't want to mess with those if I can help it. I honestly have no idea if this probe was ever calibrated in the first place, certainly not within the last year or two. The Z values have always worked excellent in coordination with the tool setting probe, so I think that value is accurate, but X and Y certainly aren't.

Well, there's only 2 people in the company that know how to use the machine, and the other guy only uses the probe for setting the Z, so there won't be much bumping lol. The probe is never taken out of the machine, it's in the ATC, so it always goes in the same way, so that's not likely the issue. I just can't get the darn thing calibrated, and it's entirely possible it was never calibrated in the X and Y, since it's never been used for anything other than for setting the Z.

It's a Hurco VM-1, I believe with the WinMax control, and an OMP-40 probe.

Hmm, I'm getting an error saying "part probe readings exceed maximum deviation as defined by the max spread parameter". How do I fix that?

alright, I'll give it a shot--if I can figure out how to calibrate it lol. Only way to learn is to do it

I'm playing with the probing system on our mill, trying to learn the ins and outs of it, and I noticed a discrepancy today. Basically, when we put something in the mill we usually indicate about a hole in the center to give us our part center. Pretty basic, and we haven't had any problem with it. But I would assume the probe can do the same thing and be just as accurate, if not more accurate. So I tried it, and noticed that the center of the hole using the probed center is 0.0147" different in the X, and 0.0022" different in the Y. Which would you trust to be more accurate, the indicator or the probe?

wonder how it sounds

Here's the link. There's been quite a bit of discussion about just this topic on the SW forums by the look of things. https://forum.solidworks.com/community/solidworks/user_interface/blog/2010/10/06/global-coordinate-system--which-way-is-up

there's a response on the SolidWorks forums I've read... Here's an old post from Jim Wilkinson on the SolidWorks blog:

is it worth the cost? I pretty much design everything in SW, and considering the number of changes we tend to make to each design, the quick update on toolpaths would be nice. Also, if you program something in MC4SW, can you open that file in the standalone MCam (X5 for example) and modify the toolpaths if necessary?

I'm certainly no expert on either software, but I'll add my 2 cents anyway. I can't draw much of anything 3D in MCam, the perspectives just don't seem to be there. In SolidWorks on the other hand, I can do some pretty decent work a LOT faster than I can in MCam, and just bring the SolidWorks model right into MCam to make the toolpaths. If there's a change (which there has been on a recent project), I've learned just to bring the new model in on a different level and transfer the toolpaths, and that's worked pretty good so far. I haven't messed with the change recognition feature much, but considering I design the stuff we make, I know what's changed anyway. There's also MasterCam for SolidWorks, which I haven't really looked into so I don't know if it's decent or not, but the features of it were supposed to be pretty neat. It was supposed to be that if something changed on the model in SW, then the toolpath was supposed to update automatically since the toolpaths were made right in SolidWorks. No idea how well it really works though, but maybe I'll convince the boss to get it in the next year or two

-11.5

nevermind, looks like we're going to break the edges by hand on the next prototype and see how that works.

I've attached a file that I could use some help with, and hopefully the colors come through. The piece is a section of a bigger part, but this is the only piece of it that I'm having problems with. I need to find a way to break the edge (the red line) of this cutout (which we usually use a swept 2D or 3D to do) on our 3-axis mill. I've tried to model a radius on it in SolidWorks, but it leaves me with an undercut I can't do anything about. It's pretty much got to be milled from the top, because there's a dozen other operations that go from the top, and we'd rather not add an operation and fixture to mill it along the edge. Any ideas? Or any way I can improve my question? Thanks RAD TEST FOR FORUM.MCX

Yeah, the last time we made this product, we had 7 different files for programs, and when something changed, it was a huge pain to go back and reprogram everything. On that same note, if there is a design change, how do you go about bringing that change into MCam if the part is modeled in SolidWorks?

Good to know since I believe we're getting a lathe in the near future I'll have to play with the WCS settings and see what I can learn.

Ok, so I have no clue about WCS. How are they used? Makes me wish I had a little more training on MCam in school

Alright, I'm curious as to what is considered the "proper" way of programming a 3-axis part that might have multiple operations in the same plane. For example, I've got a part that I'll be working on shortly that is made out of a 12"x12"x0.5" aluminum plate. At the moment I have 5 different files set up, one file for each operation, because that's how the last one was programmed. What I'd like to learn, is how to do it the "proper" way. There's machining work to be done on 3 sides of the plate, both large sides, and one end. First I've got to drill some mounting holes, which we put in the vise for that, so that'd have to be a totally separate operation in itself. Second we mount it to a plate using those holes and face it off and do some contours and slight surfacing work. Third we flip it up on end by mounting it to an angle plate and do a contour and drill a few holes. Fourth we put it face down and do some more contour and surfacing work on the back. And finally, we put a fixture around the part to hold it down while we cut the rest out and split it in two. So I guess I'm wondering if the proper way is to make 5 files and post 5 programs, or put them all into one MCam file and post multiple programs, or how it should work. I know the way I'm currently doing it works, but I'm curious if there's a better way. Unfortunately, I can't post the file, so I hope I've described this enough.

Can't open SW2011 files on X4 MU3 here either, and I've got X5 installed as well

you're right! I hadn't noticed that. I'll have to do a little more testing with MCam. Although, the program I ran from MCam yesterday afternoon says it only picks up the knife twice, where I expect it to, but it definitely picked it up in a couple more places than the code shows. I think it has something to do with the way the controller looks at the code. If a corner is too sharp it has to pick up and turn the knife. I imagine it's run that way in case you're cutting a hard material so the knife doesn't get stressed and break when turning a sharp corner

It looks like it runs just fine with MCam. I programmed it using an engraving tool with no offset, and it followed the contour just like it was supposed to, so the controller itself tells the knife how and when to turn. Still picks up at each endpoint, but with a little tweaking I can hopefully fix that.

I'll have to see if I can find something out from them. I didn't think there was anything special about the code to make the knife work properly. Must have something to do with the way the controller reads the code that it looks far enough ahead to know how to turn the knife.