One of my first programs I made for the 5axis was programmed all in absolute. We ended up roughing the part out in another machine this last go around to save 5axis time. Found out that the tool pulled out .02 on the other machine. Parts are still usable, except I need to lower the z0 offset down on the 5 axis to clean up. Well it has 170 opperations all in absolute! Uggg… Now I suppose I have to go in on every opp. and adjust the z heights? I sure can’t wait till my new machine comes with dynamic fixture comp. Lame! I think I have learned my lesson!

Does the image get distorted with the wide screens? I'm running a square screen now and wanted to get the wide screens if it didn’t distort the image(turn circle into elipse).

So what size of monitors is everyone running? I ‘m going to do a duel setup and wasn’t sure if the square, or wide screen was better for any reason. Just wanted some input. Thx, Shawn

quote: 1:24 for under 1100$! Thats not bad at all!!!

Joe, thanks for the input. This will be a new machine with all new tooling. It will be HSK so no other machine in the shop will be able to use my tools(Cat 40). I also will be the only one programming it. So on that note I wanted to do everything perfect from the begining, if that was possible. Thx,S.B.

quote: Do you already know what parts you're going to put in the cell, and how often those jobs are going to repeat? We only have a few, but mostly they are all alum. I know what the bulk of the tools will be, just wasnt sure if it was benificial to organize them. quote: Shouldnt' Makino be helping you with this stuff? Lotta help they are. Yes they should, and yes they are! I just wanted to make sure you were up on everything since Makino knows what they are doing. Ok that was a little harsh! Thanks for all the input, I just wanted second opinions.

What do you guys think would be the best strategy for setting up a 323 tool matrix? I am in the process of starting to build a tool library for our new machine and wanted some incite. Some questions I have are like, should I start with tool pod one, or start with 323(front to back, or back to front)? Or how should I number my tools? Do you make them in groups so there numbers match a specific tool type? I think we are allowed 1000 tool call outs. The biggest tool carousel we have is only 40 tools, so I am a little new to having so many tools @ my disposal!

That sucks Rizzo! I hope that wasnt 7075! That stuff is still pretty spendy. It does look like MIC-6 which is still spendy to loose.

Well I had a webinar with ICAM this Friday. I really liked what I saw! I learned how the LINTOL enhancement can have a huge effect on tooolpath’s, with 5axis machines. I’m just happy that it has it, since I had no idea what it was before this thread! Lol They also have collision detection that detects machine components, part, and fixturing! It also has a function to improve and change toolpaths, if collisions do happen. Pretty powerful stuff! The layout reminds me of CAMplete! I saw a demo @ Selway and IMTS last year on CAMplete. I would think they are fairly comparable software. ICAM has a pretty cool integration with Mcam also. It has a page in Mcam that pretty much pulls all the info like levels, and tool data straight from within Mcam.

quote: I don't like that at all. (No offense). It ok!lol I understand why you dont like it. I use 2 different machine def. One 3axis machine, and one 4axis machine. quote: I am working now and I am having a hard time grasping why t/c planes would be used in place of WCS.....I guess I probably don't fully understand the MC logic. When you start doing rotation work, you need to use T/C planes to force rotation from that one WCS you set on that ONE part. quote: With that said, are you saying we will need a different approach for those applications? Yes and no! We have a tombstone that we use on our Haas. Lets say you have a part on each of the four sides. If you only need to machine the top of each part then by all means set 4 different WCS loacations on each face of the tombstone. But if you need to do side work on these parts, the WCS should be set to the top of the part which establishes G54, then use your T/C planes to force the indexer to rotate to the side of that one part. You will need to move the part in the graphics view in location on the tomstone, and then program everything from center of rotation. Its alot easier for set up time because you only need to set the g54 for each part. If you need to do multiple side of the part, all the gcode output comes from that one WCS point. This makes the setup faster in that respect because you dont need to set a bunch of work offsets.

Dave, I wrote this from home so I hope I didn’t say something you can’t actually do! Lol I, not to long ago started doing it this way and haven’t had problems yet. Also when I use to move the WCS around, I always had problems with the verifier not working correctly. I was probably just doing something wrong. I did however forget to mention that I have 2 different posts for the output of the T/C plane. One post forces rotation, and the other forces G54, G55, G56 and so on. I hope others chime in and say if this is a good approach or not, but it seems to be working well for me. I myself have the hardest time reading something an understanding it! I need someone to walk me thru things physically before I can grasp the concept. Its just how my brain works. So I was bored last night and decided to try and explane it in an easier way, or not .

I, in know way mean to hijack this thread, but I feel I need to chime in here. WCS is always a complicated topic to explain, and since everyone is talking about it I would like to share my thoughts to everyone to see what they think. First of I’m am going to write this like I know what I’m talking about, but please by all means correct me if I am wrong, because I have changed my way of thinking over the years of using WSC and I hope I’m on the correct path. Ok first let’s start with the WCS movement. I feel you should determine what the top orientation of you part is going to be, and locate your zero point by 2 lines mentioned in above posts. What wasn’t mentioned was you should draw your X+ line and your Y+ line and pick the X then the Y line when creating the new named WSC. That should most of the time make your orientation of the part (model geo) perfect without toggling thru the other options of part orientation. So now I have a new named WSC, and I name it like so (WSC OPP-1). Now at this point I NEVER move the WSC again for that part. Now if you want, you can move the WSC around the part to work on, if that is what you like to do (what I use to do). But there are some disadvantages/ advantages to this. One of the advantages is that when you hit Top with your right mouse dropdown, it will flip to that WCS view, because ultimately every new WCS view you create around the part will be the top view, and have another 6 views associated to it. Mentioned above works okay when you’re only running three axis machines! If you ever want to get into running 4axis or 5axis you MUST use T/C planes to work around the part for rotary output (force rotary moves). This is the main reason I have changed my ways. At some point you will be forced to learn how to use T/C planes, if you want to program more than 3axis machines. I have found that you can manage the T/C planes with a few tricks that X4 has. As mentioned above I have my new WSC created with a name called (WSC OPP-1). What I do now is hit the relative button to create the new 6 standard T/C views that I want based on the new WCS I created (don’t create top, uncheck). I rename them like (OPP-1-FRONT) and so on. At this time you can create new T/C plane views that are not standards and name them like (OPP-1-32.5 DEG. HOLE). I label them like that if they are rotation moves. I will assign new work offset numbers to each if not forcing rotary moves, and label them like (OPP-2-FRONT). Now the biggest complaint I had with a non standard T/C plane, was always trying to quickly snap to that view. I since then added a dynamic mouse which helps me navigate around the part, but MOST of all I added at the top of my right click mouse drop down page Gview=Tplane function. So now you can move around with the dynamic mouse then quickly snap back visually to the T plane you were working on. The other helpful thing I have been playing with are the viewsheets. In X4 you can now save view sheets with T/C plane, along with the last graphic view locked in, and other attributes. I name and save my viewsheets to reflect each of my created T/C views in the view manager. Now I can just hit the viewsheets tab at the bottom of the screen and tab thru all my different named viewssheets with my T/C planes locked in place. All those things have helped me get over moving the WCS around, just so I could easily pop to my top view VISUALLY for each T/C plane.This may seem like overkill, but on complex jobs organization is key. This leads me into the next reason for not moving the WCS around. Some guys are the only programmers, and no one else touches there program’s or jobs. This makes it easy to be free and move the WCS around for small jobs, and on big jobs utilize T/C planes how ever they want. There is no problem with that except there is no rime or reason to it. It makes it hard for someone to understand what they are doing, unless they can name everything thoroughly. Our shop has a few programmers @ different levels. To make things more productive we had to create STRUCTURE programming. If someone programs a part, and then for some reason another needs to follow up, it makes it way easier if we all do it the same. Even if some of the programmers only program the 3axis machines, I feel they need to know how to use T/C planes. It’s only going to help them in the long run for when they graduate to a 4axis rotary/5axis programming. It’s best to teach them early so they develop good habits for the future. I have thought of ways to try and explain how to use the WCS in words for people to understand ( I myself was pulling my hair out when I first started using it in V9). It’s hard to grasp at first, but hits you like an epiphany. The rules I use are as follows: For every part (solid model/geo) there will only be one WCS attached to it, which will be the top! You then use T/C planes to work around the part. So if you only have 1 part on your screen there should only be one WCS for that MCAM file. If you have multiple parts (solid model/geo) in a Mcam file, then you assign only one WCS to EACH of the parts. Examples would be Assembly parts all brought in, or different opps modeled in different vices. I would then label them (WCS OPP-2 CENTER VICE) Multiple WCS’s can also be used for working on tombstones in a horizontal. If you have four faces on the horizontal, and have four parts on each face, you then would have four named WCS’s. If you had 8 parts, 2 on each face you would use eight WCS’s. If you have to do work on any of the sides of each individual part, then you would use T/C planes to force rotation. Obviously there are other ways to do this, but it was just one example. For me to understand and keep it straight in my head, I see the WCS like an upper level part in a BOM. The WCS is the (main part) TOP, and all the individual T/C planes of the part are like the labeled Items in the BOM. That might not be a good analogy but I figured I would throw it out there. Lol! Ok so what do you guys think? Am I way off or is this a good practice? Thanks Shawn. P.S. Sorry Dave L. for throwing this in you thread! [ 11-07-2009, 03:00 AM: Message edited by: Shawn'ald ]

you need to pay extra for the converter I think. It will ask you for a code in V9.

quote: We used CAMplete for our Hermle C40u and our C600i and it worked great. I'm now using a Heidenhain post from Inhouse that works even better. Who built the machines for simulation?

quote: Some day we hope to earn your business again. I HATE loosing sales to inferior machines. You guys will! Maybe a few robo drills in the future! We already bought 2 lathes, 1 hori, and 10 Haas machines from Selway. quote: Block Delete is for SETUP ONLY!!! Leaving it on is punishable by death. I will make a note of that! So it looks like I will set it up in the Misc int. I need to learn how to do that anyway! Thanks Again, S.B.

quote: The question is, what other programs do you run? Because solidworks is giving up xp support after 2010. Other software company's are going to start moving over to newer os's. Well @ some point we will be running Solidworks, Mcam and Icam. quote: Choose a CPU with lots of cache (mine has 12MB), and faster seems to be better than more cores at this point unless you're planning on regenerating multiple large toolpaths simultaneously. Of course fast with lots of cores is best. A fast HDD like a Velociraptor 10,000RPM drive or SSD will speed things up a bit, and 8GB RAM is recommended. Don't skimp on the motherboard; the latest chipsets will move the data around faster. Well the main reason for a new computer is not actually to run multiple toolpaths simultaneously. The computers we have now do the benchmark @ 9.5min. These computers struggle doing the high speed toolpathes, and take to long with surface toolpathes. We will be getting Verification software for our new 5axis Makino. As it stands now we can hardly use the Mach Sim because it bogs are computers way down. I don’t really know how to build a computer nor do I have the time to build one. I am thinking a Dell might be a better option for us. The problem is they are really expensive like Murraymolds. Then again for that type of benchmark its really not that bad.

If building a new computer, what is the general consensus on 32 bit compared to 64 bit? Also is anyone running windows 7? I just got the go ahead today to get a new computer, so I want to make sure I do it correctly. Thx, Shawn..

James, So I re-read what you said and all a sudden I understood what you were talking about. lol I didn’t realize you were telling me to edit the post. Icam will be editing my post, I just wasn’t sure how to activate the tool detection thru mastercam. So it sounds like you have your post call up tool detection for every tool so you dont need Mcam to do anything! Or do you use a misc int. to call for only certain tools? You said you add a block delete also. When you go to run @ night do you need to remember to turn of the block delete so it reads the tool detection lines, or is there a trick way of automatically turning off block delete?

quote: You just yell POST BLOCK! really loud and it will come up. . I've got a post with something what your after at home. I'll get back at ya soon.LoL! I will probably end up calling you Chris. quote: You may want to consider hiring Rizzo to teach you post processors. I definitely need some schooling on this post stuff. I for too long have done only what I needed too get by! Thanks for taking the time to help me James.

Ok I got it. But how do you call up a post block, if not using misc int? Sorry for dumb questions, but I dont have camplete to help me!

Ok, so what’s a postblock? lol. Are you just adding it by Manual entry? I have never done this before, so I'm still confused. I usually have always edited my nc file afterwards. I want to get away from this so my nc is near perfect from Mcam. Thanks, S.B.

quote: At the end of the tool is where I add it. Usually I will block skip it that way I don;t have to run the TBD cycle. Hey James, So how in mastercam do I get it to post it out? Is it in the Misc Values tab, using integers ?

What’s the proper process in Mastercam to output tool detection or change duplicate tools, if your post has this function? Thx, Shawn.

quote: In your control definition on the arcs page. Delta start to center, or whatever you prefer.Nevermind it's not in your post output. lol

quote: I think i got it licked with the complete reinstall and new config etc....both p.c.'s are now crash free for 8 hrs straight. +1. I can never get side by side installs to work. If I wipe everything out and start from scratch it seems to work way better.