I am having trouble trying to program an "S" pattern along a 4 inch piece of bar stock.

The mill I am using is a 3 axis with an add-on 4th "A" axis that rotates along the X axis.

What I am trying to do is feed the endmill along X while turning the A axis forward and backwards to create an S pattern in the round bar. Is this possible?? It seems that the feeds would have to match perfectly to create the desired distance between the waves(high and low points) of the S pattern. To make it more difficult, the S pattern is not symmetrical.

Any help or ideas??

Thank you.
Randle

You need to have a true fourth axis, not just an indexer. (some indexers you can get it to work on, but not all)

Mastercam will do it. But you'll need level 3 (i believe) and a proper 4 axis post.

'Rekd

Originally posted by Rekd
You need to have a true fourth axis, not just an indexer. (some indexers you can get it to work on, but not all)

Mastercam will do it. But you'll need level 3 (i believe) and a proper 4 axis post.

'Rekd

Uh huh-- What 'rekd said

PEACE:D

I think this can be done is a level 2 I would have try.
4th axis sub can be done with a level1.

badRandle,What you are asking for is one of the samples in the Inhouse soultions MC training book.
this would be the V9 4th & 5axis book. you can get this from your dealer.

After thought I was wrong you can do what you want on Level 1.
By either drawing in 3D space a telling it to unroll or drawing it in 2d the telling it to roll it , on the first paramater page as you do a contour with axis sub in the "Y".

in about two weeks I will starting to cover all of the diffrent ways to do 4th in my Advance class.

This were I start.

If your forth axis is not controlled by the CNC but rather by programming it via its own control then there is still a way to do it. It has been a long time but I once worked a formula using a spreadsheet that converted the Y movements to changing feed rates as the X moved in conjunction with a constant RPM rotation of the rotary axis.

If this is what you are trying to achieve then I will try to dig up that file to refresh my memory. Just let me know.

Kookaburra, are we talking about inverse time?

CAD CAM

I think its called inverted time because I just turned my office upside down during the last hour trying to dig up that material I once had.

If anyone wants to put their minds to it first you created your desired shape in 2-d and broke the geometry up into a desirable facet acuracy then create your g-code toolpath. Then import your toolpath into a spread sheet and run the fill down formula. The formula was based on the workpiece circumference/ a constant RPM of the rotary/ The X travel/ The Y travel and the outcome was X movements with a foreverchanging feedrate in mm/min.

Give me a couple of days and I'll find it!

Thanks for the help.

Marc Lindsey over at the eMasterCam Forum explained the use of axis substitution and this worked perfect. It replaced the Y moves with A moves. I wasn't sure if this was going to work, so I tried it out on some scrap and it worked great. The only thing I had to change in the post was to switch the 4 Axis button on.

The more I learn about MC, the better it gets.

Later....:cool:

:rolleyes:

xx

;) dats funny