Little strange this one.

If I drill a hole using normal drilling, the drilling cycle is generated with the necessary G98 G81 etc. This canned cycle is then cancelled by a G80. All seems well.

However.

If a use 3D drilling the post doesn't generate the G80 canned cycle cancel. I had to put this in manually.

When looking through the two generated posts side by side (one normal drilling, one 3d drilling) using the "trace 'all':5" command I can see that the 3D drilling doesn't have the "@end_drill" command.

If I have two ops, one is normal drilling and the 2nd is 3D drilling, and I generate the two together as they use the same tool, the G80 command is generated is I put the normal drilling as the 2nd command, but if it's 1st the G80 is ommitted.

Confused.....

Matt.

Hi Matt,

I am working from memory here so don't take it as certain. I remember changing my post a lot to get the 3D Drill output as I wanted it. In the end I had to frig the @end_drill sequence to fire if the job_type was 3D_drill and @end_of_job was called. It took me ages to get things as i wanted and involved a lot onew global logical variables such as "prev_job_type" and "drill_started" etc. Bear in mind that 3D Drilling is called if you choose rgh out a component using the plunging strategy.

It is very good when you get it working properly.

Tell me, do you use the automatic hole recognition fearture in SolidCAM? I don't have cause to as our parts have holes but all of them are on different MAC positions and it more efficient to use Machining Processes.

Bob

Hi Bob,

I'm still learning this game, so I havent got in too deep as yet. And the parts I'm doing are not that complex as yet.

Basically we bought the VMC as it was getting increasingly difficult to get our smallish quantity of parts made for an acceptable price, or actually get them made at all! Since we've had the machine (3 month or so) I've been studying hard to learn the CAM process, while making sure that the machine is running.

I know that I've still got heaps to learn, such as the AFRM, machining processes, HSM etc, but the machine is running and I'll get there in the end!

At the moment I seem to be able to struggle through and get the job done as I want it, but it's certainly not the most efficient way, that I'm sure of. I need a holiday just to mess around and read all the literature, but I'm learning something new every time I do a job.

As ever though, thanks for your tips. I'll have to look into it more.

Matt.

Hi Bob et al,

Well, spent some time this afternoon making up processes for countersunk tapped holes, as per the tutorial. WOW! Doesn't itmake a difference in how fast you can knock a job up! Very convenient as I've got to makea fixture in a day or so and I'll be using the MP for that....just because I can now :-)

When I looked at it the first time it looked a little scary due to all the expressions/variables and what have you but after running though the well explained tutorial I think I can see the light :-)

Thanks for promting me to do this. A real time saver.

Matt.

The pleasure is mine.

Bob