Need Help!- Rotary Axis help with Bobcad

[foustchoppers]

Dwood: the rotary sits from the front to rear. I attached a diagram of controls apparently it has an A drive, Ncstudio just wont accept an "A"

Burrman: So if I just change the letters to like a x or y. Say if I move 1 mm in a linear move then turn the rotary and move 1mm will geometry on the cylinder be stretched. I guess what im asking is does the fact the "rotary" moves around a fixed point have an effect on coordinates as opposed to it being "unwrapped"

[BurrMan]

You would stiill program the part for cylindrical stock (4th axis unwrapped) in BobCad.

The convention is that a 4th axis uses an "a" to tell the rotary to move. It sounds like your machine just has an xyz, though you can push a button and make one of the axis a rotary. So, instead of xza code, you need xzy (where y is driving the rotary.

I think the post can be configured to output any letter for the rotary, so you would just put a y there instead of an "a". But I am just guessing at this point. You need to test it.

Attach your post here and I will attempt to generate some code you could do a simple air test with, to verify the theory. ( if you are not understanding what I mean to attempt the test yourself)

This is talking about "unwrapped cylindrical stock"... For a simple indexing, where the ops would require the y axis to perform normally in ops like a pocket, then you may have to set it up to stop at the indexes, where you would then push the button, then after the index, push the button again to get back to normal operation...

[BurrMan]

have you looked at the mach3 forum to see if someone has a config setup for these machine? Then you could bail the ncstudio and run the machine with mach3 (It seems like the limitation may be in the ncstudio control software

[dwood]

could it be possible that the code needs to read Ax

on page 52 of the manual
this is the i/O page for the control
see if it shows the a axis there
if not i would think it is not turned on in NC studio

also play with mdi input and move machine around
take note of what you you input to move A axis
if you cannot move , then bc cannot move it
did it come with a programing manual

found this video

04 NC Studio Parameter Set CNC Milling by www.SaleCNC.com - YouTube

04 NC Studio Parameter Set CNC Milling by www.SaleCNC.com - YouTube

[BurrMan]

Another note here, seems better than my wierd theory, is that the 4th axis is an add-on package to the control software... On this page here:

Software Control System-CNC Integrated Machine Control System/Motion Control Card_Shanghai WeiHong Electronic Technology LLC.

The control software at the top seems to be what you have and the picture looks like the manual you presented, though, if you scroll to the bottom, they have listed a 4th axis control system, with a screenshot of a config page to manage the A axis... The downloads link requires a login. The bbs is in Chinese and I couldnt figure out if there was an english button (I wonder if google will translate the bbs pages?)

You could try to contact them to see if you should download the add-on, or if you need to purchase something further. (Maybe look in what you recieved as an installer to see if there exists another installer for the add-on)

[foustchoppers]

I will check this stuff out today. I did finally recieve something from china that has our exact machine and rotary. It does mention using the A for rotary but has me confused on how that works if ncstudio wont let you use that. Maybe you can get something out of it, I attached it.-thank you

[dwood]

first thing to try is if i understood what you were saying before
about the x axis
is to disable the x axis and try to mdi input the rotary
then post back if it does not do anything
i will try to figure out how to set the parrameters

[foustchoppers]

I read in that manual about editing the parameters and it gave a formula based on the size of stock,so my understanding is you will have to change that value everytime you change the size of stock?