Problems with Drill&Tap on a Grid

[Bruce Griffing]

First, let me ask if I have the most recent version of 10 - mine is 10.0.1006. My problem is that when I do a sequence of 4 Drill&Tap grid operations, CAM becomes confused and holes end up in the wrong locations and sometimes the wrong size. This is not a post problem - the error is there when CAM simulates the run. With the Mach3 post, it generates code that is consistent with the incorrect CAM simulation. I have a file that demonstrates this problem, but I am not sure how to share it on this forum.

[Bruce Griffing]

Here are three links to the simulation output from the my file. It has 4 form driven drill and tap operations on a grid. The first two use a larger mill and the second two a smaller end mill. Each pair of D&T operations should produce a honeycomb grid of blind holes. The smaller holes should begin to the left of zero and the larger ones to the right. This is a simple design of a holder for collets. Without changing any of the information in the D&T forms, but simply opening some up and subsequently closing them - followed by running the simulation - I get at least three different results. None of these results is the expected result. These are shown below. Clearly something is amiss. If I only do 2 D&T operations, I can get the expected result and everything works in the simulation and the subsequent post. But if I do 4 D&T operations, neither the simulation nor the post are correct.

[andre-dolphin]

That is a very strange problem, I haven't seen anything like this before.

Can you zip the .cnc file and attach it to a reply to this thread.

Either myself or a collegue will have a look to find out what the problem is.

ATB
Andre

[Bruce Griffing]

This is my first attempt to attach the file - I hope it worked. If not, I will try again.

[Bruce Griffing]

I will add one more data point. I use a dongle on two different machines. One is a 32bit WXP machine and the other is a 64bit W7 machine. They both exhibit the same behavior on this file.

[Bruce Griffing]

Andre-
Have you been able to reproduce the problem?
Bruce

[Bruce Griffing]

Andre-
Anyone home?

[andre-dolphin]

Hello Bruce,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

I have downloaded the file and I can re-create the problem, very strange.

I will try to find out what is happening, I will have to ask one of our programmers to have a look at this.

I will let you know how I get on.

ATB
Andre

[andre-dolphin]

Hello Bruce,

Did you use cut and paste to create the third and forth drilling ops ?

This is the only thing we can think of that would cause this problem.

When you use the macro command from the right hand toolbar, PartMaster is actually creating a full set of individual operations but only showing the macro in the program ops window.

If you highlight an operation and right click, you will find an option "Expand", if you use this to expand the drilling ops you will see that they have a Pattern name stored, but if you look at the third and forth drilling ops have the same name - Pat001 - this also the same as the second drilling op, hence the question about using cut and paste.

PartMaster can only have one physical set of numbers for each pattern and this is leading to the problem.

The solution is not to use cut and paste to create macro operations or expand them and then check that they have the correct numbers.

Also, another thing to bear in mind is that when you use the macros you don't need to have a separate Select tool command.

ATB
Andre

[Bruce Griffing]

I did use cut and paste, but I had no idea there were restrictions on using it. Is cut and paste generally unsafe in Partmaster?

[andre-dolphin]

Cut and Paste has proved to be very safe over the 11 year development cycle, looking back through our tech support history there was a reported bug in 2003 where it got the name of a contour wrong when pasted.

This particular problem is only apparent when using the macro Drill option from the Visual Machining menu.

If you "expand" the operation the problem disappears.

We have fixed this for the next version.

ATB
Andre