Turnkey or Tweak?

[cheesehead]

Long time lurker, first time poster.... We use EdgeCAM 12.5 currently. I've inherited the task of looking at how we use EC in our plant. We've got a few Mazak's (250M,200M w/640TE and 640T), Okuma's (LU15W w/OSP7000L) and Miyano multispindle machines at present. My questions are:

1: How are others using EC for programming? By that, are you able to create/post a program that can go into the machine and make a part without tweaking? It seems like we are routinely having to create/post, tweak at machine, save to network. In some cases the programs are getting saved to a network folder and if someone inadvertantly reposts, all tweaks are lost .

2: Are others reposting everytime a part comes up to run? Most of our jobs are reruns.

Thanks for any help in advance.

[Mike Mattera]

Edgecam can certainly do the job. If these are all multi axis lathes, I would have someone write the posts. In the long run it will be faster and hopefully they will show you the proper way to use the post to get the right output. Bring you check book to this party, because it wont be cheap.

Who's your dealer?
Where are you located?
What training have you had so far?

Mike Mattera

[cheesehead]

The Mazak's are single spindle/one turret except the 250M (2 turrets). Okuma's are single spindle/two turrets plus sub spindle. Miyano's are twin opposed with multiple turrets, y axis on upper turrets, C and B axis. What I'm finding is that the small tweaks like profile entry/exit points, multiple feeds during a profile cut, etc are not able to be programmed via EC. Is this just a result of our particular post(s) not being setup accordingly?

Thanks

[inflateable]

Some things you can do in Edgecam easily, some things take a bit of fiddling.

IMO, you should never have to tweak on the machine, beyond perhaps minor things like altering depth of cut on a turning cycle, or refining feeds and speeds. If you are regularly altering the same things, then it's better to tweak the post processor and get your output right. If your tweaks are because you can't get edgecam to actually make the moves you want, then that's something else and you need some support from your reseller or pathtrace. I've found myself on occasion 'manually' programming using edgecam when it won't do what I want by itself, ending up with dozens of 'feed move' commands all strung together, which is clunky but I know when I hit the post processor button my code will be ready to go.

I save my proved out programs on the machine or network, and run that proved program on the next run. I don't re-post process unless I'm making a major change or I'm running the same job on a different machine.

[dallen]

Some of these things could possibly be post related but sounds more like a programming method. Have you looked at using any PCI's? The operator should not need to tweak anything.