Need Help!- 4 axis coding

[CS900]

well i've walked myself into a corner that it looks like i need a bit of help getting out of. I'm trying to make an oring groove that wraps around the exterior of a cylinder. My attempts to hand code this have been less than successful so far, and i'm getting a bit pressed for time. So can anyone point me in the right direction here? And for reference this is what i'm trying to produce...

[Geof]

What type of machine are you running? Haas has a command G107 called Cylindrical Mapping, probably other machines have the same. This maps Y axis moves onto the periphery of a part mounted on the A axis. The Y axis is used to position the A axis exactly on the spindle centerline and then the G107 converts Y motion into the appropriate rotation of the A axis based on the diameter of the part. The motion is programmed as if it where a Y axis move.

[CS900]

i'm actually running a home built mill, running mach3 for a controller. Just took a look, and it doesn't appear that mach3 has any sort of feature like that.

[holbieone]

trig it out

trig out the circle in the 2d plane so you have a point to point program with X and Y

then use the distance from the center of rotation to the center of the ball end mill and half the distance between Y's to calculate the degrees time 2 for A

then replace the A moves with the Y moves , so you end up with a program with X and A to form the o-ring grove

make sure you changes the signs for the proper A axis reversals

[holbieone]

if you put X zero and A zero at the center of your o-ring circle all you need is to calculate for one quadrant of the circle and the just change the signs for the others

[ger21]

Not sure if this supports G2/G3, but you can code it flat and then wrap it around your part.
CNCWrapper - Home Page
Download the demo and see if it'll work.

[CS900]

Originally Posted by holbieone if you put X zero and A zero at the center of your o-ring circle all you need is to calculate for one quadrant of the circle and the just change the signs for the others

yeah, i tried this method as well, but the result was very "choppy". I suppose I just need to use more points to smooth it out, but i was hoping not to have to sit down and code for 5 hours, lol. I suppose I could make an excel spreadsheet to do all the boring work.

Originally Posted by ger21 Not sure if this supports G2/G3, but you can code it flat and then wrap it around your part. CNCWrapper - Home Page Download the demo and see if it'll work.

good find! i'm going to give that a try right now.

[CS900]

so...results thus far. tried out that cncwrapping program and it does NOT accept g02 and g03 commands. it's purely an x and y translator. So, I ended up writing an excel file to point several x and y coordinates for the circle that i needed. proceeded to take that code and ran it through the cncwrapping program and this is the result:



it'll work for what I need it for, but it doesn't look like i quite got as much a rotation as it should have. Any ways, thanks for the help guys!

[Kiwi]

Here is a VB program that gives some code.
Can modify if not what you need.