G12/G13 hole milling

[JFettig]

I was glad to see that mach2 does hole milling, but very dissapointed to see what it ended up doing. Instead of an arc into the circle and arc out of the circle it goes strait in and gouges the side, I mite as well just plunge right into at the side.

Hole milling should look like the circle on the left, by doing it like this you dont slam into the side and make a big gouge. what mach2 does is like the circle on the right, starts in center and goes strait out.

Jon

[ger21]

Jon, if you use my AutoCAD macro and use G41 or G42 for your circles, it will add the lead in move similar to what you're showing above. Not a full circle, though, just a 90° arc. It doesn't use an exit move, though. Try it out and see if it works.

[JFettig]

Ill give that a try. The way it works on all the big machines that I have run(Haas VF3, milltronics etc.) they do it like the picture on the left, start in the middle and go around either to the right or left and it makes a very nice circle. Even if it didnt go to the center but off to the right a bit or the left it wouldnt be so bad.

Jon

[ger21]

Does it do that for each pass?

[ger21]

Load this into Mach2 and look at the toolpath. 2 inch hole with a .25inch tool.

[Torsten]

I noticed recently that some of the controllers offered this kind
of nonstandard fixed cycle.
In my opinion kind of redundant, you are much better of writing
your own macro for any kind of special purpose.
This way you get exacly what you want and don't have to contend
with sombody elses limited scope of suitability.
Good Luck

[JFettig]

Here is what I am looking for, take a look at this code, it will make a very nice circle. I like these for finishing passes but not necessarily roughing passes.

This is using G3 instead of G13,

Jon

[ger21]

What are you using to create your code?

[JFettig]

My fingers I actually used your program to try to make it work by selecting the order, but I cant select the direction very well, it goes up and down at the ends of the lines and stuff.

Jon

[ger21]

Try this. Draw an arc for the lead in move. Draw another arc for the first half of the circle. Use pedit to convert to polylines and join them together. If you need to change the direction, join a straight segment going in the correct direction, then delete it. Now mirror it, and join the two halves. Then try my program. This should do what you want. Right now, it can't join two objects together. It probably never will, actually.

[JFettig]

I dont understand about the direction and how it works with your program. I have not used it much, most of my programming I have been doing by hand.

Ill mess with it if I have time tonight.
Jon

[ger21]

You have to draw your polylines in the correct direction. Or use the reverse polyline .lisp's I have linked to in my thread. You can check a polylines direction by going to the properties panel and clicking on the vertex line. There will be two arrows (after you click the line) that let you cycle throught the lines vertices. vertex 1 is the start of the line (and the toolpath).