going from drilling to cutting what parameters

[williamsmotower]

how does madcam know the original z height is my question.

I'm going to go from center drill, to drill, to endmill.

the center drill is going to be the first operation, so i'll zero my z with this bit.

does madcam the calculate the other z heights for the next routines?

[Dan B]

Wouldn't that be the job of your controller? I know on our Trak LPM, we pick up one tool to set the height of the rest (assuming that you have already entered the tool lengths in the tool table). That sounds like what you are trying to do. Not all machines work that way. On our Fadals for example, we need to call up the tool offset in the code.

(or did I miss the point completely??)

Dan

[williamsmotower]

Yes, my controller does that, Mach3.

The tool lengths in madcam are just for simulations?

[Dan B]

Until recently I believe that was true. However, in 4.3 there is that new text box for tool length offset. If you put a value in there, I believe that is factored in the post, if you use the "tooloffsetnbr" variable in your post. Without that variable in place, entering a value in the box shouldn't do anything.

I may be wrong as to what else tool length can do for you, but it's not something I have concerned myself with for anything other then a more accurate simulation.

By the way, did you notice that if you define a holder, it's checked in the simulation too? madCAM 5 is going to give you the ability to define more accurate holders which will be nice.

Dan