rotating geometry and surfaces

[flinty]

I am doing some part time work at a company using MC ver 9 and I have hit a snag.
What I would like to know is if you have created some geometry IE: the neck of a guitar and placed surfaces on it and say you have done the back of the neck to start with but the front is also drawn and complete, how do you turn it over IE machine the rear part and then turn the drawing over 180 degrees so you can set it up for tool pathing and machining the front side of the neck without having to redraw the whole thing again???
thanks
cc

[DJPLAST]

Easiest way for me is to go to side view. Then from the menu...
Transform
Rotate
All
Entities
Done
Box opens up....
Check.... Move, 1 step, 180 deg, OK

Part flips over in this view, go back to "top" view and now you are looking at the "bottom" of the part, available to be machined.

[psychomill]

I'll throw this out there, but you may not get it at first if you've never used it. Orient the part to a main view (using top or front is the most common). Now using the WCS menu, you can create all of your workoffsetting for the different views. Then, depending on the machine type (horizontal, vertical or otherwise), you can control the the tool paths using the tool plane and/or construction plane.
This simplifies programming (maybe not at first) and allows you to do a number of operations without having to constantly rotate the part, create duplicate models, a multitude of levels, etc. Plus, as you may know, rotating (or any transform operation) a part with existing toolpaths on them corrupts the toolpath. Now you have to regenerate them, but in order to be correct with your part orientation of that particular operation, you need to "un-transform" the part back to the original state.

Read the WCS tutorial included with V9 (also through the Help Menus) and go over the Tool plane/construction plane usage. Its well worth it. Otherwise,.... do what the guy said above....

[flinty]

I just tried what yo suggested DJPLAST but all it does is rotate the geometry around in a 360 circle with varying degrees that I input.
Maybe I did not explain properly so here goes.
Imagine a shoebox with geometry on the top surface and the bottom surface.
How do I turn the box over to have the bottom surface as the top surface?
thanks
and to psycomill man that will take some reading and thanks as well.
c

[DJPLAST]

Go back and read and follow the steps as stated. You must move to the END VIEW for this to work. Not the TOP VIEW.

[flinty]

Thanks Guy's yes I did go back and try again. I found psycomills idea a lot easier as I still had drama with your method DJ but thats just my lack of experience in this sector of MC not having used surfaces before this job.
Anyway the boss is happy, job done and now for some weekend.
Once again many thanks to you both.
cc

[joecnc1234]

I think dj's method is way easier. goto side view make sure your cplane and gview are set to side plane and rotate the part around origin. then apply tool paths, easy. If you go to screen configure you can set it up so when you change views it changes cplane. I'm kinda thinking this is a bogus post how could you not follow dj's post and follow psychomills???

[joecnc1234]

HuH,
Move geometry to origin.

[DJPLAST]

joecnc, I forgot to tell flinty to make sure that the CP and the Gview were set the same. Can't figure out how come he's having so much trouble. Thanks for the extra help.

[flinty]

DJ trust me this was a real problem,
What I also did was go to http://www.eapprentice.net/lesson_2.html
check out the "free " lessons on WCS it's in X but I worked out how it could be done in v9
thanks again
cc

[Steve Arteman]

Flinty,
Check this outthis might help http://www.cad2cam.net/zany.html

[joecnc1234]

wow steve that was awesome I can't believe you put that much effort into a post cheers to you.
Joe