Lathe with Front and Rear tool posts

[slammers]

I have a MaxNC lathe. It does not have a tool turret so I have to mount multiple tools on the X axis simultaneously. I am trying to figure out a way to get Mastercam to create tool paths for both the front and rear tools.

I have my cutting tool in the front and a blade parting tool in the back. The cutting tool starts with positive X coordinates and move toward zero as it should. I want the toolpath for the cutoff to start with -X coordinates and move to zero for the parting operation.

I have tried editing the tools and changing them from a top to bottom turret, reversing the tool, changing the workplane to -D+Z instead of +D+Z but nothing seems to work. When changing the tool to a bottom turret, the tool is drawn in the correct orientation but cuts into the part completely wrong. It cuts as if the profile was on the front of the part instead of the rear (not sure how to describe this).

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to accomplish this task?

Thanks
Shawn

[Steve Arteman]

Shawn,
Is this what you are looking for? check the link below I made a lower left turret toolgroup and was able to get the tool in on the bottom.

http://www.cad2cam.net/bottool/bottool.html

Steve Arteman
www.cad2cam.net

[camtd]

Would there be any training cd or manuals using Mastercam for programming Cnc
screw machines?