NC Plot Discussion

[jonbanquer]

There has been a good deal of discussion of NC Plot in regards to lathe and screw machine verification on alt.machines.cnc. Would like to see that discussion addressed and directed to cnczone if possible.

jon

[MetLHead]

Jon,

Have you used NCPlot for lathe backplotting yet? I was wondering how it's been working out for you. I'm working out of town this week, so I haven't had much time to check messages or work on it. But, if you have questions you can post them here and I'll check in when I can.

Thanks,
Scott

[duenow]

Originally Posted by MetLHead Jon, Have you used NCPlot for lathe backplotting yet? I was wondering how it's been working out for you. I'm working out of town this week, so I haven't had much time to check messages or work on it. But, if you have questions you can post them here and I'll check in when I can. Thanks, Scott

Needs to strip the extra characters fanuc controls put in the program. MacGen & Discriminator do this. This is what I got loading an old program
file.

Except for the two square symbols that don't show at the start of each line.
&HE:%

:0151(FISHER)

G20

G65P9150H1.(SET-FOR-50-90-PS1)

(FISHER)

(P/N-1N2543-JOB->O151)

N2(-FEED-STOCK-T0200)

G97

M98P1

T0202

X0.Z1.M09

/X0.Z-0.375F400.

/M21

/G04U0.1(1/2SECDWELL)

/Z.03F400.

/G04U1.


G97

M98P1

T0202

X0.Z1.M09

/X0.Z-0.375F400.

Dave

[MetLHead]

Dave,

I'll add this for the next beta

Scott

[jonbanquer]

Originally Posted by MetLHead Jon, Have you used NCPlot for lathe backplotting yet? I was wondering how it's been working out for you. I'm working out of town this week, so I haven't had much time to check messages or work on it. But, if you have questions you can post them here and I'll check in when I can. Thanks, Scott

Scott,

I don't do CNC lathe at my present job (we don't have one.)and I have only a small amount of CNC lathe experience... period. I'm a CNC mill guy but hopefully that will change in the future. This is why I asked Dobe Dave / Due Now to work with you. I have also asked someone who does Swiss Screw machine programming to help you and hopefully he will. You could not ask for better feedback on what's needed for CNC lathe backplotting then you will get from Dobe Dave / Due Now.

jon

[duenow]

Originally Posted by MetLHead Jon, Have you used NCPlot for lathe backplotting yet? I was wondering how it's been working out for you. I'm working out of town this week, so I haven't had much time to check messages or work on it. But, if you have questions you can post them here and I'll check in when I can. Thanks, Scott

I can't see my graphics in the lathe part, my work is max 1" dia X 2" long.

My mill work 4" x 4" shows up fine. Is there away to set the max screen to say 2" x 2" for my small lathe parts? MacGen you can set the default screen size. Maybe I'm doing something wrong

[MetLHead]

Dave,

Could you post the file or email it to me? And a sample Fanuc file with the extra characters would be great also.

Scott

[duenow]

Originally Posted by MetLHead Dave, Could you post the file or email it to me? And a sample Fanuc file with the extra characters would be great also. Scott

I sent you that file, did you not get it?

[MetLHead]

Dave,

Sorry about not responding sooner. I did get your file, but haven't had much time to look at it. I will be back home tomorrow night. I did notice that you use G65 and M98 subroutines several times in your program. Do you get an error message that says "subprogram not found" when you try to load the file? If you do, that is why you don't see anything on the viewport. The G-Code interpreter stops when it encounters an error, so if there is no axis motion before the error you won't see anything. To properly handle subroutines, you should have the subprogram on your PC and use the menu Setup|Subprograms to assign a file to each subroutine. As an example, open the menu Setup|Subprograms. Click the 'Add' button. Type in the program number of your subroutine - this is the number following the 'P' in the G65 or M98 block. Press enter and you will get a file browse dialog. Select the file that contains the G-Code for your subroutine. After the association has been added, it will backplot properly from your main program. If you have a lot of subroutines, put them all in the same folder and set the default search folder to point to it. The only thing you have to do is name the files with their program number in the format "O" followed by the program number with no leading zeroes. They can have any extension you like. For example, "O1.txt" will match for the block M98P1.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Scott

[I.C.O.N.]

Scott,

I have figured out the subroutines thanks to this post. But I cannot get them to plot out correctly. The file I sent you was not the finished product but it should run through. Let me know if it does not. I tried another program that was not as complicated and it plotted out kinda funny. it was using incremental subroutines and was proven in the machine. Standard yasnac control. Pretty simular to fanuc. I think it is the repetitions "L" call that is messing it up. It did run through though.

Tried another program with no subs and no "L" calls and it ran through with a bunch of R values too small, errors. Smallest Raddiuss is .0516. Mine where .05. Also got some start and end point errors on a couple G13 commands.

Questions:

was wondering if you could see the program as it jumps to the sub or macro.

Is the macro calc a live tool as to what is running in the editor? So you can see the veriables as they are calculated.

Comments:
M99P call would be helpfull. so you can make program jumps.
L call is very importent to us. We us it everyday.

I REALLLY like the way you can pick on an entity and it jumps to that point in the program.

I am out of time now but I am also looking forward to trying out some DXF files and see what it can do.

I think you have a good start on this and hope you have time to continue development. If I can help out in any way let me know. I haven't played with it enough to give much more input.

Thanks and keep up the good work,
Andy

[MetLHead]

Andy,

Currently, you will only see program jumps within the same file. Although, it would be nice if NCPlot would recognize when there are multiple programs in the same file, like the one you sent me. Then you could see the jumps to subprograms. There are several ways to accomplish the display of subprograms, I'm just not sure which one to use, if any. I'll definately keep this on the wish list.

The program is fully executed before you see it on the viewport, so you cannot see variables update as the program is stepped. This was something that could be done in the earlier beta's but has since been changed. It's a feature I really miss, so it will probably make it back in.

Your other suggestions are also good ones, and I'll keep them in mind.

If you're having a problem with a program not plotting correctly, please send it to me. Or at least enough of it to demonstrate your problem. This will help me greatly when trying to find it.

Thanks for the feedback,
Scott

[jonbanquer]

Originally Posted by duenow I can't see my graphics in the lathe part, my work is max 1" dia X 2" long. My mill work 4" x 4" shows up fine. Is there away to set the max screen to say 2" x 2" for my small lathe parts? MacGen you can set the default screen size. Maybe I'm doing something wrong

Scott,

I think it would be an excellent idea if the NC Plot user had more control over screen size.

How about allowing Rotate, Pan and Zoom Window with a context sensitive (right click) menu ? I immensely dislike having to hit an icon to Pan or to create a Zoom Window.

jon