Tool life management and monitoring question

[jamessiffel]

On my macturn 250w how can I differentiate two tools on the same turret station(bottom turret) one on either side for group numbers? It only gives you 12 possibilities for group number, yet under group table , there are 96 possibilities! Which leads me to believe I can do it. I am already running both tools without life or monitoring, under a group number you lose the identification of the sub side tool in relation to turret position. Example, t0404(main), t0424(sub) is what I have now. Assigning group numbers you would need 24 to be its own tool not a secondary offset to 04. But then it loses it's spot on the turret, only 12 identified stations! Hope I explained it okay! I understand if you need better clarification, any help I would really appreciate!
P.s. Monitoring won't be a problem as you identify by "parts" 64 spots on each turret or milling spindle. Thanks!!!!

[OkumaWiz]

I'm not sure if I understand the question, but if I do, you can use TG=4 OG=2 in the program and then set the data for OG 1 = 4 and OG 2 =24 in the OG Table.

This should allow T0404 for the main and T0424 for the sub. Same station two offsets with tool life functioning.

Best regards,

[jamessiffel]

Thanks for replying Okumawiz, yes you do seem to understand , and that is exactly what i thought. But it doesn't work, when you call the "t0424" tool it alarms out because 24 doesn't show up in the group table, only in OG=2. It is perplexing ! Please check your machine and see if you can make it work! I would think you can since it offers 96 group numbers for B turret, why else would it do that?

[OkumaWiz]

I'm not sure if you are commanding the tool call correctly.

G140
G0 X20 Z20
TG=4 OG=1 X2 Z.1 (offset group 1 is set to 4 in tool group 4 thus T0404)
G1 ~ (cutting)
G0 X20 Z20
G141
TG=4 OG=2 X2 Z.1 (offset group 2 is set to 24 in tool group 4 thus T0424)
G1 ~ (cutting)
G0 X20 Z20
M2

Is this what you are doing?

You may be misunderstanding what TG & OG represent. And the "12 possibilities" you mention are the 12 turret stations on your b turret. All 12 can be in group 4 if you are trying to rounout castings and want to fill all 12 stations with the same roughing tool that can be used for the same roughing process. Ex: it will use tool 1 until life is reached and then when it sees TLID in the program, it will automatically switch to tool 2. When life expires for 2 it switches again. It will continue to use all tools in the group until they are all used up. Then it will stop with the "spare tool none" alarm. Your only tool command in the program would be TG=4 OG=1.

In the life table stations 1-12 would be set with their TG's all set to 4. OG1 will normally be set to the turret station so under it you should see 1-12 as you go down. Now if you need a second offset for each station, use OG2 and you should see 21-32 as you go down. The "SET TOOL" is the tool it is currently cutting with.

It's a little hard to explain without screen shots, but I hope you follow what I mean.

Best regards,

[jamessiffel]

I do understand, I appreciate you spending the extra time with me on this! I did exactly what your first part says. Keep in mind this is for to4 to cut on main spindle , and t24 to cut an entirely different groove on the sub spindle.interesting that spare tools work on B turret, ive yet to try that. Try what I said, same tool group different offset group for two different tools on different sides of the turret cutting two different tool paths and see If you can get it to work. Thanks Okumawiz, it's nice to find someone else utilizing okuma like we are!

[OkumaWiz]

As shown in my example code, G140 is for main &G141 is for sub. The shown code works for both turrets - where are you having the issue?

Best regards,

[jamessiffel]

Problem is always on the sub side of the turret. I tried a bunch of different things yesterday, I always get the same alarm, telling me that the t0424 or tg=4 og=2 is not correct. Do you have a mill turn? What type of machines do you have? This is driving me nuts , there has to be a way!

[jamessiffel]

Yo wiz, finally found what I was doing wrong, I wasn't manually entering the tool number in the group table in the second column. Or course you can't seperate t0404 and t0424 in the group number , you have to use the offset group. What a freaking headache!

[OkumaWiz]

I thought we were close. I'm glad you got it resolved.

Best regards