Modifying a Post for Centroid

[Zipdrive]

The post for a Centroid controller is MC's MPCENM4. On the first page it says 'Warning: it is generic and is intended for modification to the machine tool requirements and personal preference'. The guy who installed the controller on my BMC30 says he is not experienced in changing post. So, I looked at the file . What in the world do you change. There is a list of variables (numbered questions for Mastercam) at the end of the file. Are these the ones that are to be changed? Are these already taken care of in the setup sheets when running the program?

And lastly, for some dumb reason, I get an error when trying to post using the MPCENM4 file. It post fine if I use MPFAN for example. I admit that I am lacking a lot of user experience with this software. Thanks for any help.

[Rekd]

Originally Posted by Zipdrive The post for a Centroid controller is MC's MPCENM4. On the first page it says 'Warning: it is generic and is intended for modification to the machine tool requirements and personal preference'. The guy who installed the controller on my BMC30 says he is not experienced in changing post. So, I looked at the file . What in the world do you change.

This is standard with all posts. It's a liability thing. Best bet would be to compare a posted program to one that you know runs on the controller, then we can make changes from there.

There is a list of variables (numbered questions for Mastercam) at the end of the file. Are these the ones that are to be changed? Are these already taken care of in the setup sheets when running the program?

Not really. This is a way of overriding settings in MC and doing some customizing of dialogs etc, (works with the .txt file that goes with the .pst file). Don't worry about these just yet.

And lastly, for some dumb reason, I get an error when trying to post using the MPCENM4 file. It post fine if I use MPFAN for example. I admit that I am lacking a lot of user experience with this software. Thanks for any help.

Need to know what the error is to fix it. Does it continue with posting even if you get the error? It may just be a warning about offsets, toolplanes etc.

Writing posts is an art in and of itself. It's easy to make minor changes, but like any programming language, it can get very difficult very fast.

Word of caution; back up your posts before you start making changes.

[Zipdrive]

Rekd,

Thanks for the help. We have not had a working file from MC on the machine yet. We have just be using the intercon through Centroid. We are 'trading' cad work for some cam with a guy that did some molds for us a couple years ago. So, when I go over ther this afternoon, I will get him to run the post again and copy what the error(s) is. If I remember right, there only appears to be two lines at the bottom of the screen, but there seems to be more than two lines of errors. Maybe they scroll, I don't know right now and will check on it.

[Zipdrive]

O.k. Re-ran the post and some stuff scrolled on the bottom two lines of the screen.

Selector variable opcode =19.0
out of range for string select.

Is there a way we can view all of the info scrolling through this area? It also is still trying to run the post fn. when the error message is displayed. Press escape and then return to get back to normal operation.

Any ideas?

[Rekd]

I ran the same post and got the same error.

Processing file with MPCENM4...
Selector variable opcode = 19.0
 out of range for string select.
Postblock label pwrtt

It still posted the file, and it seems to be ok. I'm not sure where the error is coming from, as I can't find an opcode with a value around 19. (highest is 3 that I saw looking thru the post real quick)

I'll check into it some more. Mean time, the file did post OK. You might try loading the program in the controller and (carefully) running it to see what happens.

[MILLMANM]

I modified my post for centroid (ajax) because the first thing I saw was it was making a z- move at the tool change instead of a z+move. changed it to g28 z0 also made a few other changes
with the help of Matt , thanks again Matt
Brad