Poor/Desperate student needs information help about posts

[MrG]

We do have manual mills in our department but they tend to have these interesting swirl marks and various size chunks missing from some of them.

I have only taken the very basics in Machine shop and also CNC which the instructor very rightly so mentioned the value of learning Gcode.. now i realize that. Even though i look at alot of the codes and say what the hey.. I still know that I can look up that code and see what it is trying to do..

I do work on a mill at work and have enough knowledge to basic setups . I also can ask the guys at work when they have time to give me some advice.. but with work everyone is busy and the knowledge is separated between different people so I have to gather a little bit of info from as many people as I can and and put it together...

Our instructor shop instructor is a very nice guy he is only part time but he is a Civil engineer, who instructs us on prototyping..

I dont believe he has had alot of experience with CNC .. he has offered to help.. but I understand his position that he is Part time and has a busy work schedule..

Once I get more info I will share him and a few of the other students.. this way we can spread the love of subtractive machining( we have a 3d printing machine but thats no fun) to the masses....

in regards to Industrial designers we tend to be a crazy bunch it is in our nature I gues...

Thanks

[MrG]

[IMG][/IMG]


This is the message I got it tells me I need to update the post for this version.. how would i go about doing this??

Ok i found out how to edit the post.. Though I ran the update.dll from version 9 to MC X... I really dont know how well it will handle right?? Its is still kind of up in the air. Then I managed to save it as a definiton for the default machine type.. i think... so now i will try and post some toolpaths and i will see what happens...fingerscrossed

[MrG]

Ok Guys I managed to get a toolpath into my glorious system....

Thanks mainly due to all the help provided by you guys...and teh training CD.

I checked it on the the Anilam 3000m controller on my CNC machine and it drew out whtar it was going to do...

I still dont know how to callobrate the soft limits with the limits it is shooting out from mater cam....

This could be for a couple of reasons... maybe when I set up my stock.. I cant realy tell which side of teh image is the side i am setting up the piece to be...

any ideas on which is teh correct xyz zero for my part...

BTW i usually set my bottom left of teh top plane to be my 0,0,0 is this ok??

I cant wait to run a part on Tuesday..

Thaks guys

[Bowman]

When you setup the part in Mastercam you should have defined your stock size boundaries say 4"x2"x2" x,y,z. Most people will use the bottom left corner as x,y=0 and the top of the stock will be z=0, this can also be changed in the software if you want to locate off another feature or want to mirror the part etc.

This is where you get in to the issue if crashing the machine if your not sure what planes you have defined at what heights. Look at the code and read through the first few moves especially the -Z depths its calling for, if you see the code call for a move in the first few moves of Z to a depth of -2 you know something is wrong and you may very well have the part program 0 being the bottom of your stock and not the top. The move should be slow into -Z depending on your cutting tool, mill power/size and material being cut the first moves in -Z should be fractional. Remember once you tell the cutter to go -Z to (x) distance its going whether the stock 0 is right or not. Also make sure you pay attention to tool lengths and zero out new tools if you have any tool changes in the program. The mill needs to know what tools and what lengths to offset from after you setup your stock.

[MrG]

Hey thanks Mr Bowman...

I believe I do the set up at botttom left of teh part face and teh top of the part being zero...

But I am just confused with teh user interface ... I dont know which one in the stock set up is teh bottom left it is in a wierd orientation with no other things to reference it by??




To me it looks as though the origin should be where teh x and y meet... this too me looks liek teh bottom left of teh part..IAM I WRONG??

What happened when I did a tool path was it kept moving to X 6 or so and this was beyond my soft limit and had to stop.....


Also I generated a whole bunch of lines but it was just moving in teh air for a long time until it went to -z numbers....


I am really happy with the progress I am having so far.... It has been a while in weeks but have only really been infront of teh machine for a couple of hours and have managed quite a bit...

I am trying to iron out all the little things so I can more fully understand what I am doing....

will post some more news soon.

Thanks GuYS

[Tim S]

Open up your program and hit the 'F9' key. This will place two lines on your screen that intersect at the origin (x0, y0, z0). That point will be where your program zero is at. Like Bowman said, most people set there zero at a corner location. If the corner of your part is not there, that could be why your program seems off. If it's not there, you can move your geo there and just refresh your toolpaths and repost.

As far as the stock goes, in milling it is used stritly for reference. Mastercam mill does not calculate toolpaths based upon the stock you define. The stock is defined by the center point of the material. Say you're stock is 2" square and your zero point is the bottom left. In your stock definition you would show x 1.0 y 1.0 and then the Z thickness. Click the Show Stock button and you will be able to see what you are doing.

You could always email me your file and I could take a look at it if you want.

tim@tulamachine.com

[Bowman]

There should be multiple ways in the software to describe the origin. I am not a mastercam user but I know FeatureCAM asks you to define these things when setting up a new part file. It asks what the stock size is and where you would like the origin to be located, it also asks how you would like the stock located in relationship to the origin. From the looks of the screenshot you show the origin is indeed 0,0,0. I am not sure what Tim means when saying mastercam uses the center of the material, I know this is an option but not sure if it is just the default in MC, a MC strategy for generating toolpaths or a personal preference of his for locating stock origins.

Seems like you could use the pick arrow in the screenshot window you show to pick each axis origin and I usually use this technique for re-aligning stock in Featurecam to the correct planes and origins when working on imported IGES files to get the drawing placed properly within the defined stock.

Let us know how it goes and if you want post some of the code you ran where the code and had the unexpected excessive move in X, just the first few lines of code should show what happened at that moment so long as they include the first X axis move calls, might be able to tell what was going on in your code to have those air moving lines before going to -Z.

Sorry I am not a MC user to be of more help to you.


Bowman

Bowman

[Tim S]

There are multiple ways of setting up the parts origin, but for a beginner such as Mr. G, it would be the easiest to set it up at MC's zero. When I talk about the center of the material, notice the point in the center of Mr.G's screen shot. That is the center of the material I am referring to. There are other ways to define stock (solids, bounding boxes and so on), but without knowing what his part looks like, it is hard to tell you how to define the stock.

[Bowman]

So many origins so little time Yes without knowing what shape part he is trying to cut it is hard to help him define his stock and where he might want to locate from on it.

Tim are you saying that in MC on a 2"x2"x.5" piece of stock the center is x1,y1 and Z is whereever you zero it to be? Perhaps I was just misunderstanding you and thinking that MC made the center of the stock the 0 origin for X and Y. Or is this center of the stock just a simple relation to the stocks center with regards to the origin always being 0,0? Wow its been a long day!




Bowman

[MrG]

Hey Guys ...

i haven't been at school fpr a few days since I came down with something.. anyway I am still kind of at the same place I left last time.

I can get a very basic code into teh machine.. and I can operate the draw function within the anilam system which goes over the toolpaths i made..

I still haven't figured out the stock settings ..( haven't even had time to read all the above comments( Which by the way I greatly appreciate)

I still don't know how to get the spindle turned on via the anilam system...

i have to use the manual setting instead of the NC setting ???

I did however manage to get a high pitched whistling whining sound from the CNC when ever I hit the servo buttons. ) I hope [I] didnt make a huge mistake.... I didn't do anything I shouldn't of have....


So now it is the Holiday Break I can spend some time at the School shop and get some more progress ...providing that high pitch noise isn't something bad... fingers crossed.


Have a great Holiday and Thanks again for all your help

[John L.]

Originally Posted by MrG Hey Guys ... i haven't been at school fpr a few days since I came down with something.. anyway I am still kind of at the same place I left last time. I can get a very basic code into teh machine.. and I can operate the draw function within the anilam system which goes over the toolpaths i made.. I still haven't figured out the stock settings ..( haven't even had time to read all the above comments( Which by the way I greatly appreciate) I still don't know how to get the spindle turned on via the anilam system... i have to use the manual setting instead of the NC setting ??? I did however manage to get a high pitched whistling whining sound from the CNC when ever I hit the servo buttons. ) I hope [I] didnt make a huge mistake.... I didn't do anything I shouldn't of have.... So now it is the Holiday Break I can spend some time at the School shop and get some more progress ...providing that high pitch noise isn't something bad... fingers crossed. Have a great Holiday and Thanks again for all your help

Well, I'm an amateur but I have been working with MC a bit. To set your part origin you need to load your geometry and then click the WCS button at the bottom right of the window. Then you can select View Manager and go to select origin, click on the arrow and pick your origin on the part geometry. This sets your coordinate system geometry.

THEN you can go into stock setup and select the center of the part as the stock origin(default method, and only way I've used so far). MC does this in what seems a weird way to me, select the center of your stock for X and Y, for Z it may do something weird and you have to play with it. Then of course put in the overall dimensions for your stock. Be sure to check off Display so it shows the stock outline (if you have wireframe chosen under Display). Get your stock positioned like you want then you should be able to add and see toolpaths and you can go to Verify (the block icon on the left) to visualize the machining process.

Is that any help?

Not sure on the noise, but if nothing is even moving and it's making that noise I'd be concerned. First I'd make sure the machine jogs properly (be very careful, it will jog anywhere, even right into the table) then I'd try doing a basic program manually to ensure the machine works properly. Be sure you know what work offset you're using and set that work offset to be zero at the part origin you select in MC. If the machine has a power up, restart, home zero button/function or whatever of that sort then that needs to be done so the machine knows where its absolute coordinates are.

HTH,
John Lewis

(FWIW, I've been using a Haas VF-1 with MC X2)

[orizaba]

Fill the oil tank, I bet the noise is a low oil alarm. It will scream at you when the servos are on if the oil is low.
Matt