using machineID editor

[Brushtec_DB]

Dear all,

Does anyone here properly understand the machineID editor and corresponding .vmid file, .mac file, gpp and the pre-processor? I've hassled the UK SolidCAM support (well, Kevin anyway!) for documentation on the machineID editor but says they don't have any and I note the software has been on version 1.0 for ever!

The issues are not major by any means but they result in me wasting my time explaining to our machinist how to get around them - which seeing as he was against the introduction of CAM in the first place, just gives him more reasons to complain about it, wasting yet more of my time! A vicious cycle!

The main issue at the moment is that SolidCAM thinks we have both machine and turret coolant where as in reality we only have flood coolant for what I would logically call the machine (I would assume turret coolant would be for through tool cooling). However to generate the M8 block in the G-code to turn on the coolant, we have to choose flood coolant from the turret tab.

Not a big deal you might say, but it gets tedious constantly changing tabs for the coolant option.

I've looked around the machineID editor and watched the SolidCAM professor for the MachineID but still can't work out how to change it to work as we would like (basically remove all options for the turret coolant including the tab as we don't have any).

In the post-processor, the coolant options don't make a distinction between turret and machine.

I've asked UK support about this on a number of occasions but they never bother fixing it along with other minor issues like the machine defined as 5-axis where as in reality its only 3 and the axis are cascaded off one another in the machineID editor rather than being independent.

Thanks and have a nice weekend everyone.
David

[Tstallones]

So I am not the only one with the problem. Tod

[SolidCAM QA]

Hi David,

I will try to answer your questions:

1) Documentation about MachineID is on the way ( we are working on it right now).

2) "about Machine ID Editor" this option will be closed (not to confuse anybody)

3) when people have only one Flood - they call it "machine coolant flood" and expect to see it on machine, not on turret tab... - may be we should bring back Flood coolant on Machine? But we are also thinking about additional "user-defined coolants" - to let user to define any coolant he wants. But it will be only in one of next versions.

4) that we don't close irrelevant coolants from interface - this we can't do - because in this case we don't know what to do when move from one machine to another.

5) SolidCAM professor (link in What's new file in install ) - explains basic things. Deeper explanation will be in the book and also time to time there is webinar with 1-1.5 hour explanation about machineID also. You can join it.

6) About machine conversion - I'm not sure I understood clearly - you receive 5x machine instead of 3x? or order of axis is wrong? To answer this question - need to get your machine file ( *.MAC ) to investigate this. Milling machines are converted quite good in standard machine configurations.

If we can help you somehow else, let me know.

best regards, Anna.