Postprocessors?

[frist]

Hi,
does anyone know if it's possible to edit existing SolidCAM Postprocessors and to crate new custom postprocessors with the tools and documentation provided in the standard SolidCAM package? Would you think it’s possible to write a custom 5-acis PP that only uses G00 and G01 G-Codes? Du you have any idea how difficult this might be? I’ve been writing postprocessors for SprutCAM which was rather simple things to do, but I was not able to find any god information on the SolidCAM PP system, so I have no idea what is possible and how difficult things are.

See you
Flo

[camaru]

Contact your dealer and ask them where the "help file" is on the post. Solidcam has a decent post from what I recall and you edit it with an ascii editor.

[Brakeman Bob]

One of the things tha infuenced our decision to buy SolidCAM is the ability to edit & create new posts. If you can program macro's in Fanuc or have dabbled in VBA or VBScript, then creating a 3 axis or turning post is stright forward but there is an awful lot to learn. Download the GPP users manual from the SolidCAM website.

Five axis posts are possible but you will need to understand your machine, its control and the kinematics before you will be able to construct a five axis simultaneous (as opposed to a positional 3 + 2) post. And if your control isn't Heidenhain of Fanuc 30i you will need a very good grasp of spatial geometry and trigonometry.

[frist]

Hi

Originally Posted by Brakeman Bob Five axis posts are possible but you will need to understand your machine, its control and the kinematics before you will be able to construct a five axis simultaneous (as opposed to a positional 3 + 2) post. And if your control isn't Heidenhain of Fanuc 30i you will need a very good grasp of spatial geometry and trigonometry.

Luckily I only need to output the tool tip coordinates and angels, tool length compensation, kinematics etc. is all handled by the controller. So I suppose even the 5axies simultaneous PP should be quite simple.

I'd be good to have a 5axes PP example, though. As far as I can see the SolidCAM Demo does not include one.

See you
Flo

[Brakeman Bob]

The clever bit in the posts is contained in the MAC file which defines the machine kinematics eg. TABLE -TABLE, TABLE-HEAD etc. Look in the five axis help and download the five axis user manual; they give you all the guidance you need.

In the GPP file all you need to define is how to handle @5x_line and how you want to top-and-tail your five axis code to avoid collisions.