Inventor HSM Pro + Mach 3 POST G-CODE: Holes are coming out undersized

[Jon.N.CNC]

If you're running Mach3, the trajectory planner may very well be part of the issue.


Mach3 may not be following the path properly. This is just a guess.

I get same thing happen with hsm & uccnc. Its very bizarre, Very much like deflection that as many finishing passes you give it, its still there. I will try n get around to comparing the difference between a contour of a hole and a bore operation that does not have the issue later and see if there's anything obvious going on. But could very well be software side not following radius's correctly but i presume the bore operation uses them also. Cam is far to much like sat nav, i should know this but im too busy stuck in traffic.

[jxdxwx]

Jon,

Have an HSM related question.

Will be doing a lot of cutting, roughing and finishing using the same tool but after all my roughing operations would like to stop the spindle, move the Z-Axis up and move my table to where I can better reach to clean the chips off. Then press start button again to move everything back and continue with the finishing operations.

How would I do this in HSM between operations? Would like to be able to cut & paste this operation through out a program. Or perhaps use in another program.

Looks like it may be in the JOB Tab under MANUAL NC? Would I use 'CALL ANOTHER PROGRAM' or ???

JW

[Jon.N.CNC]

Jon,

Have an HSM related question.

Will be doing a lot of cutting, roughing and finishing using the same tool but after all my roughing operations would like to stop the spindle, move the Z-Axis up and move my table to where I can better reach to clean the chips off. Then press start button again to move everything back and continue with the finishing operations.

How would I do this in HSM between operations? Would like to be able to cut & paste this operation through out a program. Or perhaps use in another program.

Looks like it may be in the JOB Tab under MANUAL NC? Would I use 'CALL ANOTHER PROGRAM' or ???

JW

Hi JW, Its 6.30 am here and i have officially been working for 24 hours straight, so bear with me but i don't believe hsm has any way of importing gcode into a custom operation, it should though it would be well handy, so i think the easiest way is if you select all the operations in the cam browser and post process to a single file, then either using the autodesk editor that pops up when you save code or notepad just pasting it between the operations which is fairly straight forward as hsm enters commented title eg (2d contour) etc at the top of each operation in the gcode so you see where one ends and another begins easily so just paste in between.

there may be a super clever way to do it in the post processor but that's well beyond me i'm afraid, or you could write the code into a macro and manually edit the code to call the macro between operations which is basically the same as just pasting it it there if your just going to use a dwell to pause the machine, though if you were to do it with a macro, you can get it to create a message and a pause which is safer than a dwell. think its something like

G98 g28 x0 y0 z0 //or whatever to move to cleaning position
DoOEMButton(1003)
Message "(stop spindle before cleaning)" // or have the macro do it
WaitForStart

But i would do your research on that one. like i say im not @ my best right now. 2 more hours of machine time and im off for 3 weeks, first holiday in two years

[Jon.N.CNC]

Jon,

Have an HSM related question.

Will be doing a lot of cutting, roughing and finishing using the same tool but after all my roughing operations would like to stop the spindle, move the Z-Axis up and move my table to where I can better reach to clean the chips off. Then press start button again to move everything back and continue with the finishing operations.

How would I do this in HSM between operations? Would like to be able to cut & paste this operation through out a program. Or perhaps use in another program.

Looks like it may be in the JOB Tab under MANUAL NC? Would I use 'CALL ANOTHER PROGRAM' or ???

JW

ahh cool, just had to read your post 4 times for it to register lol didnt know that existed, yeah thats cool, there you go, i know there's some settings in the post processor for optional stop but not sure how that works, see if you can get that call program to call a macro as mentioned.

suppose once youve figured out how it works it will be quicker than simply pasting a m** in the code, might be more hassle than its worth if its not a simple as just putting the m** in the call program function.

[jxdxwx]

Jon,

I had my LOOKAHEAD set too low. That may have been the cause of the undersized holes using contouring.
Don't know for sure yet until I can run something similar but it helped in other areas like corner radius cutting.
My LOOKAHEAD is now set to 200. Try that and see what your results are.

~jxdxwx

[jxdxwx]

If you're running Mach3, the trajectory planner may very well be part of the issue.

Mach3 may not be following the path properly. This is just a guess.

Ger21,

How can I tell? Better yet is there somewhere that I can edit the 'trajectory planner'?

My machine has almost ZERO backlash. I have no tool deflection issues and have taken finishing passes. Material is 6mm acrylic. The rectangular pockets that I cut as well as the linear cuts and rectangular part shape is exactly right on accurate. I think the advice on the CV settings may have helped to tighten the corner radius's. But the holes are still coming out undersized. Example: a program for a .684 hole. I get .664/.670 depending on where I measure. Even if it was perfectly round it would still come out substantially undersized.

I'm runnng a fairly late model Intel NUC computer with Windows 7 as my Mach3 computer. No other software is running and have all updates and background programs off. Seems to run really well. My LOOKAHEAD was at 30, after reading some advice on here I bumped it up to 200. Have read somewhere that some people have run it as high as 1000. I think I understand what it is for, but I'm not really sure how it affects corners, circles and accuracy. Or if it even does.

Please help,
Going crazy in Dallas.

[Jon.N.CNC]

Ger21,

How can I tell? Better yet is there somewhere that I can edit the 'trajectory planner'?

My machine has almost ZERO backlash. I have no tool deflection issues and have taken finishing passes. Material is 6mm acrylic. The rectangular pockets that I cut as well as the linear cuts and rectangular part shape is exactly right on accurate. I think the advice on the CV settings may have helped to tighten the corner radius's. But the holes are still coming out undersized. Example: a program for a .684 hole. I get .664/.670 depending on where I measure. Even if it was perfectly round it would still come out substantially undersized.

I'm runnng a fairly late model Intel NUC computer with Windows 7 as my Mach3 computer. No other software is running and have all updates and background programs off. Seems to run really well. My LOOKAHEAD was at 30, after reading some advice on here I bumped it up to 200. Have read somewhere that some people have run it as high as 1000. I think I understand what it is for, but I'm not really sure how it affects corners, circles and accuracy. Or if it even does.

Please help,
Going crazy in Dallas.

My impression was look ahead was simply a gcode buffer to take up any slack in pc processing and it wouldn't have any effect on accuracy, may be wrong.

Microsteps give you increased resolution mathematicaly but aren't exactly accurate things, imo completely overrated and the whole concept of increased resolution At the expense of accuracy is like saying my steppers have a resolution of 0.001 on occasion... ???? , with c5 screws I see a drop in accuracy @anything over 10x, baffles me why people recommend silly figures of 64x and above. But could be worth reducing microsteps, see if that helps.

[jxdxwx]

...with c5 screws I see a drop in accuracy @anything over 10x, baffles me why people recommend silly figures of 64x and above. But could be worth reducing microsteps, see if that helps.

What are you referring to with these numbers? I'm not seeing microstep settings anywhere.

JW

[Jon.N.CNC]

What are you referring to with these numbers? I'm not seeing microstep settings anywhere.

JW

Microstep settings are manual settings on the microstep drivers themselves if you have them. Usually dip switches.

Sorry your machines an onsrud on servos? Sorry forgot, infact is your systems closed loop then should have realised this sooner as it pretty much could only have been deflection if the closed loop is accurate I would have thought.

200 read ahead is the default in uccnc, 30 was quite low in all fairness.

[warrenb]

I hesitate to ask the obvious but...

HSMworks leaves the "STOCK TO LEAVE" option on by default. Is the "STOCK" option turned off?

[jxdxwx]

I hesitate to ask the obvious but...

HSMworks leaves the "STOCK TO LEAVE" option on by default. Is the "STOCK" option turned off?

LOL, First thing I thought of too. But no, it ended up being a following error in the servo drives. Got it much closer with some blind luck tuning.
I said HSMworks, because I tried the trial version on inventor. Its just like the solidworks version. I have since switched to Autodesk Fusion 360.
Which is still the same thing. But FREE. Very happy with this software and the tutorials and the lightning fast help they provide. Its the anti-mastercam.