Originally Posted by
Farmers Machine
To Mark and japco43
There are a lot of people that can make a CNC do some fancy stuff, that do not have even a remote idea what happens behind the curtain. The last line in the Cam Soft post said." you certainly have some things we can help you with." You could have a goofy mistake in a macro file. A, G code file may not be written correctly. You could have accel/decell parameters out of whack. There might be a wait command buried somewhere. Any number of things, and unless you speak CAM SOFT better than you speak English, it might appear normal to you. Starting with a generic CBK file my oxy fuel gantry had pauses in it also. It took several calls to CAM SOFT to get the bugs worked out but now the girl can wag her tail. You have to realize that you are dealing with a SOFTWARE company, not a hard iron company, and they do software very well. beyond the breakout box every machine is different, and is up to you. If I were retrofitting or new machine build, I would not look any further than CAMSOFT, Up to 8 axis, there is not a machine in existence that they can not control, and 400 plus I/O is more than any normal machine would use. When you realize how much Cam Soft pro is capable of, using it on a 3 axis machine is like shooting a mouse with an army tank.
As for another retro fit supplier, you can get the ultimate education by calling FANUC USA in Chicago. They are very responsive to selling you exactly what you want to buy. They have 100 plus engineers that can design a ladder program for the controller on your machine! You can purchase as many options in the software as you think you might want, or afford. FANUC's claim to fame is "YOU GET IT ALL!!!" that means FANUC motors, servo drives, custom cables, encoder and power, The FANUC HMI with the huge 9" screen, their arrangement of buttons, and lights, and what ever I/O you might require. After your retro fit is up and running, and you decide, dang I wish it would do this or that, they will gladly sell you other upgrades and options to their software, and rewrite your ladder program. The list of whistles and bells is as long as your money will allow. I have a 2012 Hwacheon hitech 300 slant bed lathe with the FANUC 0i TD control. because back in the day RS 232 was the way to load programs, Hwacheon did not add the USB port option, even though it is on the control. After checking with Fanuc about turning on the USB option, I settled for a $70.00 RS 232 cable at 1/100 of the cost of the upgrade option.
I sincerely wish you a lot of patience and luck in finding a better retro fit system than CAMSOFT
and please share your results with us.
Thank You
Farmers Machine