I'm a new member here, as I'm interested about learning about the machining trade and industry.
I have a mastercam X9 problem regarding 4th axis planes. If any of you have a tried and true method for 4th, axis programming, or can provide insight on my problem, I’d greatly appreciate it.
For your reference, I took the part to the mill and found out there that the problem had occurred, and I made sure my zero, was in the center of the 4th axis. I’ll check again to make sure, but I ran a test part a few days ago, and all the dimensions but one came out right. I suspect the wrong dimension was due to a tooling issue.
Problem:
Mastercam wants to reference another plane other than the top plane where my zero(s) are. My zero is the very center of the part.
All the planes that I created for 4th, axis static indexing are centered on the top plane, and all their locations are x0, y0, z0.
From what it looks, the point/(plane) that mastercam wants to reference happens to be the zero/(origen) that the part was drafted on, and that point was automatically placed onto the origin of the top plane when it was imported into mastercam via IGS format. (I must point out that the origin the part originally had was not centered in the part for 4th axis work, so I moved the part into center of the top plane.)
That point in space happens to be located off of the top plane +.045 on the Z, ( +-.1278?) on the Y, and +.4 on the X.
To attempt to fix it, I tried to move all my planes into that original point, and center the part there, but it did not work. I also tried to move the part into that point, then move everything back to the top plane origin, but that didn’t work either. I made sure my planes under the linking parameters were set right.
(Working coordinate plane: Top. Construction & Tool planes: (the plane of choice for 4th axis indexing)
Lastly, I did create another WCS to function as my top plane to see if that helped, but it did not.
(A separate question arises from the above sentence: Should the original planes; top, front, right, etc.. be used for programming? Or should copies of those planes, or different named WCS’s be used for programming instead?)
At this point I’m running out of options, and am starting to research.
Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Re: MasterCAM X9 help needed. (4th axis programming)
Thank you for your response sir.
Today however, I just figured out that I may not have a problem with that part. I ran another test part. And that part came out wrong too. That then proved that I set my 4th axis center line offset incorrectly. My screwup.
I personally thought that mastercam was referencing the wrong plane because of way the part looked after a machining it.
I have run into another issue however, The part that I tested came out symmetrical, proving I had found the centerline, but still had some incorrect depths that were all symmetrically off by .015" (to deep) from each floor of the four channels I machinined. (Indexed @ 90 degrees).
So now I'm trying to figure out that issue. If it's not something with my programming, I suspect the post-processor is buggy, but I was told that the post processor I was given was a good and proven post-processor.
I ran a simple 3 axis part with that same post processor and it turned out correctly. Due to my work schedule, it might be a little while before I can upload a model of my test part.