G-code editor

[Jim Dawson]

I've got a number of thread mills also, so can go that route too. Just don't understand (yet) how Fusion would know to make a 1/4"-20 hole via a thread mill or a T/C head with a tap.

Thanks again for the help,

Bruce

Fusion has a thread milling function built in, I use it all the time.

[mountaindew]

Probably my lack of knowledge of Fusion is showing but setting up a 4-axis job to simply move a cutter parallel to the rotary axis and at the z-height of the rotary's centre line seems unduly complicated.

In sprut I use a standard 2d operation that follows an edge on the model. The example above shows the actual gear model, but I don't use that for the operation setups.
Quick summary.
1) I draw the gear blank model to the exact exterior root diameter of the gear. ( o.d. = (n+2)/p n= number of teeth)
2) I put a single line centered on axis on the surface of blank model. (in pic below)
3) Import model into sprut and position on 4th axis.
4) Defined a arbor saw as the cutter with the center of the outside cutting edge to be contact point on tool. (important) outside diameter set to the gear cutter diameter measured at bench and used for that gear.
5)Setup a standard 2d operation to follow the line on the gear blank model.
6) multiply the 2d operation tool path by axis "A" set the multiply number to the number of gear roots or teeth -1 on the model.
7) Compile code and check simulation. (shown in above post)

I found gear cutter diameters to vary slightly from cutter to cutter. And user needs to keep this in mind when setting up cam operations.

The manual method shown in post above, the cutter is centered and touched off . Then depth of cut (w) = 2.157/p is used for the cutter passes. Touching off the cutter would reduce error from cutter diameter differences that causes problems in cam setups.




I often draw threads and gear teeth because the models look better but I don't use them in cam operation setup. Thread milling, tension compression tapping are all simple operations to have preset for every type and size standard or custom in your cam software. Then user can load desired thread operation select model features, compile and your done. Super fast in cam software to do after you learn the process. And most cam software allows user defined ops. So complete sets of custom operations can be preset (drill pilot, drill size, tap) and saved for easy setup on all projects. This minimizes the time to setup and complete a complex model.

[jwatte]

Touching off the cutter would reduce error from cutter diameter differences

I imagine you could also do this with different tool numbers for different cutters in the CAM, or by using tool wear offset in the controller?

[mountaindew]

I imagine you could also do this with different tool numbers for different cutters in the CAM, or by using tool wear offset in the controller?

I define the tools in sprutcam and pp the same. Each cutter has a tool number and description and carefully measured. I just made note above because the ease of using published numbers in cam and pp then wonder what went wrong. Chase it back to one or 2 cutters in set with different Diameters. You would not notice this if you touched off , zeroed and cut to depth

[mountaindew]

Probably my lack of knowledge of Fusion is showing but setting up a 4-axis job to simply move a cutter parallel to the rotary axis and at the z-height of the rotary's centre line seems unduly complicated.

Did you ever figure this out in fusion?

[kstrauss]

My attention span is rather short for such things so I considered it briefly and gave up and produced the hand written code posted earlier.

[mountaindew]

My attention span is rather short for such things so I considered it briefly and gave up and produced the hand written code posted earlier.

In near future I might start using fusion and was wondering how hard it is to setup indexed 4th axis stuff.
No big deal, still using sprut but getting ready to start some projects in fusion.