I think it is allways going to retract between operations, but if there ia away around this I would like to know to!

are you looking at kaiser big plus holders?

another thing to remember if the price is high there might be a reason!

we did a test between all the top collet people

Iscar

Lyndex

Nikken (they were seperate at the time)

kaiser

others

the test was for run-out and repeatability

we had to test pins ground at the middle of 2 collet ranges

then we put the pins in the collet torqued to spec checked them for run-out at the collet and 10 x diameter out

the range was huge!

top dog was nikken I think they were the MMC

they were not the most exspensive (Lyndex took that spot, and came in second)

but you may want to do something like that.

If you have a big plus spindle you would want to take advantage of that on roughing for sure but you do not have to run big plus tapers only!

+1000 James

MURLIN

just for fun of couse

most of the time when you are entering a heavy tool the tooldata is where you assign large or heavy tool I would't think you would need to post the m16 at all. If this horizontal is in a cell I am certain the cell controller stores that info also.

check on your tool data page.

control is just an old throw back when we use to hand code before we had a tape punch, it was easier to take dimensions from print and write the code.

today with cam packages there is no reason not to use wear, (even in my opinion on prototype) there is less chance of scrapping parts and if you are doing 3d you cant read the code as it scrolls on the display anyway. is it really your boss or the guys on the shop floor whinning about it.

its simple wear is safer and less chance of screwing up.

If you have old jobs that use comp control put out you setup sheets for wear in a diffrent color folder so they know its wear.

just my opinion

I will give that a whirl, Colin works the afternoon shift here he just showed me how to do it in mastercam, it is cumbersom but it can be done.

I wish I could but the regulations here won't allow that. Thanks though

Hey I appreciate the try though, maybe I will just have to go to my old job and use solidworks real quick.

I tryed that but roll and unroll only seems to work for cylindrical shapes not swarfed surfaces

X form project just makes a shadow under the part. when the part is flattened it should be longer then the original curved part.

Sillouette is the same.

ok i have a curved part that I want to make a flat pattern out of, I have never done this please help

Cannon: what is the sequence for that?

if they deleted the 9000 programs thaen you do not need to turn on the parameter to reload them!

its in edit mode already!

But after you reload them you need to turn edit off and lock the 9000 programs.

you mean like preview the part?

the m29 s is to set up the rigid tap cycle I am guessing this is a fanuc control?

it should just go to the next hole, do you have it in single block? is the control still lit like its running?

is vericut just to much money? it is the best for verification!

it is cheap compared to a spindle rebuild, lost parts, and loss of production during rebuild time.

How about core roughing and finshing under surface high speed may make it one click.

just a little idea are you saving your programs into MD1:

yeah it is something the salesmen dont tell you.

It is cheaper to negotiate it in when purchasing the machine, field retros always cost more.

you will like the dnc-b it is a great function

axela unless you Okuma is brand new you will need DNC-B

but before you drop kick that you need to know that dnc b is far ahead of any trickle feed system you can restart from the control just like if it was in the control it isnt just a link.

yeah if you look in your transform or rotate toolpath you will notice it asks for offset increments

the bummer is you cant increment your first step then your next between the parts

there is only one choice.

so If I am making multiple parts it is easier to program 1 then transform down in the Y then Rotate about the center of rotation to get them to the next face.

Also on the transform ops you have to consider if you can group toolpaths to transform or do them individualy. like if you are spot drilling on the B0 face with out rotating you can spot the left side of the part on the B90 face and the right side of the part on B270.

you have to be carefull with that though the standard posts do not retract before moving to the next part from the face part. Tim who replied in here earlier fixed my post to retract properly for me.

Oh and since you are just starting out you are setting a standard for the future.

what ever works good for you is all that maters

do be careful in case you want to transform or rotate toolpath you will not be able to get the offset increments correct the way you are doing it.

Oh and like Tim said if we do have to pick up offsets from the part we use an M300 to calculate rotations from the face position that we picked up

But try and be accurate on tooling and you should be able to post and go!

I agree with tim 1 hold is 1st op

As far as numbering work offsets it really depends on the tolerances you are working with and how accurately you model your tombstones, with vices and or fixtures on them usually the first op should not require you to pick up zeros!

I program everything from center of rotation but still give offsets to each part.

example you said you are doing two parts per face

so I use offsets as follows

P1 is the face of the top part B0

P2 is the right of the top part B90

P3 os the left of top part B270

then the bottom part is

P4 face B0

P5 right B90

P6 left B270.

now the offsets dont really tell you wich face of the tomb they are on I use the setup doc for that BUT to translate or rotate toolpath it makes it easier to keep the offsets in an equal spacinng.

just my 2 cents.