I recently converted my mill to EMC from Mach, and until now have been using it only with subroutines. Tonight I tried running a program produced by BobCAD v23, which I have used successfully with Mach, and ran into a problem with tool length compensation. Basically, I could not get the offsets to "stick" through a tool change.
Here is what my tool table file looks like *: T1 P1 D0.125000 Z+2.269462 ;1/8 end mill T2 P2 D0.062500 Z+2.478416 ;1/16 end mill T3 P3 D0.201000 Z+1.273000 ;#7 tap drill T99999 P99999 Z+0.100000 ;big tool number I also have the same PC set up to run my lathe, and I have run that with three pre-set tools for a few months now with no problem. When I swap tools, I issue a command like M6 T2 G43, and the tool display in Axis changes and the DROs re-set to reflect the tool X/Z offset, and it's all good. But, on my mill, if I enter the same command, the Z value does not change. I touched both tools off and checked the tool table, it matched the values I had set manually by measuring the tools offline, but no matter what I did, it didn't seem to want to apply my offsets properly. Here is the beginning of a program that is giving me trouble. Prior to running this program, I had T1 in (based on the values above). I then ran this program below. It prompted me for tool #2, I put it in, clicked OK (I am using the manual tool change dialog), but it proceeded to behave as though the Z offset for tool 1 was active. At least that's what it looked like as things were off by about .25" which is about the difference between the two tools. /(BEGIN PREDATOR NC HEADER) /(MACH_FILE=3XVMILL.MCH) /(MTOOL T2 S1 D.25 C0. A0. H3.) /(SBOX X0. Y0. Z-1. L4.3 W2. H1.) /(END PREDATOR NC HEADER) N1 ( C2_0718_B.NC) N2 ( EMC2 ) N3 ( TUE. 07/19/2011 10:08PM) N4 G17 G20 G40 G49 N5 G80 G90 N6 (PROFILE) N7 (MSG,LOAD.25 ENDMILL ROUGH) N8 T2 M06 N9 S3000 M3 N10 G0 G54 X-.3657 Y.4444 N11 G43 H2 Z1. N12 M8 N13 G1 Z-.05 F2. Is there anything obviously wrong here? Do I need to share my HAL or other config files? I thought I had this figured out after getting my lathe running so nicely, but this one kind of has me stumped. Thanks in advance, -cwk. * An aside about the tool table: I initially set this up by hand (using the Axis UI), and had this set with only two tools, a .250 center drill and a .250 endmill. I then went back and re-set both tools by using the touch-off, and every time I do that, it adds the #7 tap drill and the T99999 tool, and changes the diameters for T1 and T2. My CAM puts out tool centerline code, so I don't have a pressing problem there, but still, it didn't seem right... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 10 Tips for Better Web Security Learn 10 ways to better secure your business today. Topics covered include: Web security, SSL, hacker attacks & Denial of Service (DoS), private keys, security Microsoft Exchange, secure Instant Messaging, and much more. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51426210/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
