Dave, You didn't give enough specifics as to your tapping cycle time problem, so here's the whole works. I hope one of these will answer your question. First, You should check the speeds, feeds, pitch and TPI in the planner for your tapping operation and make sure they are all correct. Second, The cycle time displayed in Show Path and Show Cut are not the same as in Code. The time displayed in Show Path and Show Cut does not take all factors into account and should be used only for general comparisons of operations. The cycle time calculated when generating code is far more accurate. Third, SmartCAM will automatically add cycle time when coding tapping operations on the presumption that you are retracting at the same feed rate that you are feeding down. This is not done for the cycle time in Show Path or Show Cut. Finally, If you need to alter the cycle time for each tapped hole you can do that in the template section for your tapping cycle. This would be either the @FXD3 (old milling), @FXD4 (old turning) or @OP_TAP (new) section of the template file. In that section you can add an eval statement to adjust the cycle time. An example of this is found in most @DWELL sections of code generators shipped with SmartCAM: @DWELL G04 P#DWELL#EVAL(#TIME=#DWELL/60)
In that example the eval statement contains a formula that divides the seconds of #DWELL by 60 to convert it to decimal minutes and adds it to the system variable #TIME. This will then adjust the cycle time by the added value. I know this works to add cycle time to the total, but I've never tried this with a negative value to subtract time from the total. There is only one way to find out. For the tapping cycle you may have something similar to this: @OP_TAP <#ABSI><#FXD><X#XPOS>< Y#YPOS>< Z#ZDPTH R#ZCHK>< F#FEED> #EVAL(#TIME=???) You would replace the ??? with whatever value or formula needed to correct the cycle time. Here is a sample: #EVAL(#TIME=(((#ZCHK-#ZDPTH)*2)/*jos(feedupm1))*?) The formula, ((#ZCHK-#ZDPTH)*2)/*jos(feedupm1), calculates the incremental hole, doubles the depth for total travel (your feeding both in and out), then divides the total travel by the inch (or mm) per minute feed rate to calculate the theoretical time it takes to feed from the retract plane to the full depth of the hole and back. You would replace the ? with an a cycle time adjustment factor for the cycle . If you wanted to add 10% to the tapping time you would substitute a factor of 0.1. If you wanted to subtract 5% to the tapping time you would substitute a factor of -0.05. Fred Lauzus CAM Programming Coordinator CAD/CAM department 132 ** Ext-4117 -----Original Message----- From: David Wolfgang [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 8:28 PM To: Smartcam Forum Subject: [mfg-smartcam] cycle time I have been using SmartCam to program and in many cases to quote very tight running jobs. It has come to my attention today that the cycle time is very close when not using a tap cycle. Depending on the number of taped holes the cycle time is longer on the machining center. Than it is on SmartCam. Is there a way I can put a statement in my TMP files to adjust the time #IF(#TLTYPE=4)??????? Thanks Dave Wolfgang ====================================================================== To find out more about this mailing list including how to unsubscribe, send the message "info mfg-smartcam" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ======================================================================
