The Sequel - Oh Blimey I bought a CNC Lathe (Beaver TC 20)

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awemawson:
OK Wire EDM post processor fully tested - I found a FeatureCAM drawing of an involute gear that I had cut some years ago, and also the associated G-Code file. Ran the part through FeatureCAM with the newly re-found P-P and produced identical G code - so - Phew that's one definitely sorted :ddb:

I also found an X-Build (the program that allows P-P generation) ".CNX" documentation file for the modified Siemens 810 P-P that I'd been using on the 820 on the lathe. Now the .CNX file is a form of the P-P that can be printed out and read, whereas the .CNC version is the one FeatureCAM wants. Given a .CNC file X-build can spit out a .CNX file but I can find no way of reading back in the CNX file to X-Build. OK the information IS all there and I can manually type it in but there's 10 pages of A4 . Some of it can be 'cut and pasted' but the majority is 'drop down boxes' or 'tick boxes' that need filling in.

The PP for the TNC355 in the Beaver Partsmaster CNC Mill was I'm almost certain actually a standard one for a Heidenhain TNC155 with a tool changer - I don't remember modifying it much if at all.

Had enough of it today, hopefully I'll knuckle down to it tomorrow.

(.CNX file attached but renamed .TXT to allow upload)

awemawson:
Having spent some while recovering the Post Processor and Tool Crib for the Beaver Partsmaster in Featurecam following my data loss I decided that a good test would be to mill a prototype of the A2-6 to A2-5 chuck adaptor in machinable wax.

To this end I manually turned the blank that I cast the other day and crushed with the hydraulic chuck to a 'tidy finish'. It's now ready to mount on the Beaver Partsmaster CNC Mill somehow. And that somehow is the next issue :scratch:

It turns out that my Kurt vice on the Partsmaster easily opens wide enough to take the blank but I will have to make some semi-circular wooden jaw pieces to spread the load or it will be crumbling again.

But that's a job for tomorrow

awemawson:
So today I went through the tool crib on the Beaver Partsmaster making sure that it matched that that I'd put into Featurecam - it almost did and now it does !

Then I re-set all the tool offsets using the Heidenhain probe, and mounted up the machinable wax 'pill' in the Kurt vice with a pair of semi-circular wooden 'vice jaws' that I'd made on the bandsaw to spread the crushing load.

Getting close to cutting :ddb:

Again using the Heidenhain probe I found the dead centre of the wax pill and set is as X=0 Y=0 but set Z zero as about 50 mm ABOVE the surface to do a trial run to see if thing looked sensible.

Time to load the program. Well firstly I found that I'd lost all the coms settings for TNCServer which is the program sitting on the PC that makes files available to the TNC355 in the Partsmaster, so a bit of flapping around recreating them. Now to remember how to do it - a few false starts surrounding TNC355 file naming conventions and code line numbering and we are off - program down loading into the controller.

.. ah . hang on . program is too large to fit in memory, it needs to 'drip feed' so I set it going and we have (sensible !!!) motion from the machine hovering it's tools above the actual work level until . . . ILLEGAL PROGRAM CODE pops up on the controller screen around line 250 . . hmm ? OK then it dawns on me - it's calling a 'label' to reuse code like a subroutine, but when drip feeding the code isn't all retained in memory - you CAN'T call labels !

Program limit is 1000 line in the TNC355 - my program is 1004 long :bang:

Now I'm sure that I can do a bit of pruning - for instance cutting wax I don't want the coolant on so there's a few line to cut, but in the final run on steel coolant definitely WILL be needed.

So I'll probably split the program into two bits - but that's enough excitement for today !

(I do find using the fragile probe with it's ceramic tube probiscus rather stressy !)

awemawson:
This evening I've split the program in two by only including certain 'features' in the Featurecam source and managed to load them both into the controller at the same time. Together they obviously total more than the 1000 line limit, but individually they are less (861 and 146 line respectively, 1007 total). Obviously with two files there is extra 'topping and tailing hence the extra 3 lines)

So very odd 'file storage' in the TNC355 - they have comparmented it into program boxes of 1000 lines each with no dynamic re-allocation of space - strange :scratch:

tom osselton:
I haven’t got my machine going yet I have sent the MMC card off to Cincinnati to be reflashed and a new battery and have purchased the Titan Dnc in anticipation of the larger file sizes.

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