[greeps]

I was trying to make a tooling plate. I used the Dolphin CAM "canned cycle", for drilling "points on a rectangular grid". I use Mach3 so I did the post processing with the Mach3 post processor choice.

I loaded the Gcode file into Mach3 and got an error:
Cannot use two g codes that both use axis values Line 5

Is there a way to fix or avoid this?

I've attached a screen cap. The error message is at the bottom in the "Status:" window. The G code is in the upper green window, the program has highlighted the line causing the error.

Thanks for any help.
David

[Dolphin USA]

What is the name of the post you are using?

[greeps]

I used M_MACH3.ppr
then I tried M_MACH3-no-modal.ppr
to see if it made any difference. It didn't.

David

[Dolphin USA]

Email Dolphin support for the updated Mach 3 Post (Mach3_inc.ppr)


The Support Team at
Dolphin CAD/CAM USA

[Dolphin USA]

Just wanted to confirm you are all squared away.


The Support Team at
Dolphin CAD/CAM USA

[greeps]

Yes, thanks for the rapid response.

I may have found another problem. I'm using the peck drill routine. I'm enlarging a set of holes. When I run the animation, the drill withdraws to 0.25" before moving the bit to the next hole. After generating the gcode and running it, the drill does not withdraw to 0.25" above the surface, it just withdraws to the surface of the material then executes the move in x and y. This doesn't break the drill bit but does scratch the surface of the work. I'll attach the gcode file as a text file.

Have I done something wrong? It seems the bit should do what the animation shows.

Thanks.
David

[mactec54]

greeps

The G99 + your R value is 0 so that is were the tool will go to,(Part/Tool 0 ) if you always need to be safe use G98 this will return to the Z height which you have as, well you don't have a Z move at the start of the program, you need this or you are going to crash into something, You need more work on your post processor to get this all right for you

This is what you want your post processor output to look like, for trouble free machining, this is a peck full out using
G83

[greeps]

Thank you for your reply in the Dolphin forum. I'll get out the docs for Mach3 and go through your list line by line. I'm new at this, it's been a week.

I broke only one bit today, I chipped an end mill. That's better than yesterday.

CNC problems happen very quickly, things break. I thought I'd be better off using the CAD/CAM to generate all the G code. I still don't understand why the animation didn't show the bit at the surface instead of 1/4 inch above it. I understand the generated code put the bit there and your reply will help me figure out the mechanics of why the bit was there. I also know I can avoid it by forcing all moves at the clear plane. Still the program generated all that code and it generated the animation so it seems they should match. I want to trust that the displayed animation will accurately reflect what will happen when I run it.

Is there a setting in the tool setup definition to get the post processor to use a G98 instead of the G99? Is it reasonable to define the surface as a little above the actual surface then compensate by defining the material thickness that much thicker?

Thanks again for the help. This is a blast, actually making things!

David