Hello Everyone,

We have a small machine shop with several CNC machines, and we're having some issues with how the CAMWorks simulation produces a rapid move and how our VF4 or VF2 machines actually move. I'm hoping someone here may know what we need to do to solve the problem.

As a small disclaimer, I'm not a CAMWorks user, I am just trying to see if I can help our engineers solve this issue. I understand what is going on, but if anything needs clarified, please ask.

Now, on to the issue. When we create a tool path in CAMWorks, it will produce rapid moves that first move to the preset Z height (skim height?), and then move diagonally to the next location. What happens when we actually run the program in the Haas machines is that the tool will move up properly on the Z axis, but when it moves on the X and Y axes, it runs both of them at the machine's rapid move speed, and since both of the axes are moving at the same speed, it is not a straight line and ends up crashing. This has caused us to override our rapid speed in production, and slows us down tremendously. Even with slowing the rapid down, we still risk crashing and it has caused a lot of uncertainty with our programs.

I've included a sketch of the issue. You can see the green line shows the path that CAMWorks intends to make, but with the rapid speeds being the same on both the X and Y axes, it does not end up moving in that straight line. I added a "part" to the sketch so you can see how this affects us. CAMWorks sees the move as being clear of the part, but the actual move when running the program ends up causing a crash.

Again, I'm not a programmer or machinist, so if anything needs clarified, please let me know!

Thanks

Attachment 243708