[ohno]

Hi. I've got a few questions about rhino and milling. Iam looking at buying a Roland mdx-15 in order to start producing a range of jewellery wax's.
The mdx-15 can come with an optional 4 axis attachment which i'll probably get.

The part where iam confused though is the software to do the cutting. The mill comes with "Modela player" which is apparently as simple as pressing a button.
But i also read about other Cam software such as Rhinocam. From what i read though, rhinocam cant do 4d though.

I read about setting up cut paths for these other software. Now i havent done any of that, but i have been a sculptor all my life and know how to cut.
How much can i rely on the "modela player" to produce fine jewellery wax's.

If anyone can make sense of these ramblings and give me some advice that would be really good.
Ben

[spoiledbrat]

rhinocam has 4th axis capability. I have used it before, but not very often any more.

[ohno]

rhinocam has 4th axis capability. I have used it before, but not very often any more.

Why is that?

[spoiledbrat]

My products only require 3 axis. If I was making rifle stocks, I would definately be using it more.

[c-c-cncboy]

Ohno,
The rotary from www.fourth-axis.com works with the MDX-15 and with Modela Player 4. It supports every variety of rotary cutting including XZ slicing, RotaryZ slicing, Index Cutting, Cylinder Wrap - the lot. They supply software called FARM that opens up all the rotary functions inside Modela Player 4 to MX-15 users. I got one 18 months back and I have had free software upgrades around every 6 months. Talk to them, they always respond.
Terrence

[sdantonio]

Visual Mill, made by the folks who also make RhinoCAM will do 4 axis stuff. VM6, which will be compatable with Rhino 4, will be released soon. You may want to wait and see what the VM package looks like.

My copy of VM5 puts a button right on Rhino 3 that says export to VM. It automatically opens VM5 and exports the entire drawing. One advantage to this is, I sometimes find with extremely complicated drawings I can overtax the processor in the computer if I'm using Rhino 4 and RhinoCAM 4. But exporting to a different program means I can export it, then shut down Rhino 4 so only VM is open. This is much more gentile on the processor.

[turmite]

I make rifle stocks and I use 4th axis all the time ! I use a plugin for Rhino called Madcam and a 4th axis is about to be released for Madcam4 which is designed to sit within Rhino. Not knocking Rhinocam but I simply refuse to have a dongle on my pc. I have had two of them before and both were nothing but trouble. Now I don't know if Rhinocam allows this or not, but when using Madcam, should I need to change the model a little, I don't have to do anything different than just work on the model, save it and then go on with the cam process.

Mike

[c-c-cncboy]

Mike,
When Joakim last emailed me, the nearly-ready 4th axis function was for index cutting only. Has he progressed all the way to full rotary cuts yet, or is it still only index cutting, to pre-rotate to a fixed angle and then XYZ stuff at that angle? It would be great if he has got around to full rotary motion of the 4th axis.

And a post specific to the MDX-15 is required, because it talks a subset of Roland RML-1 language, quite unlike G-code. Even when doing plain XYZ work (e.g. while index cutting) the MDX-15 also requires full expression of XYZ coordinates. You cannot send it in RML-1, an address such as X100Z200, because it requires the destination Y value to be expressed, even if Y remains unchanged. A buddy of mine has sent sample code to Joakim but we don't yet see anything back from him that could drive MDX-15.

Depending on the rotary unit chosen to go with the MDX-15, it's also possible to run it from code calculated for JWX-10 or MDX-40 rotary units from Roland. The software I mentioned earlier (FARM from the Fourth Axis rotary maker) accepts 4-axis RML-1 code that's valid for either of those machines and translates it to run MDX-15 (or MDX-20) with a Fourth Axis. It doesn't matter what CAM generated the RML-1 cut code file, so madCAM could be used if it is already good-to-go with a JWX-10 post and full rotary cutting functionality.

The main point though, is that Modela Player 4 comes free from Roland with each MDX-15, so the excellent madCAM software probably is an unnecessary purchase for a while.

Regards,
Terrence

[turmite]

Mike,
When Joakim last emailed me, the nearly-ready 4th axis function was for index cutting only. Has he progressed all the way to full rotary cuts yet, or is it still only index cutting, to pre-rotate to a fixed angle and then XYZ stuff at that angle? It would be great if he has got around to full rotary motion of the 4th axis.

And a post specific to the MDX-15 is required, because it talks a subset of Roland RML-1 language, quite unlike G-code. Even when doing plain XYZ work (e.g. while index cutting) the MDX-15 also requires full expression of XYZ coordinates. You cannot send it in RML-1, an address such as X100Z200, because it requires the destination Y value to be expressed, even if Y remains unchanged. A buddy of mine has sent sample code to Joakim but we don't yet see anything back from him that could drive MDX-15.

Depending on the rotary unit chosen to go with the MDX-15, it's also possible to run it from code calculated for JWX-10 or MDX-40 rotary units from Roland. The software I mentioned earlier (FARM from the Fourth Axis rotary maker) accepts 4-axis RML-1 code that's valid for either of those machines and translates it to run MDX-15 (or MDX-20) with a Fourth Axis. It doesn't matter what CAM generated the RML-1 cut code file, so madCAM could be used if it is already good-to-go with a JWX-10 post and full rotary cutting functionality.

The main point though, is that Modela Player 4 comes free from Roland with each MDX-15, so the excellent madCAM software probably is an unnecessary purchase for a while.

Regards,
Terrence

Terrence I talk with him regularly on voip, and it is my understanding that the fourth can be continous but the 5th is indexed. Now please understand that my understanding might be correct so take what I just said with reservation till Joakim himself has posted an announcement. I can call him tomorrow and have him post here, which would be the best thing for those interested.

Mike

(edited to add)......when did you last converse with him? That may well tell whether I am nuts or not!!!