NEED HELP! CNC Software Problem

[Raymundo N]

Hello everyone,

I am a student at Carl Hayden High School and i am part of the robotics team. We recently bought a new CNC tabletop mill
(Here is the link to the exact mill we have: http://www.cncmasters.com/product/cn...ble-top-mill/).

We got it all set up and we got the MasterMX software working. We also got a free CAM software from SolidCAM, which was compatible with SolidWorks, so we started doing some tutorials and then we wanted to machine the actual part.
(Here is the tutorial of the part i tried to machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y1X...q9c b6HO-J8EA)

I modified the piece and changed the units from metric to standard(inches). Then i followed the steps to make my cam software. At the end i generated the code, copied it and pasted it into the MasterMX software, then i clicked the DRAW button to see a visual of what the machine was going to follow, and that is when a weird thing happened. On the CAM software the simulation worked perfectly, but on the MasterMX software it was different. Instead of starting the "contour cut" outside and making a straight line it would make a diagonal line to a different point and then kept going and finished the shape in the correct way.
If you are confused about what i am talking about, i have some pictures:

The first picture shows what i want to make (This is in SolidWorks).
and
The second picture shows what it looked like in the MasterMX software.

The program starts at the right place, but it doesn't follow a straight path to go to the right place to make the round cut. Instead it looks as if it skipped the curve completely and started working at the end of the curve. Any idea why??




Also you may notice that the corner holes are not drawn on the second picture. That is because every time i added the code for the holes it would crash the MasterMX program completely.

The last image shows the code that made the program crash on the left side.


Any help will be appreciated. Thank you.

[Cory]

It's hard to see exactly what is going on, but the most likely culprit is that SolidCAM doesn't know how your machine handles rapid moves and isn't showing you that a rapid move is taking place via both axes at the same time while re-positioning.

[Derek Bessette]

I would be to make sure you are using the correct SolidCAM post processor for your machine.

[Doug G]

We use that same machine on our team and the post-processor is most likely the problem. Have you tried the new AutoDesk Inventor with HSM for 2016? AutoDesk sent me a post for the CNCMasters machine and it works well so far. AutoDesk products are free for students and teams, you may want to try it.

[androb4]

Originally Posted by Doug G

We use that same machine on our team and the post-processor is most likely the problem. Have you tried the new AutoDesk Inventor with HSM for 2016? AutoDesk sent me a post for the CNCMasters machine and it works well so far. AutoDesk products are free for students and teams, you may want to try it.

The OP would be able to use the post you received from Autodesk if he uses HSMWorks or HSMXpress in Solidworks because that's what Inventor uses for CAM. That way he won't have to switch CAD software.

HSMXpress is the lite version of HSMWorks, but still very powerful. There's really no need to get HSMWorks unless you want to do 3D operations. HSMXpress is free for anyone who has a Solidworks license. HSMWorks isn't free but you can get a free copy by requesting a sponsorship (just like Solidworks).

[SndMndBdy]

My team uses InventorCAM (the Inventor version of SolidCAM) and Mach3 as the controller (similar to MasterMX) and when we first started, we had a very similar problem. The issue was the post processor, as as some other people have suggested. If you call SolidCAM support, you can explain to them your setup and they should be able to provide you with the correct post processor.

For those who don't know, the post processor is part of the CAM software that generates GCode specific to the CNC machine/controller that you are using. While GCode is supposed to be standard (interpreted the same by everyone) it definitely is not and there are idiosyncrasies between setups.

I suspect that in your case, the default post processor is adding in some extra code at the start or end of your program that's not being interpreted correctly by MasterMX. This might be for something like an automated tool change, etc., which your machine might not support.

In our case when we got the correct post processor it solved most of these problems, but I actually still had to tweak the post processor a bit myself. This is a complicated task - the post processor is like a programming language which may be hard to understand / modify unless you are a seasoned programmer. If you get to this stage and are still having trouble, feel free to post here and I can try to help.

The other thing to look at is the settings in MasterMX. There might be some options in here about how to interpret Gcode. I remember in our case there was a setting about how G02 was supposed to work (with regards to R address or IJK addresses), but I don't recall exactly what that was.

[Aboudy Dairi]

Hi, my school has acquired the same mill, and I had a similar problem to you, except I had a complete lack of a post processor. Shoot these guys an email: cam.posts@autodesk.com they got me a post that I've had no problems with. I use fusion 360 for CAM, so the post they give you should work just fine. The master software doesn't really have any options for interpreting g-code, they stick by a strict selection of g-codes that makes it impossible for a generic fanuc post processor to be interpreted properly. Anyways, I got a reply from autodesk in a few days, and they're happy to make edits.