My First Mill/Turn Post

I am trying to make my first mill/turn post for a Haas ST30Y and running into a couple issues.

First question... I'm using the tutorial 5 axis post source as a starting point. Is that a good idea or is there a better source file to start from?

Second question: Trying to understand how they calculate things between all the different files. I'm trying to put the live tool rpm in with a P instead of an S. How do I get the variable for the Spindle speed? I tried this:

Code:

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:T:IF OPR_SPEED>0 THEN <N><G!:97><M!:SPINDLE_DIR><P!:OPR_SPEED_RPM><EOL>ENDIF

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in my :SECTION=SUB_TOOL_CHANGE_MILL and get this output:

Code:

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G97 M133 P1  (<--Supposed to be P5000)

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The tutorial Post uses <S!> to output S and the spindle speed (S5000 in this example). I can't follow exactly what is happening with it. I think that it is calling the attribute S in the millturn.lib file which is calling the CALC_DEC_REGISTER section? I tried imitating this with a P attribute but didn't work out for me.

Any help would sure be appreciated.

I answered one of my questions. The mill spindle speeds are a different system variable than the lathe spindle speeds so this worked:

Code:

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:T:IF OPR_SPEED>0 THEN <N><G!:97><M!:SPINDLE_DIR> P<%:OPR_SPEED><EOL>ENDIF

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and gave me the code I was expecting:

Code:

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G97 M133 P5000

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I had tried this before the op but I didn't have the integer casting % in front of it so it didn't work.

I'd still love some input on my other question... Is the tutorial mill/turn post the best way to start a new mill/turn post processor file? Are there any major known issues with it? With 3 axis mill and 2 axis lathe posts, I have always started from a file generated in the UPG but it seems that option isn't available for mill/turn and the tutorial ones are the only ones I can find to start from. We've been using HSM Works for the past few years and I got spoiled because they have a slew of posts available in source code that can be easily modified in java. I haven't written a CAMWorks post for about 10 years so I'm a little rusty with this frustrating mess.

Thank you much,
Ryan

You're probably well beyond this point by now. Sorry for the underwhelming response here. CAMWorks seems to be more and more of a niche product despite it being adopted by Solidworks themselves. I'm getting back into CAMWorks at my new job so I'll try to be here on the forum more often to help out.

Regarding your post question, when I create a new post I always start with a fresh template from the latest version of the Universal Post Generator. I also copy the latest Mill.LIB, Lathe.LIB, etc as well as the Master.ATR from the UPG folder into the post-specific folder and direct the .SRC file to those instead of the originals. Geometric occasionally releases new files and I want any customization I've made to be retained.

If the post you're using allows you to use all the features you need and is close to the format you want then I'd say use that instead. I think the tutorial files used to prevent you from posting code, but it sounds like that is not the case anymore?

Thank you for the reply. I couldn't ever figure out how to use the UPG to start a mill/turn file. As far as I can tell, it works for mill posts or lathe posts, but not live tooling lathes (mill/turn).

I've got my post about 99% ready now starting from the tutorial source files. By default it did some pretty stupid stuff that would have caused crashes, but I think I'm slowly working my way through the bugs.

Thanks again.

Hi Ryan,
Please tell me please if you can help with your post for HAAAS ST30-Y for CamWorks. We have a new machine and need to start some how.

Thank you.

You helped me a lot with this post!