Post: Toolchange block numbers in setup/tooling sheet

Greetings!
I want to write all of my toolchange block numbers to setup/tooling sheet in my post, but I dont know how to travel data(TC block numbers) back to the setup sheet code constructor.

The setup/tooling sheet lists all of my tools in the sequence, but I want to reach later output data(TC block numbers) because in older cnc machines(slower machines) I using block search by block numbers. I dont want to search to eg. T15(string) in the cnc code, i want to search and jump to block numbers immediately. This is useful in cnc codes which has thousand of rows.

Example:

**SETUP SHEET**
N20 (T1 D6 ENDMILL)
N5614(T2 D8 BALL NOSE)
N15489 (T3 D10 ENDMILL)
**SEQUENCE**
...
...
N20 T1 M6(D6 ENDMILL)
...
...
...
N5614 T2 M6 (D8 BALL NOSE)
...
...
N15489 T3 M6 (D10 ENDMILL)
...
Tried with MASK but no success.

you can set the generator to only use block numbers on toolchange lines...N1 =T1... N2=T2, if tools are sequential and non-repeating that may be the simplest fix for your quest

Hi timf!

The machine is a five axis mill with millplus control. In this control blocks without block numbers not allowed, it generates error. The problem is: setup/tooling sheet code contructor is generated first in the code, but tc block numbers comes after, I tried with MASK (i think it allows two pass code generating), but can't figure it out how to properly use it. Something must to do with %SUBROUTINE but no idea how its logic works.

Thanks for your reply.

You could try to write lookahead macro. There are some samples in code wiz help.