[jcposada]

I remember reading something about this being.one of Pathpilots advantages over Mach3. I did the usual googling but I'm not sure I understand well.

Can someone please explain what it is and what it does? What are the advantages and why should I care?

Or, if there is a beginner guide or othe resources you are aware of that may be helpful, I'm all ears!

[oneineight]

Are you asking about tool nose radius, like on a lathe?
Or cutter compensation on a mill?

[jcposada]

On a mill.

[oneineight]

My back ground education is with Haas but I plan to buy a tormach.
With no comp, the center of the tool follows the line. Haas G40.
Cutter comp left, the center of the tool follows a line one radius of the tool on the left side of the programmed line. Haas G41.
Cutter comp right, the center of the tool follows one radius to the right of programmed line. Haas G42.
Hope this helps.

[bevinp]

There is loads of info on this topic, just Google.

[bevinp]

Sorry about my last post.... I didn't re read your original post where you say you googled.
What oneineight said is correct. It is the adjustment that a CAM will use to calculate the path of the centre of the cutter needed to have the cutting edges of the tool trace the outline of the part.

This link is for many diagrams of cutter radius compensation.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=c...w=1243&bih=976

Bevin
PS All the text of the link is not showing but it works fine.

[jcposada]

I get that part of the theory. I guess what I am asking is under what scenarios is there a specific advantage? I mean, not having to worry about tool diameter would be great especially if you are hand coding but then, won't your spindle speed be dependent on diameter anyway? There is obviously a piece of this equation that has not clicked for me ...

[Perfect Circle]

I get that part of the theory. I guess what I am asking is under what scenarios is there a specific advantage? I mean, not having to worry about tool diameter would be great especially if you are hand coding but then, won't your spindle speed be dependent on diameter anyway? There is obviously a piece of this equation that has not clicked for me ...

For example: If you are making a pocket or a boss and you need to "sneak up" on the dimension, you can use cutter comp.
1.000 diameter hole plus 0.0000 miuns 0.00025
Rough the diameter then finish undersize about 0.998 or so,
Then re-run your finish pass with a spring pass, check size, adjust cutter comp and re-run finish cycle.
Or if you are using a re-ground cutter, lets say 0.495 then you can comp the tool and blam! you have a 0.500 diameter cutter....lol...blam!

Here, this guy can explain in further detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wZ9lvGhqOw

Good Luck~!:cheers:

[bevinp]

jc,
If you are you trying to understand the advantages of PathPilot over Mach3 then that is a topic different to what tool radius compensation is.

One of the advantages of PP over Mach3 is that PP has a utility called “conversational coding” that is a simple CAM program within PP that produces Gcode for a small range of straightforward machining operations such as surfacing. The user needs only to input tool details, speeds and feeds and dimensions to be machined. This saves the user from hand coding or using a separate CAM program (not on the PathPilot computer) to produce the code. The utilities will include cutter radius compensation where required, using the details input by the user.

Similarly a CAM program will use the tool diameters input by user or retrieved from a tool library (compiled by the user) residing within the CAM program, and will employ tool radius compensation as it requires to generate the Gcode.

So in summary, the user will only have to grapple with radius compensation instructions if he wants to hand code. If I haven’t understood your question then please be more specific, such as quoting the advertising/article that mentions radius compensation as a PP advantage.

Bevin

[shred]

Sneaking up on sizes and compensating for tool wear are the usual uses for cutter comp. IIRC Mach 3 has/had it, but it never really worked properly. Most home-shop guys don't really need it anyway.

[jcposada]

Thanks everybody for your input. I was asking specifically about this feature and not generally about PP vs M3. Agree the conversational is a great addition.

So if I understood all the above correctly the main benefit of radius comp is that the hand programmer does not have to worry about tool diameter for purposes of calculating the toolpaths (although he will still need to take into account for feed and speed). Yes?

[tmarks11]

Exactly!

Cutter comp is handy if you are hand coding g-code, than you can just trace the perimeter of the part you want to cut, and cutter comp will shift the spindle over by the radius of the cutter.

But if you are using CAD/CAM software, it is pointless, since the CAM software will automatically offset the spindle based upon the endmill you chose for each cut... and do a lot better job than cutter comp could do.

[popspipes]

In Sprut I just enter the size of the (reground) cutter in my tooltable. If I want the part under or oversize I just use the stock option in parameters.


Edit: I do thank all you smart guys for explaning what it does in detail, at least now I know what its for!