[seapacer2]

Hello,

I have owned a Bridgeport Series 1 with a Anilam Crusader M 3-axis controller for little over a year now, before that I had a Bridgeport Series 1 with a 2-axis Prototrax Plus. My CNC skills were very limited in the beginning, they have gotten very good working with the Crusader M. The Crusader M works very well in all functions and I have made a lot of parts over the year. I have built a chip enclosure on 3 sides and many usable fixtures, added a mister and a quick change tooling system with collets. This has allowed me to control and manage Tool Length Offset, a task that is very hard to do with the standard R-8 tooling.

I Purchased Bob-cad V24 when I owned my first mill, Bob-Cad seemed to assist in the post process writing as the standard post did not full function correctly, it seemed to error on every program. I took my controller to Bob-Cad as I only live about 2-3 miles from their place of business and they seemed to get a good post up and running in about a week, I was pretty impressed. The 2-axis machine was very limiting in the items I wanted to fabricate so I upgraded to the 3-axis machine. I just do this for a hobby as this is not my career path in paying the bills. Before making the purchase of the new machine I checked with Bob-cad about the possibilities of the software working and operating with the Anilam Crusader M and working post process. They said it could be done and I proceeded in the acquiring of the 3-axis machine.

I proceeded with downloading the standard post process for Bob-Cad, all of the posts very quickly would error and would not work out of the box. I contacted a few members from this and another forum, a member contacted me, he helped me write a good working post processor (TPODGEWAITE). I have been using that post and making minor adjustments, it has been working pretty good except for the canned cycles using multiple tool changes. So far I have been making all parts utilizing 1 tool, but since evolving and making more complex parts, this has and will be requiring tool changes. I have been receiving Circle Errors (with no numerical codes) running any canned cycles and more than 1 tool and it errors right after the tool change command.

Has anyone else had this or experienced this problem? Does anyone have a good working post process for Bob-cad for the Anilam Crusader M that I could compare? Any info or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

[mmoe]

The first step is that you need to figure out what the controller wants. The error is that the controller is expecting a specific format for the tool change, and the post processor is producing a code that it doesn't understand. Many of us on the forum can help you modify the post processor to correct this, but first you'll have to provide us with the correct format as well as the post processor that you are currently using. Once we have that information, it's just a matter of adapting the post processor to match the controller's needs. Bobcad's post processor is one of the most flexible out there, so I'm sure it will be able to be resolved. Without knowing what your controller wants, though, it will be very difficult to help. If you don't know, then you may have to start by going to a forum with Anilam users, ask what the format for G-code is that the machine needs for toolchanges, and then come back with that information (as well as your current post processor).