[mhackney]

Firstly, I'm running Mach 3 on a G0704 converted mill. I've had some success milling with BobCAD output the last month or so. This is the first time I've used a drill cycle. I'm basically spot drilling a bunch of holes for a fixture I'm making. I've not run into this issue with VCarvePro so I suspect either I have a bad post or I configured something incorrectly in BC. The block is the one highlighted in the attached screenshot and you can also see the message in the status line near the bottom. I'm happy to post my bbcd file if that would help. I was hoping to get this knocked out tonight

Attachment 315514

[The Engine Guy]

Yes, please post the file, I have tried to replicate your issue on Mach3 here and I can`t, also upload your Gcode file as a .txt file and I will try your code in Mach3 and 4

Regards
Rob
:rainfro: :rainfro: :rainfro:

[mhackney]

I went back and re-did the part in BobCAD as I suspected it might have something to do with inexperience since this was one of the first parts I experimented with but never actually cut. This time it seems to work, I haven't cut yet but I ran in a local simulation copy of Mach and it didn't balk. Unfortunately, I don't have the old version so I think I'll just move on and call it "experience".

I did run into an odd thing though - the 1/2" hole on the left edge of the part is roughed as a pocket with a finish profile pass. I used the Spiral option for material entry with the default .25" radius. Even with simulation I did not notice that the roughing was actually cutting a much larger pocket offset from the center. So I ended up with a much larger hole that is offset. I would have expected BobCAM to report that the cut was going outside the boundary. Now I know to pay close attention to these things.

I use this hole as my datum and probe to find its center. I have a couple of options to fix this. I'm leaning towards milling a larger .9" hole offset so the incorrect hole is completely removed. The only reason I need to do this is because the finish pass took a little crescent out of the right side of the pocket so it is not perfectly round along X. In practice this should not cause a problem since I could still probe the middle and all of the hold down locations will be bored after probing. But I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I think I'll overbore the hole and adjust my part offset by .1" (which is what I determined by measuring) and go from there.

[mhackney]

Well, no it is still generating that error. I have to go back to VCarvePro to get this done. Oddly, it seems to work in the Mach simulation (i.e. Mach on my desktop with with no machine attached). I'd like to get to the bottom of this so I can work in BobCAD.

[The Engine Guy]

I went back and re-did the part in BobCAD as I suspected it might have something to do with inexperience since this was one of the first parts I experimented with but never actually cut. This time it seems to work, I haven't cut yet but I ran in a local simulation copy of Mach and it didn't balk. Unfortunately, I don't have the old version so I think I'll just move on and call it "experience".

I did run into an odd thing though - the 1/2" hole on the left edge of the part is roughed as a pocket with a finish profile pass. I used the Spiral option for material entry with the default .25" radius. Even with simulation I did not notice that the roughing was actually cutting a much larger pocket offset from the center. So I ended up with a much larger hole that is offset. I would have expected BobCAM to report that the cut was going outside the boundary. Now I know to pay close attention to these things.

I use this hole as my datum and probe to find its center. I have a couple of options to fix this. I'm leaning towards milling a larger .9" hole offset so the incorrect hole is completely removed. The only reason I need to do this is because the finish pass took a little crescent out of the right side of the pocket so it is not perfectly round along X. In practice this should not cause a problem since I could still probe the middle and all of the hold down locations will be bored after probing. But I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I think I'll overbore the hole and adjust my part offset by .1" (which is what I determined by measuring) and go from there.

Hmmm, as you haven`t uploaded a file or images no idea really what you are talking about

Usually if you are going outside a hole with a spiral entry the spiral radius is too large

Only think I can think of with the drilling cycle is that on the machine you will have set a Part Zero, if that isn`t set to Z0.00 then you could have a problem I assume testing on your desktop you haven`t set that ? ?

[mhackney]

Good point! And now that I know this one fails I can upload everything. Here they are:

a screen shot of the part showing the datum

a zip file with the bbcd and gcode file

Sorry about that!

Yes, I understand the spiral entry thing but in other products I've used a warning would be generated or no tool path created. I was surprised that BobCAD didn't do that but, as I said, now I know.

I did emulate how I set the part 0 on the desktop. I'll go back and look at that again just to be sure.

regards,
Michael

[mhackney]

Ok, I went back and tested on my desktop Mach. It is configured as identically to my machine as possible. I set the Z0 and acted as if I was actually making this part. No problem or errors.

[The Engine Guy]

Try the attached file, the only discrepancy I can find with a quick look through is that you have the depth set at 0.08 in the parameters for your holes but you also have it set at 0.75 in the "Feature Depth" setting and your top of stock set at 0.75, gets confusing working like that for me

So I have re-set your stock top to 0.00 and re-set the feature tops and feature depths and it works for me, give it a try and let us know how it goes, I can`t run it in a machine till tomorrow for a full test

Regards
Rob
:rainfro: :rainfro: :rainfro:

[mhackney]

Thats Rob.

I'm confused about the top of stock being .75". I prefer to work with Z=0 at the top surface of the stock so all cuts are in the negative direction. When I look at the coordinate indicator, it is on the top surface of the stock right in the center of the larger hole - which is my X=Y=0 point to indicate before starting milling. What am I missing about setting the Z=0 at top of the stock?

[mhackney]

Ok, I see what's up. Somehow in your bbcd the entire part is moved down so the top surface is at Z=0. That is not how I drew it in Rhino CAD, I usually "draw up" from the Z=0 plane. How did you do that? Now that I see what you mean by Z=0 I get it, I just don't know how to move my parts in BobCAD to achieve that.

It also makes sense why I haven't run into this before. Usually I use 2D on a 2D drawing. This is one of the first parts I imported as a 3D drawing. I'd prefer to do it this way though.

cheers,
Michael

[The Engine Guy]

Ok, I see what's up. Somehow in your bbcd the entire part is moved down so the top surface is at Z=0. That is not how I drew it in Rhino CAD, I usually "draw up" from the Z=0 plane. How did you do that? Now that I see what you mean by Z=0 I get it, I just don't know how to move my parts in BobCAD to achieve that.

It also makes sense why I haven't run into this before. Usually I use 2D on a 2D drawing. This is one of the first parts I imported as a 3D drawing. I'd prefer to do it this way though.

cheers,
Michael

To move anything be it solid or 2D wireframe (Geometry) you would use the "Translate" facility, go to the "Utilities" tab and then select "Translate" and you should get what is shown in the image below, then just type in the distance you want something to move either in the X, Y or Z direction or any combination of those and then select the item, in your example file everything is moved down 0.75 in the Z so the top of your solid is then at Z0 so it can all be just "box selected" by holding down the left mouse button and dragging a box around everything, then either right click and left click OK on the dialog that appears or simply press the space bar on your keyboard and that will move everything down and show a preview of where it is going to go to, if happy then click the OK button in the Translate window in the image and then click the Cancel button and that will complete the move, sounds a lot but it isn`t really, just practice moving a block around for starters till you have it off pat, should take all of 2 minutes

Attachment 315828

As you can see I have set the Z distance to a -0.75 to move it downwards

Regards
Rob
:rainfro: :rainfro: :rainfro:

[mhackney]

Thanks. After I posted I started poking around and found translate. I haven't quite figured out how it works. I understand the principle and even entered -.75 but it didn't seem to work. I poked around like a monkey and finally got it to work. I have 2 other files that are similar so I opened one of them but couldn't get it to work at all. This one has five 1/4" thick disks (3" D) so it is not a rectangular block like the one above. I selected Translate, then selected (window drag) the parts, entered -.25 for Z and hit space. Nothing happened. I see you also have to click OK in the dialog above and then Cancel, is that the secret?