[rlrhett]

I have an older version of MadCam that I use quite happily on my home made cnc machine with Mach3. However, for a while I've been invited to use a Haas VF3 at a community college. The only professor experienced with the machine is semi-retired, and not really available. The college is inviting people from outside to use the machine and share knowledge with the students. Seems like a plan, except I don't seem to have an appropriate post-processor.

I have looked at the existing post-processor files, and they look like just some text scripting language. However, none seem to work for the HAAS and I can't seem to modify them to work well. The closest seems to be the Mach2-Gcode postprocessor. However the Haas requires some things:

1. a "%" at the beginning AND END of every file.
2. a "G" statement at the beginning of every block (or no multi-line blocks)
3. a "." after every integer value. E.g. "F150." not just "F150"
4. No "G43 H1" statement for tool one. Offsets for tools 2+ are relative to tool 1 (unless someone knows what I'm doing wrong).

I can get the first two, but try as I might I cannot figure out how to get the decimal "dot" after the feedrate. Likewise, I have no idea how to tell it not to insert a "G43" statement for tool one but DO insert it for tools 2+. I assume there is an existing Haas postprocessor that is tried and true. This is not an obscure machine.

Is there somewhere I can download it? If not, can anyone guide me to modifying the postprocessor file to work better with this machine?

Thank You.

[Dan B]

I will attach my Haas post. We have been using this successfully for years. However, we don't have a VF3. Our Haas is a 12 or 13 year old Haas GR510. I'm not sure how the controller has changed over the years, but I think this is probably a good place to start.

Attachment 252466

Let me know if this works. It probably will be easy to fix if it doesn't. A sample of the beginning and the end of code that you know works would help too.

Dan

[rlrhett]

Unfortunately, the machine did not like this output. Still at issue is that the HAAS VF3 will not accept integer values. Your file outputs feedrate as an integer: "F1000" The HAAS must have a decimal after the feedrate thus: "F1000." I did discover that simply adding the "." WITHOUT quotes would add it to the end of the F statement, so I made that modification. I also added a G01 to all cut, not just first cut, and an F statement to all cut. I added the % to the end of the file. I now seem to have output that the HAAS doesn't reject. We'll see after a few more cuts.

Thanks.

[Dan B]

I figured you might have to do a couple of tweaks. Editing posts in madCAM is easy as you have discovered. Consult the help file, because there are more things you can do with the post than are illustrated in my old Haas post. Like I mentioned, our machine is old, and sits gathering dust most of the time now in one of our other plants.