[BurrMan]

Burrman
I am starting to understand this now, after reading your. If the 3 inch deep stock is offset from center with 1 inch above center and 2 inches below center, and you create a cut 1 inch deep to zero with the first cut, then index to the other side, cutting to zero would be cutting 2 inches of stock.

I changed my ORIGIN to the centre of the pin / shaft which you placed in the panelvan. I thought your way of this was better then mine.

But after rotating 180 degrees instead of cutting 3mm depth, I was cutting 12mm (approximately) which is ok as the flute are long enough and I just slowed the feed rate down by 50%. It cut it , no worries.

The other question was when it started to do the second last cut, (4 axis Rotary) Within the first minute, the cutter slowly plunged through the centre pin / shaft. which was a bit of a shock.

But then looking back through the screens, the patterns screen, I seen it had -5.something in the rotary axis. I changed that to +2 and now I am getting there.

It's so good to just try things and it works, rather then getting frustrated, like last time.

Thanks again Burrman

I hope this helps other people also.
Regards
Kel

Kel, i'm guessing a couple things with what you are seeimg. Heres some info.

The top of stock setting at the feature level will automatically be filled per the current stock setup of initial file. If you "subsequently move" tbat origin point of the machine setup, all the current features dont "automatically adjust" to a new value. They stay as they originally were. In older versions, even new features may grab that original value.

The thing to take away is to understand the stock being created per the job, and thats the FIRST thing setup for your file.

"""""The rotary axis was -.5""""""

In those previous files, we had set your part to rotate down at the "license plate" of the truck/van. All that needs to be reset if you want to change these things. My suggestion is if you've decided to setup the machine 0's and axis points, is to start a fresh file with just the geometry, then go from there.

As i originally discussed with you, with regard to 4th axis work (indexing and rotary paths) the zero point and origin is usually at the center of the rotary.its just the easiest way to set everything up and keep track of numbers to.

You can set these things anywhere really, but you'll have to keep track of alot of things such as hieght and depth values and particular coordinate settings. The nature of the beast.

[nivlek]

After 8 months, I’ve had a chance to get back onto this again. After, another trial and failure. (That’s three so far) I have cracked it, finally.

I still believe that BobCad, kind of, machines in areas where it shouldn’t. For example, the final 2mm round ball nose cutter, fouls around the grill / headlight area on the shaft of the cutter. It was minor, and I had slowed the speed to 70% and it simply burned its way through for 2 passes.

Overall, I am happy to have done a six sided figure with a 4th axis machine. Albeit not perfect.

I would like to thank BurrMan, jrmach, ShortTrack, RAF, mmoe, and SBC cycle. Without these special people and this forum, I would have been too frustrated to finish this. And, I would have simply blamed BobCad for its down fall. But in reality, I have to learn the programme, play with the programme and in the end, I got a good result.

I am still using BobCad V25 as it has all the necessary functions I need.

The picture shows the machine milling / cutting the piece



regards
Kel