[inthebay]

Hey guys,

I have a job where I'm engraving some date lines on tool pins of different diameters. Currently, I'm scaling the mastercam sketch to different levels for each pin diameter, creating a seperate toolpath group for each pin diameter, then copying and pasting the 2D contour engraving paths to the new groups and rechaining the geometry to the scaled sizes on each level. Is there a feature that allows for the scaling of the entire toolpath group, carrying a copy of the toolpaths with it, by any small chance in hell? Thanks for the input if you have a better way to do this!

[Superman]

You may be able to scale the toolpath within the machine control

Fanuc controls uses G51 XYZP or G51XYZIJK......see section 14.7 in this link
where XYZ is the scale origin point
P = 1.000 for 100% globally
IJK is individual axes (no decimal point)

so if you program G51 I1000 J1000 would scale the XY axes only about your part origin..... using a larger number would enlarge
G50 cancels the scaling

Other controls may have a different G code, but they should all have a variant of that function

[inthebay]

Damn, that's some great info! Thanks!

So for instance, Part origin is center of the pin, top face. I could input a G51 I800 J800 to scale the program down in X and Y to 80% of the size output to Gcode, and then G50 at the end of the program to remove scaling, correct?

[Superman]

Damn, that's some great info! Thanks!

So for instance, Part origin is center of the pin, top face. I could input a G51 I800 J800 to scale the program down in X and Y to 80% of the size output to Gcode, and then G50 at the end of the program to remove scaling, correct?

Yep......

note! ... not sure if imperial is 3 or 4 decimal ....ie I1000 or I10000 is 100%.....assume that if a decimal is required then (1.0) is the scaling factor ie 1.0=100%
it may depend on your machine's base unit setting ie thou or tenth of a thou,.....prove this off for yourself....it'll do it correct size.. or 10X larger

Just re-read the link for scaling I gave you
page 287 (top section) states that in using G51, the scale about point must always be stated, else the current tool position is the scale origin. I would say this also applies to using IJK
- found this out today when using the rotate program G code
- if you use the P variant for scale, ...being a global scale, it WILL effect any Zvalues and scale them as well.

HINT....it also says if you use a negative factor for 100%, ie I-1000 is the same as mirror image in X axis