[marbles]

Hi,

I wonder if someone might be able to assist.

I have 20 furniture legs to make. They are truncated cones 50mm one end 30mm the other, they are 300mm long.

I’m used to cnc milling so have set up a RhinoCAM tool path to do a continuos helix cut on my 4th axis from 50 to 30mm over the 300mm length.

I ran a trial of the job and could see in principal it would work but as I need to do 20 I need the tool tip to return to zero to start a new cycle with a new piece of dowel. I used Mach 3 controller but If I press GOTO ZERO the program attempts to cycle back through the complete spiral NOT an issue i've seen before. What I want it to do is lift above the job and go to zero whilst crucially resetting itself back to 0,0,0,0 for the next run to start.

Is there additional code I should add in the RhinoCAM mach 3 post processor or will I come across this issue with all Helix tool paths? Where should I look first to correct?

[dazp1976]

Hi,

I wonder if someone might be able to assist.

I have 20 furniture legs to make. They are truncated cones 50mm one end 30mm the other, they are 300mm long.

I’m used to cnc milling so have set up a RhinoCAM tool path to do a continuos helix cut on my 4th axis from 50 to 30mm over the 300mm length.

I ran a trial of the job and could see in principal it would work but as I need to do 20 I need the tool tip to return to zero to start a new cycle with a new piece of dowel. I used Mach 3 controller but If I press GOTO ZERO the program attempts to cycle back through the complete spiral NOT an issue i've seen before. What I want it to do is lift above the job and go to zero whilst crucially resetting itself back to 0,0,0,0 for the next run to start.

Is there additional code I should add in the RhinoCAM mach 3 post processor or will I come across this issue with all Helix tool paths? Where should I look first to correct?

How does your cam program post the job?
All my gcodes on my mill have a Z move at the end of the program to lift Z axis out of the way first before the program ends.
Then moves X,Y to 0 ready for next such as:
(A sample of one of mine)

(2. 3MM SLOTS)
(0 POINT BOTTM RIGHT Z=0)
(T5 D=3. CR=0. - ZMIN=-12.65 - FLAT END MILL)
G90 G94 G91.1 G40 G49 G17
G21
G0 Z30.
G90
(SLOT2)
M5
M9
T5 M6
S2500 M3
G54
M8
G0 X-171.56 Y128.525
G43 Z15. H5
Z4.
G1 Z1.. F300.
Y111.275 Z0.5............
JOB RUNNING
...............Y111.275 Z-12.65
Y128.525
G0 Z15.

M9
G0 Z100.
G0 X0. Y0.
M30

So it runs this slot program then at the end it puts Z to 100. and X,Y to 0.
Then I load in another piece and run again. So on and so on.

[marbles]

Very helpful thanks!! I'll run a variation of that to see how it works.

In the meantime I worked out when the toolpath finishes if I Zero Out on the the A axis (4th) and then press Go To Zero it returns to job start super fast without spiralling backwards forever