topic Re: thickness set for fixtures in PowerMill Forum

thickness set for fixtures

kukelyk — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 09:07:21 GMT

Hi After importing an electrode model into Pm2016, I separate the model to two layers, one for the electrode holder, and one for the electrode. In the default thickness set, I add the surfaces of the holder to a set, with "Collision" setting, with 0.1mm thickness. There would be no problem, if I do not use negative thickness values in the toolpaths.. But when I define -0.3 mm thickness, the result of the thicknesses will be 0.1-0.3 = -0.2! How should I define the 0.1mm absolute clearance for the holder?

Thanks in advance

Re: thickness set for fixtures

kandennti — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 11:00:42 GMT

Hi.kukelyk

Did you make the PMill project using a template object?
"If you create a template object with the default thickness set value other than 0,
It does not work properly "
I have been told by the Japanese support center.
(Although it was not a problem in 2013, it was said that it will be a problem in 2017)

Re: thickness set for fixtures

kukelyk — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 11:23:42 GMT

nope, it is a standard way (stored in a macro):

-import parasolid model

-separate them

-add holder surfaces to thickness set.

Re: thickness set for fixtures

iamcdn79 — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 11:35:50 GMT

Hey @kukelyk

I don't have 2016 installed anymore but I tried doing this in 2019 and it seems to keep the collision set at .1, try it in 2019 or am I doing something different from what you are?

Re: thickness set for fixtures

iamcdn79 — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 11:51:59 GMT

Sorry @kukelyk I didn't have the negative thickness set in my toolpath in the previous post. When I did it was the same result as yours, so what my workaround was to add .4 mm of thickness to the collisions set to give me the .1 clearance.

Re: thickness set for fixtures

Sudhira — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 16:52:49 GMT

@kukelyk wrote:
Hi After importing an electrode model into Pm2016, I separate the model to two layers, one for the electrode holder, and one for the electrode. In the default thickness set, I add the surfaces of the holder to a set, with "Collision" setting, with 0.1mm thickness. There would be no problem, if I do not use negative thickness values in the toolpaths.. But when I define -0.3 mm thickness, the result of the thicknesses will be 0.1-0.3 = -0.2! How should I define the 0.1mm absolute clearance for the holder?
Thanks in advance

Hi Kukelyk,

Thanks for posting in Autodesk Community!!!

With regards to you recent query of collision in component thickness, i share my point of view to resolve. The collision option help you to select to add component thickness to a component which will not be machined but must be avoided (such as a clamp). I prepared a short video which will clear you query very closely. If my post answers your query, please click on 'Accept as Solution' button.

Re: thickness set for fixtures

rafael.sansao — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 00:35:45 GMT

I do not think there's any way to do that.
You could enter a question in your macro and enter the smallest value.
The macro does the account and already inserts a safe value.

Not ideal. But I see no other way to do that.

Re: thickness set for fixtures

kukelyk — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 06:31:09 GMT

Thanks for Your efforts @Sudhira.

I do the same, but the resulting toolpath hits the clamps.. see attached image and (PM2018) project

Re: thickness set for fixtures

Sudhira — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 06:39:55 GMT

Can you please share your project to review.

Re: thickness set for fixtures

kukelyk — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 06:40:29 GMT

Yes @rafael.sansao, I think so too, but a CAM system (with the cost of PMill..) should treat fixtures and clamps...

The toolpath thickness and the fixture clearance are independent parameters of each other (in Siemens NX for example)

Re: thickness set for fixtures

iamcdn79 — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 11:14:47 GMT

@kukelyk It worked on mine end, are we doing something different than you?

See attached video here and project. Project was done in 2019

Re: thickness set for fixtures

kukelyk — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 11:41:21 GMT

See above

Re: thickness set for fixtures

kukelyk — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 11:42:06 GMT

Unfortunetely I have no pm 2019 yet :sad:

Re: thickness set for fixtures

iamcdn79 — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 11:45:44 GMT

Here is the 2018 version

Re: thickness set for fixtures

kukelyk — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 12:15:59 GMT

Ok, if You increase the thickness set's thickness value greater then the undercut, then everything is ok, but I rather not change this value...

I cannot believe that there is no direct way for this...

Re: thickness set for fixtures

iamcdn79 — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 12:27:27 GMT

I agree, the only other thing I can think of is to scale your clamps bigger by your negative thickness value which you can than add .1 thickness but that is kinda the same thing as my original idea

Re: thickness set for fixtures

5axes — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 12:45:49 GMT

according to @craig.chester : https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/powermill-forum/powermill-2019/m-p/7927529#M9741

They are working on . Will be a nice improvement.

Re: thickness set for fixtures

5axes — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 14:14:16 GMT

Use a macro to check the right settings ?

function main() {

REAL MinimalSecurityThickness=0.1

GRAPHICS LOCK
// Ensure ECHO COMMANDS is OFF
DIALOGS MESSAGE OFF
ECHO OFF DCPDEBUG UNTRACE COMMAND ACCEPT	
INT ThicknessSetNr=0
  STRING $TpName = ''
  FOREACH ent IN REVERSE(FOLDER('Toolpath')) {
		$TpName = ent.Name
		ENTITY $Tp = ENTITY('toolpath', $TpName) 
		$ThicknessSetNr=0
		REAL Tp_Thickness = ent.Thickness
		REAL CorrectValue= $MinimalSecurityThickness-$Tp_Thickness
		
		IF $Tp_Thickness <0 {
				DO {
					STRING ThickMode=$ent.ThicknessSetValues[$ThicknessSetNr].Mode
					REAL ActThickness=$ent.ThicknessSetValues[$ThicknessSetNr].Thickness
					IF $ThickMode=="collision_check" {
					IF ($ActThickness+$Tp_Thickness)!= $MinimalSecurityThickness {
						MESSAGE ERROR "Wrong Thickness on collision_check for $TpName"
						UNLOCK TOOLPATH $TpName
						INVALIDATE TOOLPATH $TpName
						ACTIVATE TOOLPATH $TpName
						// $Tp.ThicknessSetValues[$ThicknessSetNr].Thickness=$CorrectValue
						EDIT TOOLPATH THICKNESS LIST UPDATE\r $ThicknessSetNr NEW
						EDIT TOOLPATH ; THICKNESS RADIAL_OFFSET $CorrectValue
						THICKNESS APPLY
						YES
						THICKNESS ACCEPT
					}
					}
					$ThicknessSetNr=$ThicknessSetNr+1
				} WHILE $ThicknessSetNr < 15
		}
	}

GRAPHICS UNLOCK
}

Re: thickness set for fixtures

kukelyk — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 09:56:43 GMT

It seems that I have to modify my macros to increase the thickness set's thickness value( with the spark gap) to get safe toolpaths. It is the cleanest solution, I think.

Re: thickness set for fixtures

kandennti — Tue, 03 Jul 2018 10:13:17 GMT

Hi kukelyk.

In order to avoid this problem I used a spark gap
It is not the thickness of the toolpath, it is set on the 'Component Thickness' side.

First, set the thickness including the 'Surface Defaults'.
Before batch processing, settings are copied to all the toolpaths with macro.

I do not know how to set the spark gap with 'Component Thickness' but it works.

Because it takes a lot of time to check 'Component Thickness',
I made a macro and attached it to 'MESSAGE 67' yesterday.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/powermill-forum/tips-amp-tricks/td-p/6519558/page/4?profile.language=en

I do not understand English, so there is a possibility that the words are wrong. We apologize in advance.