4th Axis Siemens posting question

[possamai.cadcam]

Hi, 

When I post this program the A angle goes from A0 to A180 then turns to negative A-172 to A-7.5.

In the simulation it goes all around.

 

[a.laasW8M6T]

Hi

Is your rotary axis cyclic? Ie. when you jog past 360° does it reset to 0°

If so what I would recommend is to stop using the Machine simulation post for your machine sim and use your actual Siemens post.

You will need to make a few changes to the machine definition

Change the orientation to Custom and make the vector -1, this will make it the same output as the X(reversed) you had in the post settings.

Also change the Range to cyclic.

In the post processing tab select your post processor

Make sure in the post window to set the post property to "No Rotary"

You may also need to check use shortest direction(it doesn't apply to these positional moves but might be needed for simultaneous)

Now the machine simulation will use your post processor to generate the code that it will use to simulate.

The posted code will now keep climbing up positive A values after 180°

See attached with updated Machine definition

test carefully at the machine.

[possamai.cadcam]

Hello my friend,

The 4th axis can be set on the machine via parameters to cyclic or winding (sorry I don't if this is the right term).

It's currently set to winding and I cannot change beacuse there are too many legacy Featurecam programs posted this way.

I don't know when or why use one or another on the machine. If you could explain I'll appreciate. 

[a.laasW8M6T]

Ahh OK

I prefer Cyclic myself its much simpler, but my experience is with Heidenhain not Siemens.

I will have to look into it a bit more for a solution with a winding axis

[a.laasW8M6T]

Hi

It turns out to be a simple solution

Change the axis back to unlimited and change the preference to Positive

[possamai.cadcam]

Sorry for the late response,

I tried your suggestions and they worked fine.

Also tried using only the post without the machine simulation and the program came out just like my first post.

Honestly I got a bit confused, I didn´t know that I can have both post-processor and machine simulation changing the output of the code.

What is the right way of setting a machine with 4th axis? I mean, the safest and most reliable way.

We are about to get our Mazak VCN-700D with a Sankyo roller-cam 4th axis ready to run. I need to be very careful on this expensive machine, so all info is really apreciated.

As always, thanks for your support. 

[a.laasW8M6T · Accepted solution]

Setting a multi axis machine in the postprocessor is the old method before machine definitions were in common use.

While its still supported it is Deprecated and will eventually go away.

I recommend only creating Machine Definitions from now on, they are much easier and more powerful to set up.

all the Autodesk curated posts have been updated to fully support Machine Definitions.

For the new Mazak if you are not 100% comfortable making adjustments yourself it could be very worthwhile reaching out to a reseller to do the post development and set up your machine definition to guarantee success.

You should be able to get a 3d model for machine simulation from Mazak easily

You can find a list of resellers here:

https://www.autodesk.com/support/partners?solutions=Fusion%20360&services=Post%20Processor 

[possamai.cadcam]

Yeah for the Mazak I´m thinking of letting someone with experience write the post.

I always wrote all my posts for NX and Featurecam, but it was much easier to do the mods using Post Builder(NX) and Xbuild(FC) than one whole code in Javascript. But I´ll get there, already did lots of mods only by researching this forum.