Post Processors - Makino - Is horizontal any different than Vertical?

[Anonymous]

I saw on the "What’s New November 2020 – Post Processors Edition"

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/updates-to-post-processors/

That there is an updated makino post with optional 4th axis,  I am looking for a post processor for my a61nx with the pro5 control (fanuc31ib5 based)  

I am going to assume this was written for a vertical machine in mind,  is there a reason that the same post processor would not work on a horizontal?   

Is 

[engineguy]

@Anonymous 

Depends a lot on the configuration of your machine, if it is a basic Z axis moving out and in on a ram and the X axis is left to right and the Y axis is up and down with the rotating table is the B axis then it may be possible to change the machine configuration to use a B axis instead of the A axis as used on a vertical if that is what you need.

[Anonymous]

It does indeed use a B axis instead of an A axis.   I don't think it should be that hard to modify the post for that if I need to if everything else is dialed in for the Makino M and G codes.   

It also has the axis orientation that you are describing.   Z is in and out of the Tombstone,   Y axis is up and down of the spindle, and X axis is left and right of the spindle.   

[engineguy]

@Anonymous 

OK, that sounds good, I would expect most of the G and M codes to be pretty close, below is the area in the PP that deals with the Machine Configuration, there are a few things to change but not too difficult, normally "coordinates" used for axis configuration are 0=A, 1=B, 2=C so where a coordinate for the aAxis in the image below is set to 0 then if you were to change the aAxia to bAxis the 0 would be changed to 1, first image is as set for A Axis on a Vertical, second image is what I think it would be for a B axis which is normally rotated around a Y axis which is what you have.

Here is the second image with what I think will run a B axis, test with great care, usual caveat applies, "use at own risk"  🙂 🙂 🙂

Hope this gets you a little closer 🙂 🙂 🙂

Stay Safe

Regards

Rob

[Laurens-3DTechDraw]

There is a nice Autodesk University class on this topic.

Find it here: https://www.autodesk.com/autodesk-university/class/Fusion-360-Horizontal-Mills-2020 

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for the suggestions Laurens, that was very useful and I watched it several times.   

I have been getting acquainted with how the machine wants to see the code, now I can see how close this is.   

[Anonymous]

I checked out the post and the code is nowhere near what my Makino needs to code configured for.   

Mine uses Pro 5 with 31ia5 backend.   

Not sure what Makino this was intended for but the Mcodes and data format certainly is nowhere close to being right for mine.