What is the point of the machine configuration file?

[Anonymous]

I am trying to figure out what the point of the machine configuration file is...

It seems like no matter what I set for axis range & limits in that file, the post simply overrides anything in those dialogs.

Is there any point to defining these in the first place?

[mattdlr89]

I’m not sure it’s very useful at the moment I haven’t used it. I think it has been put in place for future features and enhancements to Fusion.

Machine simulation will be added to Fusion this year and perhaps it will have more of a purpose when that update lands...

[rhdfmail]

It seems its still  some "quirks" with the interaction between post and machineconfigs that appears randomly.

I noticed that if you enter the post in the machineconfig  then the old (not NC-programs) postdialog doesn't pick up what post you entered so you have to select it every time you post. The NC-program method didn't read all the info in machine-config (like values for home posistion in X and Y)

It is a bit annoying when you cant rely on that values you entered actually ends up in or affects  your NC-code

[engineguy]

@Anonymous 

With respect, please forgive me but I am puzzled by your question, as far as I am aware the Machine Configuration actually has nothing to do with what is Posted in the G code.

It is simply a tool to use within Fusion that helps the user see if everything is correct before Posting code to send to the machine, if used correctly it will help the user make sure all is well before Posting.

For example, if you create a Machine that has a top spindle speed of say 6000rpm and you create an operation with a spindle speed of 10000rpm you will get a warning telling you the rpm is too high for the machine, just one example, same goes for cutting outside the machine limits, you will get prompts and if you override them then you get the Yellow triangle with the warnings.

Here are a few of the warnings from a Setup and Operation using a Mc Configuration that won`t support my actions, use it by all means but don`t expect it to be transferring information to the generated code, here a few example warnings I got for doing it wrong !!!!

[engineguy]

Video of proper simulation from BobCAD-CAM

[Anonymous]

Sure - there are those really basic things that it does...is that really that helpful? How often do you spec a feedrate over the rapid limit on your machine?

But in the machine config, you also define axis orientation, home position, and offsets...things you also do using createAxis in your post. It appears that this data is simply ignored.

Sure would be neat if your post could actually pull from those properties giving you a cleaner way to update machine data, and keeping the post code more generic for machines over 3ax.

[HughesTooling]

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@rhdfmail wrote:

I noticed that if you enter the post in the machineconfig  then the old (not NC-programs) postdialog doesn't pick up what post you entered so you have to select it every time you post. 

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I post to several different machines and set the machine in the setup, when I post the setup or any of the ops with in the setup the post dialog pickup the postprocessor I've set in the machine configuration. Find this pretty useful on it's own.

Mark

[rhdfmail]

Thats how it is supposed to work, and it worked for me too in the beginning when machine-configs  was released. Then it stopped working for some unknown reason.