Facemilling of parts, from multiple stock heights.

[nicholas.smith9QNX4]

We do a simple operation of facemilling, and have so far just sett the machine to face mill from approx 30mm height to 10mm height.

The reference is set to bottom of vice.

Stock height can be from 12mm to 40mm, it all depends on what client provides.

In many cases the mill runs in the air, a few cuts, and then start milling when it gets to the stock height.

This is not a big problem on carbon steel material, but on Inc625 there is alot of air time.

I am trying to optimise the milling time.

My question is, is there a solution, where i can use my probe to measure stock height. And then machine down to the 10mm i am aiming for. It will require the CNC to calculate how many cuts its need based on cut depth.

[seth.madore]

In your Setup, what are you defining your Stock size as?

[nicholas.smith9QNX4]

As per now, i have set it to 30mm.

This is to cover as many "common" sized stock as possible.

We use the CNC in standardized programs, due to personnel in workshop do not have the knowledge to program.

And do not have time.

[seth.madore · Accepted solution]

I've been giving it some thought over the last couple of days. I don't think this is easily possible in Fusion. However, one would be able to make a roughing macro where it uses the generated Fusion program as it's "base" g-code, but applies multiple depths of cut with a defined start and stop height. This is all going to take place at the control, but one could create the macro in Fusion using the Manual NC commands. However, this is all outside the realm of Fusion, and will require some self guided instruction and trial and error on your part.

[nicholas.smith9QNX4]

Hi,

Thanks for reply, I was afraid of this.

I will take some time and see if I can figure out macros.

[olaYATNG]

Hey, old topic but interesting to me since I also have a varying thickness of my wooden boards I use for my products.

I only need to be able to tell the router how thick the material is somehow and do exactly the same for all cuts that is relative to the top of material (this is of course measured before each board is processed) but then the contour which cuts out the product should leave 0.5 mm from BOTTOM and I can't for my life figure out a way to do this in Fusion 360.

No need to figure out how many steps etc, I have a variance of 1 mm at most and process wood... but how can I allow for a variable thickness without having to fire up the computer and alter parameters in CAM between each wooden board?

Best regards
Ola
 

[seth.madore]

While the thickness of the board varies, do they always end up at the same thickness after machining, or is that also variable?

Where do you establish your WCS Z zero at the machine; top or bottom of stock?

[olaYATNG]

They still vary in thickness after millling.

So basically I want to cut some stuff relative to top and some stuff relative to bottom.

Having program prompt for thickness at the beginning of each run of program seems like toe obvious way to do this to me but I can't figure out how to do this.

Thanks, Ola 

[olaYATNG]

Just solved the problem for my needs, but have yet to find a general solution.

My solution:

In my case the thickness varies only with a mm, so the simplest solution was to create five programs and name these according to the thickness. 1850 (18.50 mm) 1875 1900 1925 and 1950

The only difference between these programs are of course how thick the board is and this needs to be measured before one chooses what program to run.

Cheers, Ola

[seth.madore]

The general solution is likely not going to be found in Fusion, but in the use of a macro program.

[olaYATNG]

In fact I had a long zoom meeting with their support regarding this and there is no solution today that does what I want to do (that is choosing thickness at router, not by starting up Fusion). I proposed that they add a Manual NC variant that is something like "Prompt for Variable" and then make this variable selctable in CAM (at least in the Heights tab). This then have the downside of making it dependant on the PLC running the machine (not all of them cares about M109 et).

I hope they come up with something brilliant.

I will continue to have multiple variants of the same program because this actually works 🙂