Brother Post Updates?

[glrra30]

I was wondering if someone could shed some light on how updates are incorporated into the released posts that are distributed with Fusion and other HSM products or posted at https://cam.autodesk.com/posts/  ?

My machine uses an A00 control, just to set the frame for my observations.  I would appreciate comments from other Brother operators on their experiences.

The two primary concerns I have with the current release Brother post (2017-09-14) are:

1)  The use of G20/G21 to set units - A00 control units are set in User Parameters and G20/G21 are not supported

2) The use of G17/G18/G19 w/ G02/G03 for arcs and circles - A00 Brother uses G02/G03 for XY plane, G102/G103 for ZX, and G202/G203 for YZ

Someone helping me with some other issues pointed my in the direction of a 2014 forum post by ChrisJones7720, were Laurens had made some changes to a FANUC based post that addressed both of these issues.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/hsm-post-processor-forum/post-processor-for-brother-tc-s2b/m-p/608603...

What I've done is taken the commented changes that Laurens made in that older FANUC post for use on Chris' Brother and made those same changes using the 2017-09-14 Brother Post as a starting point.  That way all of the other positive progress made on a Brother specific post are not lost by using a post from 2014.

I've done my best to comment all changes made in the hopes that someone could incorporate them into the official release version on the next update.

Question:

Do any other Brother controls need G17/G18/G19 and G20/G21 or they all like my A00 control.  If those are needed by other controls (B00 or C00), could it be turned on and off by a user-defined property? 

Here is a sample screenshot from Meld (a file comparator) showing some of the output differences between the release version (1001) and my modified version (1002).  I've also included the modified post as an attachment.

[fredsi]

The original post ran just fine in Fusion on my iMac. 

Fred

[fredsi]

Eric,

Quick update. As mentioned earlier, original post ran fine on iMac. But fired up Fusion this morning on Windows machine at work and would not post till 'properties' prefix was added to the property references in body of the code.

Fred

[glrra30]

If you would post or e-mail your version with the added 'properties' I will update mine.

[fredsi]

Here is what is working now in Win10 Inventor HSM. 

Fred

[glrra30]

Happy Halloween!

My Treat for you is an update with A00 Circular Plane Interpolation now a User Selectable Option!!

The updates to correct the "properties.XXX" also taken care of.

Also decided to drop TCNET in favor of "NC" for the file Suffix.

Run some CAM samples and compare to the output of your favorite Brother Post Processor.

See my previous post for links to the Meld tool for comparison of text files.

-Eric

[fredsi]

Eric,

Nice work....

Hopefullly other folk will give this a good workout and ultimately turn it into a candidate for inclusion on the post library site. Certainly setup for use with the modern Speedio machines. Thanks.

Fred

[glrra30]

So updated based on feedback from forum member "ees4".  He has been using my post on his S700x1.

Updates/New Features:

Added homePositionCenter option to center part under spindle before moving table forward at end of cycle
Added 2 second dwell after first TSC start of the cycle to let prime, does not repeat, currently no option available to skip.

Other suggestions he made, but not in this version include:

Table Cleaning dance, Run coolant in pattern over table to wash away as many chips as possible.

He also mentioned that his TSC seems to run for a second with M400 Chip Shower is started on his S700x1.  I have an older machine without TSC, so can't comment on it.  Is this normal behavior on Speedio's with TSC??

Anyone else been using my post?  Any issues that need to be fixed or improvements that you'd like to see?

[Anonymous]

I was messing around with the revised post today. 

The homePositionCenter works nicely, although not quite as nice as a repeatable location from program to program. That way, I could aim a few chip wash nozzles at the same spot every program and avoid downtime cleaning chips that pack up. I didn't check how this behaves with mulptile offsets yet.

The 2 second dwell does the trick perfectly on the TSC. If you're running some real high volume stuff with short cycles this might be annoying, but I don't really see it ever being an issue for me, and its not super difficult to edit out. I don't see a way in the user settings to have the machine wait until the TSC pressurizes, it will only alarm if it fails to do so in a set period of time. This helps solve the initial dry run of TSC tooling, since most of the time I run a TSC facemill or drill early on, and then the TSC wont run again until it hits the top of the program in another 10-30 minutes.

Turns out the TSC running at the end of the program was a back flush thats on by default.

[Anonymous]

A few issues I noticed...

If the same tool is used in a subsequent operation, but the spindle speed changes, no new spindle speed will be output.

Dwell times in drilling cycles are input in ms, but the control interprets them in seconds.

If more than one offset is used, the machine will park centered on the last used offset, this tends to work fine.

[glrra30]

Thanks for the feedback.

I think I fixed the spindle speed for same tool.  I also added a check for change of spindle rotation, can't think of when this might be used, but just in case.

Try it out.  You should get spindle speed changes if using the same tool with different speeds now.

Are you using HSM?  Fusion Drill Cycle input is in seconds.

I'm going to have to look at this, in Fusion, adding dwell to G73 is causing it to not use the G73 cycle, instead I get peck-retract-peck-retract g-code . . . .

[Anonymous]

Awesome! I'll give it a shot tomorrow. I've used spindle reversal combined with a thru collet coolant blast to ensure birdsnests are cleared when that kind of thing matters. So far I didn't have that issue on the Speedios.

Yeah, this is HSM in Solidworks. It wont let me input decimal time, it only takes integers.

[SpammersDeserveDeath]

I like the TSC delay, I think I'll add something like that to my post. My TSC takes forever to pressurize (which has partially scared me off of using it) and I'm always at the machine when it's running so it's no problem to be forced to hit the button.

I think I might do it something like this, in the appropriate place in my "turnCoolantOn" function...

if (properties.delayFirstTSC) {
  if (!primedTSC) {
    writeBlock(mAdd.format(494));
    writeBlock("/GOTO99999");
    writeHeader("Optional pause to pressurize TSC.");
    writeBlock(mAdd.format(0));
    writeBlock("N99999");
    var primedTSC = true;
  }
} else {
  writeBlock(mAdd.format(494));
}

(Edited because I realized the first thing I wrote wouldn't work right. Maybe the new stuff wouldn't work either.)

[SpammersDeserveDeath]

Welp, I had that all wrong. The program stop/M00 command stops the spindle, so that's no good. M01 does too, so it's not an option either. Also, it seems the optional block character is ignored (AKA it has no effect) unless the B. Skip button is pressed, so my addition of the slash before the GOTO line makes it work the opposite way to what I was expecting. I'm going to the G04 P# method as well. (I'd edit my post above so that wrong things didn't remain posted, but I guess it's been too long.

[Anonymous]

A bit delayed, but I've been getting this kind of stuff out of the latest post. It's at the end of some blocks, but not all. Sometimes its one and not the other, sometimes its both. If I throw it out manually it does indeed work and change spindle speed when requested.

G00 Z0.315
G17
M09
(insertToolCall = TRUE
M01
(insertToolCall = FALSE
G28 G91 Z0
G90