Setting WCS offset

[Anonymous]

Hey folks! Me again.

Simple question again, that I cant seem to find the solution for.

I have a job bigger than the travel of my small mill, I'd like to fixture the part, do half of the job, move the part, and do the other half, using locating pins to move a known distance across an axis, easy peasy.

What is the proper way of doing this in HSMxpress?  In my head my process would be, create a fixture by drilling a hole pattern, then edgefind and zero to the corner of my stock, perform half of the job, move X inches along the hole pattern, refixture, and away I go.
My problem is, that I cant seem to draw a sketch off of the stock corners in hsmxpress as a point of reference, there's a number of ways "around" the problem, but it sure seems like there's a function I'm missing and not finding in the tutorial(s) and wiki.

[Steinwerks]

You'll need to create a stock sketch in order to do what you're thinking. The stock doesn't really exist outside of HSM as it's only used internally. Alternatively you can create a stock solid body in an assembly and use that, which works quite well.

[Anonymous]

Yep that appears to work!

one more!

Is there an easy way to divide faces, or otherwise prevent hsm from machining past its stock (at least by much?)

I was able to create my stock "box" and set WSC coordinates properly, but the long curved sides of the part  don't really obey being subdivided like that.

do I need to redo the part to have two splines divided at that point (seems dicey) or is there an eway way of doing this?  Picture attached incase i'm unclear.

[keith_clausen]

dastompa wrote:

Yep that appears to work! one more! Is there an easy way to divide faces, or otherwise prevent hsm from machining past its stock (at least by much?) I was able to create my stock "box" and set WSC coordinates properly, but the long curved sides of the part  don't really obey being subdivided like that. do I need to redo the part to have two splines divided at that point (seems dicey) or is there an eway way of doing this?  Picture attached incase i'm unclear.

I think I understand what you are trying to accomplish. There are a number of ways to do what I believe you are try to do. It would be much easier to create an example in you specific file if you can provide it (include what version of SW you are using).

Basically I would create a solid body of you actual stock and use alternate sketches to define your stock area/s. While this can either be done in part or assembly modes I usually prefer to use assemblies as there tends to be much more flexibility. Given you are using HSMXpress you will lack the ability of creating a resulting STL cut model of the first setup but regardless this is more of a visual benefit than a functional one. 

[Steinwerks]

Actually if you sketch a boundary and call it part of the "Model" it should avoid cutting into it. I have used this to keep 2D Adaptive out of vise jaws without creating extra bodies or assemblies.

[Anonymous]

Hm, thats an idea too, I was going to edit the sketch planes and make it into two or three "parts"

Basically the plan is this:

1. drill a bolt pattern into a fixture plate, drill a second set around 8 inches down the x axis
2. mount the plate, drill and mount the stock onto the plate
3. machine one half of the part
4. move the part to the second set of bolt holes ~8" away
5. machine the other half of the part (with wcs offset the same 8" on the model)

I figured that something like this was built in, since I didn't believe that moving a part to work around machine limitations was that unusual, perhaps it is!

Since it doesn't appear to be, yeah I can make the part as two "parts"  It just made more sense in my mind that if I constrained the stock to half the part for half of the job, the milling paths would also be constrained to what hsmxpress believes is the stock for that part of the job instead of following the model.

[Steinwerks]

dastompa wrote:
I figured that something like this was built in, since I didn't believe that moving a part to work around machine limitations was that unusual, perhaps it is!

It's very common, but I haven't ever used a CAM software that will do it for you. Another suggestion is to machine a feature in the first setup (we used dowel holes a lot at a previous job) to locate off of for the second setup and call that the WCS in Op2. You can even make it a feature that gets machine away in the second op so there's no hint of two setups (I was thinking shallow bore in the last pocket that goes away if you machine the pocket in Op2). Blending your contours well is going to be difficult.