6 axis milling machine

[Anonymous]

Hi,

does anyone have experience with programming of 6 axis milling machine in PowerMill? Can anyone give me any advice and guidelines how to setup PP for this (or provide me some examples)? 

Tanks. 

[kukelyk]

I think You will need two separate 5 axis postprocessors.

[paolo.bastianelli]

Hi @Anonymous and thanks for your post.

It depends on the controller you are using. Could you be more specific in terms of machine and controller please?

Thanks,
Paolo

[Anonymous]

Hi Paolo. Tanks for reply.

It is Heidenhain iTNC 640 controller.

Kinematics of machine is as follows:

 - Table: translation X and Y; rotation C

 - Head: translation Z; rotation A and B

[paolo.bastianelli · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

I spoke to the post processor team and they said we could probably supply a vector post for your controller. Alternatively we could provide a rotary post that can drive any 2 of the 3 rotary axes. These would have to be requested to your Autodesk commercial contact who will then raise a ticket for it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the simulation in PowerMill will also only use 2 rotary axes unless the PowerMill Robot Interface is used.

Thanks,
Paolo

[zfreitas]

Hello,

DO you know if with vectors I can still used drilling cycles?

Thanks

[l.ponsaerts]

Hi Paolo,

I also have a request for Powermill driving a 6 axis machine : XYZ, two rotary axes (A & B, head-head configuration) plus a third C axis on the B axis, rotating 360°), the machine will be used as a 6 axis additive machine for printing concrete.

It has a Siemens 840 control.

Probably only possible using the robot interface?

[kelvin.hamilton]

Hello Luc.

I'm running a couple of 5+ axes machines with Additive using just the standard 5x post.
On these machines not all axes are driven simultanuously. In your case, are all driven simultanuously or do you have some positioning axes?

[l.ponsaerts]

Simulaneously. If the 6th axis were to be used as a positional axis a user defined paramerter can be used. But here it is simulraneously.

[kelvin.hamilton]

I see.

Then treating it as a 'robot' is your best bet.

[zfreitas]

That is not true Paolo.

We do have a 6 axis post for a FPT VERUS machine up and running!

[Anonymous]

FPT VERSUS machine 

ware can I find this post. this is something I can edit