Vortex question

[M_Hennig]

Hey guys, I know all the vortex, "dynamic", " adaptive clearing" tool paths are all the craze these days, and it's no argument that they are very effective way to clear material. But, I have found that safely changing a tool when it's dull or broken is next to impossible. How do you guys handle these situations? It sure is nice to just hit pause and spin the high feed inserts around to an new edge like in the very recent past.

[Alex470]

Hello M.Hennig,

If you have heidenhain on your machines, you can use M101/M102 "Automatic tool change with replacement tool if maximum tool life has expired", but i've never used it.

with other controllers, I don't know, Sorry

Alex

[M_Hennig]

That is exactly the problem,, the tool life has expired, now what? Where did it expire? How to handle the restart when you don't know where this should happen is dangerous.

[NanchenO]

We have two ways to handle this:

If the toolpath is used during the day, we split it using the cutting plate's duration. I handle it then with a full retract, move the tool near to the operator's door and an optional stop. He checks / turns or change the cutting plates and simply push the start button.

For overnight machining, we use "brother" tools. The programmer also splits his toolpath in two and changes the tool number for the second part in order to call the "fresh" tool.

The important thing is to handle the toolpath's start and end correctly in your postprocessor: You must make sure that they happen at the point that the programmer sees on his screen and only add moves that are 100% sure.

I also modifyed the machine's definition to make sure that even a manual tool change happens at the correct place to avoid collisions when using very long tools.

Olivier

[Mike_Caliguri]

Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but with any engagement style toolpath, tool life should be far more predictable (with a little benchmark testing) from there you can use the divide function in PowerMILL to separate the toolpath into separate paths based on time. Then when posting you can have it do a toolchange or with some posting edits upon that start have the post add an M01 or some similar action. 

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@M_Hennig wrote:

Hey guys, I know all the vortex, "dynamic", " adaptive clearing" tool paths are all the craze these days, and it's no argument that they are very effective way to clear material. But, I have found that safely changing a tool when it's dull or broken is next to impossible. How do you guys handle these situations? It sure is nice to just hit pause and spin the high feed inserts around to an new edge like in the very recent past.

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[Anonymous]

please tell me how to use the machine dna

[baylortech]

Here is a video tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHn4crMvenA

[instrumakr]

Machine DNA is a cost option.

I have spent countless hours trying to replicate a

decent Vortex tool path that resembles the video

that shows how to use Machine DNA. Nothing comes close.

I am not sure that if you don't have the cost option that Vortex

will work properly. Maybe Autodesk can answer that Question?

We also use Gibbs Cam with Volumill and the tool paths are flawless.

Powermill is supposed to be a high tier cam system but  to release a strategy

that seems to be subpar unless another cost option is purchased. I find that deplorable.

If someone has a formula that works with some success in something

as easy as Aluminum can you please post your parameters.

Autodesk any solutions?

Thanks

Instrumakr

[Mike_Caliguri]

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@instrumakr wrote:

Machine DNA is a cost option.

I have spent countless hours trying to replicate a

decent Vortex tool path that resembles the video

that shows how to use Machine DNA. Nothing comes close.

I am not sure that if you don't have the cost option that Vortex

will work properly. Maybe Autodesk can answer that Question?

We also use Gibbs Cam with Volumill and the tool paths are flawless.

Powermill is supposed to be a high tier cam system but  to release a strategy

that seems to be subpar unless another cost option is purchased. I find that deplorable.

If someone has a formula that works with some success in something

as easy as Aluminum can you please post your parameters.

Autodesk any solutions?

Thanks

Instrumakr

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Instrumakr,

               I hope I can clear up a few things. With the current series of products Machine DNA is no longer a cost option. It is included in PowerMILL with certain levels of the software, as with PowerMILL there really isn't any "cost options" anymore just product levels which there are only 3. To be honest I'm not sure which level Machine DNA is included. To clear things up Machine DNA is simply an optimizer to vortex not a requirement. Vortex will work straight away without Machine DNA with no issues. However Machine DNA may give you an additional 5-10% advantage over and above what vortex does already. 

As far as comparing Vortex which is the toolpath strategy, versus solutions like Volumill, the way Volumill works is to create the largest D slot that can fit into the geometry and the size or shape of the area to be machined determines this radius. What makes Vortex unique is that the radius of the D slot is affected by the feedrate you are cutting with. Vortex is a "Engagement" strategy, but it is also more advanced because of this optimization based on feedrate. What (at the time Delcam) Autodesk discovered through real testing on their in house machines is that the large radii that Volumill provided were not the fastest path through an area, if the area was large the D slot radius was to big and was really a waste of time, especially when machining harder materials where the feedrates are not as high as with aluminum. So vortex looks at the feedrate and optimizes the cuts based on the "optimal" radius for a given feedrate. This is important to understand because all machine DNA does (currently) is determine the exact optimal radius for your specific machine tool based on real world feedback. This technology is really the first step into "machine learning" so the toolpath is calculated based on the exact real capabilities of your specific machine. The Vortex values that are provided by default are an average of real results from Machine DNA tests. So although the defaults work just fine, they are not taking advantage of this "machine learning" type technology that is unique to Vortex.

In reality if you are using Vortex you really should not adjust these values and use the defaults

Mike

[instrumakr]

Hi Mikec

Thanks for replying quickly.

Maybe  I was not informed properly when I asked our

old reseller about the vortex strategy.

Thanks for the information. I will try and use your suggestion

and see if the vortex strategy is a good option at times.

All I know is that our Gibbs guys use Volumill quite frequently and with great success.

Thanks again

Instrumakr

[Anonymous]

thanks for your complet discription...and I asked about the micro plugings how can we have it

Sent from my Huawei Mobile

[Anonymous]

thanks for your complet discription...and I asked about the micro plugings how can we have it

Sent from my Huawei Mobile

[baylortech]

Installer located at:

c:\Program Files\Autodesk\Powermill xxxx\file\plugins\installers\plugins\MachineDnaInstaller.exe