Mastercam Lathe roughing between goal posts with R and L tools?

[neurosis]

Question for the lathe gurus.

Our lathe guy is having a hell of a time getting this to work.

It is possible to rough portions of a part between goal posts (photo below) with a Right hand roughing one side and a left hand roughing the other. This has to be done in levels due to tool clearance and material.

The material is solution treated 718 Inconel. He's going to be roughing using ceramic button mills. The button mills looks similar to a CNMG holder.

The first pass always works as expected. Every pass after that, it either ignores the stock, or acts as if it's continuing down the clearance angle of the tool reducing the tool path to nothing.


Part photo -

[JParis]

Off the top of my head, that should work...

It might be related to how his tool is defined or how the geometry is chained

[gcode]

It sounds like he does not have Stock Recognition enabled

[neurosis]

It sounds like he does not have Stock Recognition enabled

It definitely has stock recognition enabled.

Off the top of my head, that should work...

It might be related to how his tool is defined or how the geometry is chained

He sent me a gutted down file but I know little enough about the lathe side of Mastercam that I can't help.  He has it set up using two custom tools, and then two of Mastercams library tools. I don't doubt that the tool definition could be an issue because the stock tools reacts differently than the custom.

Both the custom and stock don't have a problem with the first level of passes. It's when you try to go down a level that it starts acting strange. The part has to be done in levels for clearance reasons. That and it makes it convenient to check inserts.

[gcode]

He can use the Tool Inspection feature to force stops for insert changes, if your post supports them.
This really simplifies stopping for insert inspection
If you want to email me the file, I will look at it this evening

[JParis]

He has it set up using two custom tools

In my support days, I have seen some weird results based on bad custom tool definitions

[neurosis]

He can use the Tool Inspection feature to force stops for insert changes, if your post supports them.
The really simplifies stopping for insert inspection
If you want to email me the file I will look at it this evening

I may post a copy of it on the forum. It looks like it's gutted enough that it wouldn't be a problem. If it's not, I'll redo the file with some geometry and re-create his paths.  He didn't have much done.

I don't think the lathe posts support tool inspection.  Most of our lathe guys program by hand or conversational programming. I doubt they've spent time getting the posts ironed out. I don't think that anyone down there has much Mastercam experience either so I'm guessing that this is 100% operator error.

[neurosis]

In my support days, I have seen some weird results based on bad custom tool definitions

I wondered about that but the default tools (CNMG) don't react as expected either.

I believe they've programmed a similar part to this in the past but they did it by hand.  Since they are going to be using ceramic tools this time they don't want to wing it. 

[gcode]

I wondered about that but the default tools (CNMG) don't react as expected either.

there are settings set the clearance for the backside on the tool.
They may not be set correctly

What sort of lathe is this running on??

[neurosis]

What sort of lathe is this running on??

I believe it's going to be running on a Mori NLX 2500

Right now it looks like it's just set up using the default Mastercam lathe machine def. Probably for testing. 

[neurosis]

Here is a copy of the file.  I played with is for a few minutes and just made it worse.  lol. 

I can see what he's trying to do but I can already see that I'm not going to be much help. 

This looks like it should be really simple.

[JParis]

tRY SETTING STOCK TO "eXTEND cONTOUR TO sTOCK oNLY"

Nevermind, it is extending to stock to the full depth..

I'm not quite sure what's happening there. I feel it's tool definition related but I'm still digging

[JParis]

Used an "old" trick to get it to cut...

Chain the cut you want first, then add the original chain from pass 1

It will generate the cut on pass 2 using the pass 1 geo as stock

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6sk9t8rt1cicxs3zpr52x/JP-test-3d-holder-path.zip?rlkey=idknlduic5ubqfhkz721dpe31&st=niqjs5z7&dl=0

It's an "old" legacy trick from the ol' DOS days that still works

[neurosis]

It's an "old" legacy trick from the ol' DOS days that still works

I'll check this out when I get back to work.

Good to know that it's possible to get it working. 

Is this a bug in the software or is that trick something intended?  There is no way we would have figured that out. Thanks!

[JParis]

Is this a bug in the software or is that trick something intended? 

Only a suspicion on my part but I 'think" it might be a legacy of lathe "before" stock recognition. Still works though