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General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3Turn Offsets?
« on: January 29, 2011, 04:53:51 AM »
Chris,
I use the tool tables in Mach for my lathe which has a front and rear turret and dont have any issues at all. There is one thing you have to make sure of and that is you have ALL tools set up as either Front or Rear in the Tooltable. Having a mixture of both is a disaster and will lead to all sorts of problems. Because my default turret is the rear I have mine all set as rear, even the ones on the front turret. That means the X axis moves positive when its moving away from the operator so any tools I have on the front turret need to be programmed with negative X values and also when entering values in the tool table you need to remember to enter the negative diameters into the DROs before sending them to the tool table. I have attached a screenshot of the DROs for entering the values and the buttons that then enter these into the tooltable (first is my screen, second is standard but both are the same DROs and Buttons). So what I would do is for example if a tool is in the rear turret I move the tool to the dia of the stock and enter that into the X Val DRO and then press Set X button ( Part Zero X button on standard) and that will put the offsets in the tooltable. Now if I have a new tool and its on the front turret if I touch off the Dia it is past the zero point of my axis so its X values are now shown as negative. I again touch off the Dia as before but this time the value entered into the DRO would be a negative value.
It works extremely well for me with my quite complicated setup and I see no reason it would not work on a gang tooled lathe as long as you remember that in the tool table all tools need to be either Front or Rear but never a mixture. Your method obviously also works for you.
Hood
I use the tool tables in Mach for my lathe which has a front and rear turret and dont have any issues at all. There is one thing you have to make sure of and that is you have ALL tools set up as either Front or Rear in the Tooltable. Having a mixture of both is a disaster and will lead to all sorts of problems. Because my default turret is the rear I have mine all set as rear, even the ones on the front turret. That means the X axis moves positive when its moving away from the operator so any tools I have on the front turret need to be programmed with negative X values and also when entering values in the tool table you need to remember to enter the negative diameters into the DROs before sending them to the tool table. I have attached a screenshot of the DROs for entering the values and the buttons that then enter these into the tooltable (first is my screen, second is standard but both are the same DROs and Buttons). So what I would do is for example if a tool is in the rear turret I move the tool to the dia of the stock and enter that into the X Val DRO and then press Set X button ( Part Zero X button on standard) and that will put the offsets in the tooltable. Now if I have a new tool and its on the front turret if I touch off the Dia it is past the zero point of my axis so its X values are now shown as negative. I again touch off the Dia as before but this time the value entered into the DRO would be a negative value.
It works extremely well for me with my quite complicated setup and I see no reason it would not work on a gang tooled lathe as long as you remember that in the tool table all tools need to be either Front or Rear but never a mixture. Your method obviously also works for you.
Hood