Been doing a lot of altering to the standard Mach post processor. For a normal lathe I think it would need very little editing if any but as my lathe has both a front and rear turrets some of the code has to be of a negative X value with the arcs reversed while the other turret is positive values in X and normal arcs.
Michael from Dolphin set me on the right road for that and I only had to change it a bit because I had given him wrong info
It did however let me see ways to do other things. So anyway got that working well a few days ago and posted some code for a part I had hand coded a week or so ago, what a difference in time, especially as I am crap at hand coding anyway
There were a few issues with the code it spat out, most just needed a tweak in the PP but two of them were a bit more tricky for me to do seeing as I am no programmer. The issues were that the toolchange position being called was for the turret about to be used rather than the one presently in use, I now have it looking at the turret in use and moving to that turrets toolchange position.
The other thing I changed was the spindle would be switched off at each toolchange and I didn’t want that but the next problem was if I didnt do that and the spindle was to change direction it would reverse without any deceleration. This is a Mach issue I think as calling a M4 when M3 is active should really slow the spindle then reverse. Anyway I now have it looking at the spindle direction and if its to change it will call a M5 before it calls the new M3 or M4.
I have a few other things I want to do but they are not really important, just would be nice. One thing is I am going to see if I can set the coolant up to front or rear dependant on turret and tool being used, at the moment I have to do that in the CAM manually although its no big deal as its just one button to click and a box to tick.
I am very impressed with Dolphin Partmaster Turn module and for the price it is amazing in my opinion. As said I have only made one part so far and I chickened out, it was a part in 316 I had made but as I was testing out the code I decided to make it in delrin in case I had screwed up in the PP writing, I needn’t have worried though as it came out perfect. Here is a few bad pics of the original hand coded one in 316 with the Delrin one next to it.
Hood