Good Afternoon,

I am trying to run a boring operation in Mach 4 using G Code that I have run previously (a week ago) with no issues. For some reason when running the same code again today it keeps on behaving in a strange manner and starts following tool paths that are not in the gcode and only appear in the tool path window once it commences the helical move for the boring op. What on earth is occurring here?

TIA Joel

Please look at the history line and tell me if you see anything. Could be that you have a softlimits issue.

Nope. Nothing there. Just the setting of the tool height.

And it has done it again, and ruined a part this time!

It got up to the boring op and then added a random toolpath, instead of completing the boring operation.

I regenerated the tool path from fusion 360 and then ran it in mach 4. For some random reason at this point, the machine coordinates shifted 90mm in the Z axis, 5mm off causing a crash.

I have attached 2 images. The first is the toolpath with the additional toolpath that does not exist. The second is the same g code just regenerated. What is happening here?

Can you upload the gcode file? I will take a look at the code. Also by any chance you didn’t  happen accidentally press the y axis zero button when changing the tool or something. Maybe we need to lock out the zeroing of the axis. I have seen people lock out the zeroing so this can’t happen. We will get to the bottom of this. Somehow you have added to your fixture offsets.

The setup with 3 ops, was the gcode that I was running when this occurred. When I opened the second file to run it on its own, that is when the machine coordinates for z increased approx 90mm.

It is worth noting that I when I first had this issue I was running 4300. I am now running 4580 and it has occurred again. General user experience seems to be better with this version.

This is what happened...

The G-code looks okay to me, I am not a fan of G28's but your using them correctly.

That is some funky Gcode! I sort of like it. I had to do a double take when I saw the plane change in the code

So your correct it looks like the issue is at the toolchange. You by any chance don't have an offset for the Y axis setup in the tool table for tool number 7? I know it is crazy.. Also I may need to see how your doing your toolchange and setting the Z axis offset for the next tool. Sorry I can't help more now but we will get this! Please run in air so we can make sure we have a process that works.

Thanks
Brian

Hi Brian,

A few more details to this issue:
The fault occurred in the second boring op (BORE 2 2).
I am running a MB3 breakout board with an ESS.
As the first occurrence of this was also with a boring op (different part), so this op seems to be the issue.

If you look at the image in the first post of this thread, you can see that y has travelled to y-128.1554 where as the Gcode instructs it to go to y-30.385 and the line before was at -28.385.

I can't see how it could be the GCode. Any thoughts on where to go from here? Is there any testing I can do to help troubleshoot?

I am thinking it could be an accidental press of the zero button at this time. Could you please try to see if it will do it again . I don't really have anything to go by at this time. Also make sure you don't have any X or Y tool offsets .