Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] CPNC Programming

Darrell wrote:

> Ray,
> One of your questions below was "why do I need tool numbers because I
> change
> tools by hand?"
> You need tool numbers to tell the control the size of the tool that
> you just
> put in by hand. The control needs that info to make the correct
> offsets.

Yes, if you haven't used offsets yet, you really haven't seen what CNC
can do for you.
Like, when spotting, drilling, chamfering and finally tapping a bunch of
holes on
several parts. The manual way is move to the X-Y coordinates of a hole,
spot drill,
change tool, drill through, change tool, chamfer, change tool and tap
the hole.

The CNC way is you put in tool 1 (the center drill) and bring it down
until it touches
the work, and set the Z axis to 0 at that height. Start a program that
spots all the
holes. Change the tool to a jobber's length drill, measured for a known
length offset
from the center drill, and rerun the program with the correct depth to
drill and the
correct tool number to pick up the length offset stored in the CNC for
that tool,
and it drills all the holes through. Change tool again, set tool
number, and depth,
and it chamfers all the holes. Finally, mount the tapping head and run
a tapping
program, and it taps all the holes.

If you set this all up right, then you can just put the tool in and make
a very simple
MDI entry, and the characteristics of the tool are compensated for by
the CNC.

When making several parts, you can really save a lot of time by not
having to
do the manual zeroing of the Z axis for each tool.

Jon