Gang tooling on both sides of work centerline?

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DocsMachine
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Gang tooling on both sides of work centerline?

Post by DocsMachine »

I'm planning on setting my lathe up with gang tooling, and have a question.

I have a nice long cross slide, but the overall travel is kind of limited to maybe 4-5" before it either hits the stepper drive on one end or starts running out of dovetail at the other end. And so even with the majority of my proposed workpieces being 1" or less OD, that doesn't give me a lot of room for tooling.

Is it possible, in the Centroid software, to have tools on both sides of the work centerline? That is, tools set to work on a single part, using a single program?

IE, tool #1 comes in from the operator side to rough turn the part, then tool #2 comes in from the offside to finish the profile, then tool #3 comes in from the operator side again to part, etc.

While I'm sure a program can be written to do that, I have in mind parts modelled and converted through CAM. Would I have to go back into the program and manually change G-codes to accomplish this?

Doc.
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Re: Gang tooling on both sides of work centerline?

Post by tblough »

Doc,

The Centroid control will handle what ever G-code you send it using the tool offsets you have defined. Your CAM system will need to support various tool approaches so that it can correctly calculate tool backoff direction. This can also be handled by fooling the system by defining your OD tools behind the centerline as ID tooling, and your ID tools behind the centerline as OD tools.

Tom
Cheers,

Tom
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Re: Gang tooling on both sides of work centerline?

Post by cnc_smith »

Doc,

A note for reference for your tool #1 that you say is set for operator side this is called Front mount and the tool #2 you say comes in from the offside is Rear mount.

Centroid control does supports gang tooling. When you set the Acorn with the Wizard under the header 3)Spindle Setup at the bottom of the screen there is the option Tool orientation of front or rear. This can be set to front or rear. Setting it to Front will mean the tools that are set from the front will use a positive X and the tools set from the rear use a negative X when cutting. Setting it to Rear will mean tools set from the rear will use a positive X and tools set from the front will use a negative X when cutting. For ease most people set it to Front. After you have the Wizard set for which way you want to use as the main tool orientation click on "Write setting to CNC control configuration", "Yes" to write these changes to the CNC Control Configuration, "OK" Setting saved. Now you need to change the parameter 163 to a 1 for gang tooling in the the Centroid software in the Configuration. To do this from the main screen in CNC12 software press the F1- Setup, F3 - Config, Enter the password 137 and press enter, press F3 - Parms, Press the F8 - Next Table or you can use the page down key to go to the next table of the parameters to change parameter 163. Use the cursor to move over to highlight parameter 163 and type in a 1. Press F10 to Save. Use the Esc Key to go back out to the main screen.

Go to the tool offset screen, F1 - Setup, F2 Tool Offset. Now that Parameter 163 is set to a 1 you can move the cursor over to Approach and change the direction for which way the tool is approaching the material. I have the Front mount tooling as my default with the Wizard and I am using tool #1 as my Reference tool. I have attached 2 screen shots. The one screen shot is showing the X Ref Dia. set to a .75 for setting OD tools off the .75 diameter material for front mount tooling. The second screen shot is showing where I change the X Dia. Ref to a -.75 for setting OD tools to the .75 diameter material from the rear direction. For ID tools such as boring bars the X Dia. Ref for front mount would be Positive X and for rear mount the X Dia Ref. would be a negative X for the surface that it would be touching in the ID. Also notice the nose vectors for Rear mount tooling are different from the front mount tooling. If you have the tool set to a Rear mount and use the wrong nose vector the screen in the upper right for the nose vector will show a Red X over the nose vector that you have chosen if it is wrong.

If you use Intercon to write your programs and the controls is setup for Front mount as the default when you are programming the cycles in Intercon for the front mounted tools you would use a positive X and the Rear mount tooling you would use a negative X for the tools that are rear mounted direction.

Also, drills would normally be set as Front mount because they come in at X0.0

As far as your Cam software you will have to see if there is a setting for posting for gang tooling so it would create the correct X values for the rear mounted tooling.

I hope this helpful.

cnc_smith
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Re: Gang tooling on both sides of work centerline?

Post by DICKEYBIRD »

cnc_smith wrote: Mon Nov 20, 2017 12:22 pm I hope this helpful.
cnc_smith
I can't speak for Doc but that post was much more than helpful to me! After years of vague info using Mqch3 on my lathe, this is so uplifting. Finally, solid, useful data from someone that knows his lathes! :D
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Re: Gang tooling on both sides of work centerline?

Post by BillB »

Great post by cnc_smith. If anyone is still active in this post, does anyone know where the the images are he referenced?
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Re: Gang tooling on both sides of work centerline?

Post by cnckeith »

tb128 was written when acorn didn't exist.. here is the link. https://www.centroidcnc.com/dealersuppo ... ds/128.pdf
we will update it for acorn use.
Need support? READ THIS POST first. http://centroidcncforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=1043
All Acorn Documentation is located here: viewtopic.php?f=60&t=3397
Answers to common questions: viewforum.php?f=63
and here viewforum.php?f=61
Gear we use but don't sell. https://www.centroidcnc.com/centroid_di ... _gear.html
BillB
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Re: Gang tooling on both sides of work centerline?

Post by BillB »

cnckeith wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 2:03 pm tb128 was written when acorn didn't exist.. here is the link. https://www.centroidcnc.com/dealersuppo ... ds/128.pdf
we will update it for acorn use.
Thank you Keith
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