Muzzer wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 3:24 pm
I found that Peter Smidt doesn't cover dwell in G84, as it's not std in Fanuc Macro B. However, as pointed out, it's a parameter used in Centroid's G84. I played with this some time ago - and thought I had concluded that it didn't help much. This evening I've just played with a dummy file, doing some air tapping and sure enough, it's clear I was talking out of my backside - not for the first or last time I'm sure.
My machine takes ages to slow down and restart due to the large motor and reduction gears in low ratio, so I need about 2.5s pause to allow the tap to revert to where it should have been if it had stopped quickly. That's with no load of course - a large tap would stop almost immediately.
Here's the line that does the tapping: (S250 M3)
G98 G84 X0. Y0 Z-10 R5. F500. P2.5
It taps to 10mm depth with a pitch of 2mm and pauses for 2.5 seconds.
What I think I DO recall is that the Fusion 360 Centroid post doesn't post the dwell (P) times, so you need to manually edit the code if you want one. Which might be the closest I get to an excuse here. I suppose, if Swissi hadn't decided to edit the post to include the P parameter, it might have been sensible to fix the issue by editing the macro executed at the bottom of the hole (specified in parameter #75) to autogenerate a pause. But indeed the best result would be a Fusion post that passes the pauses through. That way you could always create a parametric expression in Fusion to shorten the pause with larger taps for instance.
I'll get there in the end! Apologies if I talked down to anyone along the way.
i always tap in high gear at 640 rpm for taps and everything else i thread mill
tapping in high gear eliminates the low gear mechanical advantage/inertia etc..to overcome. high gear allows quick turnarounds which can easily be managed. and there is plenty of torque even in high gear to tap with.
Has anybody managed to use Swissi's PP with TIm Patterson's Fusion PostProcessAll plug in?
Edit - I think I am getting there. Looks like you need to edit Swissi's PP file and set the variables there directly as the plug in bypasses the PP in Fusion completely and only uses the file. So, any variables set in Fusion's PP dialogue are ignored.
IPGregory wrote: ↑Sun Dec 31, 2023 1:11 am
Has anybody managed to use Swissi's PP with TIm Patterson's Fusion PostProcessAll plug in?
Edit - I think I am getting there. Looks like you need to edit Swissi's PP file and set the variables there directly as the plug in bypasses the PP in Fusion completely and only uses the file. So, any variables set in Fusion's PP dialogue are ignored.
There were certainly several issues with the plugin. The main aim was to get around some of the limitations of the free version of the Fusion CAM, namely the restriction to one tool (no changes) and slow rapids. The output files were pretty clunky and TBH I concluded that the benefits of the "paid for" version (£/$360 a year until recently) were worth the cost.
You can see some of the issues I encountered 3 years ago. Forgive the idiosyncratic style - the blog is mainly a diary of stuff I've done for my own record. The fixes required playing with the PP and some experimentation with the results(!). That's not to criticise Tim's work but you would need to decide if you want to go this route. https://mightyshiz.blogspot.com/2020/12 ... n-360.html
Muzzer wrote: ↑Sun Dec 31, 2023 10:32 am
There were certainly several issues with the plugin. The main aim was to get around some of the limitations of the free version of the Fusion CAM, namely the restriction to one tool (no changes) and slow rapids. The output files were pretty clunky and TBH I concluded that the benefits of the "paid for" version (£/$360 a year until recently) were worth the cost.
You can see some of the issues I encountered 3 years ago. Forgive the idiosyncratic style - the blog is mainly a diary of stuff I've done for my own record. The fixes required playing with the PP and some experimentation with the results(!). That's not to criticise Tim's work but you would need to decide if you want to go this route. https://mightyshiz.blogspot.com/2020/12 ... n-360.html
Yeah, at $360 a year I would just go the Fusion route as well, but its double that now and I am just a hobby user that doesn't make any income from the machine. I did get it to appear to work with Swissi's options like the Tool check, dwell time, etc. based on the G-Code header but haven't tested it on the machine yet.
I read your blog, thank you for that. If I read it right, it looks like the issues you noticed were related to tool changing, rather than rapids? At the moment I am just going to try it with a single Op to see what it does with the rapids only.
Newbee question, how do iI insatll/load the PP. I have imported the the 005.cps file and it works fine? What and how do I access or use the additional files in the zip file.
IPGregory wrote: ↑Sun Dec 31, 2023 4:54 pm
If I read it right, it looks like the issues you noticed were related to tool changing, rather than rapids? At the moment I am just going to try it with a single Op to see what it does with the rapids only.
It's a bit of a hazy memory now but IIRC, the file names got all messed up too. Even if you ran one tool at a time, the output files were difficult to work with. As a technical exercise it was pretty cool but as the main benefit was reinstating the rapid moves, it didn't feel that benefit was worth the cost.
My Fusion licence went up 15% this year (£396 to £462 in the UK), although that included a discount for continuing an existing licence. They may well hike it a lot more next year of course......
Hopefully Swissi will help you with the PP files question.
Muzzer wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2024 1:06 pm
It's a bit of a hazy memory now but IIRC, the file names got all messed up too. Even if you ran one tool at a time, the output files were difficult to work with. As a technical exercise it was pretty cool but as the main benefit was reinstating the rapid moves, it didn't feel that benefit was worth the cost.
My Fusion licence went up 15% this year (£396 to £462 in the UK), although that included a discount for continuing an existing licence. They may well hike it a lot more next year of course......
Hopefully Swissi will help you with the PP files question.
I agree it's not the easiest setup to work with with the way it handles setups and files if you want to keep it to single Ops. So far, I have fiddled with it a couple of times, but not run anything yet as I don't trust it. It doesn't apply the header correctly for me, so I have to manually edit the g-code to correct it.
I am staying on the Hobby License with the way they keep hiking the price.
Swissi,
Do you know of anybody running your PP with the PostProcessAll Add in for Fusion?