Issues with my clearpath and fusion on PM 833TV

[Hjavaher]

Hi,
I Contacted your support department last week and was told that the forum was currently down and that I should send an email when back up. I see that the forum is back up now. Attached please find my report file for my acorn in question. I have several problems and issues with this unit as listed below that I would really appreciate assistance with: for record, I have a desktop mill (Precision Matthews PM 833TV)

1) On Fusion 360, if I pick the origin in the front left corner of the stock and probe and zero the same exact point in CNC 12, the mill acts as if I have zeroed the WCS in the back right corner of the part and therefore starts cutting in air. I have looked everywhere and can't seem to find the issue. I believe the axis all move as it should (table moves to the left X+, towards the front of the machine Y+ and the head moves up on Z+)

2) Probe does not retract after Auto Zeroing cycle. When Probing to find the bore or any dimensions, the probe function normally and retracts when the routine finishes but when I try to set Z0 for example, the probe comes down touched the part, retracts and comes back slowly, sets 0 but then stays on the part. I have to then manually move it up and away before I can get it out. I'm not sure what is causing this issue. I should also add that the interface of CNC 12 also flickers when this happens until I manually move the probe off of the part and take it off.

3) I have Clearpath SDSK motors, I want to use them to perform hard stop homing. Right now, I have to where the motors home themselves and then I click cycle start to set all axis to machine 0 as if I don't have a precise machine homes. Is there a better method of achieving this?

[swissi]

1) On Fusion 360, if I pick the origin in the front left corner of the stock and probe and zero the same exact point in CNC 12, the mill acts as if I have zeroed the WCS in the back right corner of the part and therefore starts cutting in air. I have looked everywhere and can't seem to find the issue. I believe the axis all move as it should (table moves to the left X+, towards the front of the machine Y+ and the head moves up on Z+)

You are setting the origin wrong in Fusion 360. You don't have to look in which direction the table moves, important is in which direction the tool moves in relation to the stock. The X+ direction is where the tool moves to the right in relation to the stock and Y+ is where the tool moves to the back in relation to the stock. You have to set the X+ and Y+ arrow directions of the origin in Fusion 360 to point accordingly.

2) Probe does not retract after Auto Zeroing cycle. When Probing to find the bore or any dimensions, the probe function normally and retracts when the routine finishes but when I try to set Z0 for example, the probe comes down touched the part, retracts and comes back slowly, sets 0 but then stays on the part. I have to then manually move it up and away before I can get it out. I'm not sure what is causing this issue. I should also add that the interface of CNC 12 also flickers when this happens until I manually move the probe off of the part and take it off.

What you describe is how the CNC12 probing cycles are designed. The Touch Probe will stay at the Z0 point so you can verify that the Z0 is set at the correct position. To get the Touch Probe out of the tripped position, just press the Tool Check button. The flicker is a bug that will be fixed in the next version of CNC12.

-swissi

[Richards]

Referring to your question #3 about hard-stop homing a ClearPath SDSK motor: Page 123 of the Teknic ClearPath User Manual shows how to configure your servos using MSP software and a USB cable. Because I do not use power supply sequencing or enable signal sequencing when powering up my ClearPath motors, I no not use hard homing. I want the Z-axis to home before moving the X or Y axes so that the tooling will clear anything on the table. I could use sequencing if I used a PLC or other logic to control when each servo received its first enable after being powered on. Using proximity sensors allows the CNC 12 software to sequence the homing process.

[Hjavaher]

First off my apologies for the late reply, I didn't see an email notification that there were responses (I think I saw there is an issue with that currently)

1) On Fusion 360, if I pick the origin in the front left corner of the stock and probe and zero the same exact point in CNC 12, the mill acts as if I have zeroed the WCS in the back right corner of the part and therefore starts cutting in air. I have looked everywhere and can't seem to find the issue. I believe the axis all move as it should (table moves to the left X+, towards the front of the machine Y+ and the head moves up on Z+)

You are setting the origin wrong in Fusion 360. You don't have to look in which direction the table moves, important is in which direction the tool moves in relation to the stock. The X+ direction is where the tool moves to the right in relation to the stock and Y+ is where the tool moves to the back in relation to the stock. You have to set the X+ and Y+ arrow directions of the origin in Fusion 360 to point accordingly.

2) Probe does not retract after Auto Zeroing cycle. When Probing to find the bore or any dimensions, the probe function normally and retracts when the routine finishes but when I try to set Z0 for example, the probe comes down touched the part, retracts and comes back slowly, sets 0 but then stays on the part. I have to then manually move it up and away before I can get it out. I'm not sure what is causing this issue. I should also add that the interface of CNC 12 also flickers when this happens until I manually move the probe off of the part and take it off.

What you describe is how the CNC12 probing cycles are designed. The Touch Probe will stay at the Z0 point so you can verify that the Z0 is set at the correct position. To get the Touch Probe out of the tripped position, just press the Tool Check button. The flicker is a bug that will be fixed in the next version of CNC12.

-swissi

Thank you so much! That fixed the WCS issue as far as I can see. I can't believe I didn't catch that but I'm used to routers and it's taking me a bit to get used to my mill. As for the probe, is it normal for the probe to be tripped too? as in, the axis won't jog unless I have 1x selected on my MPG. I might be missing something (probably am) but shouldn't the probe be sitting just above the part? I wish Cnc12 would allow you to control that behavior.

Referring to your question #3 about hard-stop homing a ClearPath SDSK motor: Page 123 of the Teknic ClearPath User Manual shows how to configure your servos using MSP software and a USB cable. Because I do not use power supply sequencing or enable signal sequencing when powering up my ClearPath motors, I no not use hard homing. I want the Z-axis to home before moving the X or Y axes so that the tooling will clear anything on the table. I could use sequencing if I used a PLC or other logic to control when each servo received its first enable after being powered on. Using proximity sensors allows the CNC 12 software to sequence the homing process.

Thank you Richard, I have set up the hardstop homing in the MSP software and it's working like a charm. I park my machine before shutting down so it shouldn't be too much of an issue but I like your idea of a PLC sequencing the servos in order. I'll have to look into that in the near future. I do have both home and limit switches on my machine but when I was talking to Teknic engineers they told me how repeatable hardstop homing (given the setup and mechanics) and well if I can reduce wires around my mill and control box, that is a very attractive situation to me. All this to say that my main question was that if there is a way (using PLC or macro) that once the servos all trip the HLFB output. At this time, cnc12 would zero all axis and in my case send to park location. I believe the above describes what teknic calls manual hard stop homing, but I have to look into that in more detail.

Again, thank you both for your help, truly appreciate it!!
-Hiva

[swissi]

As for the probe, is it normal for the probe to be tripped too? as in, the axis won't jog unless I have 1x selected on my MPG. I might be missing something (probably am) but shouldn't the probe be sitting just above the part? I wish Cnc12 would allow you to control that behavior.

Just think about it for a moment how a mechanical touch probe finds the top of the stock. The Z-Axis will move down until CNC12 sees a trip signal from the touch probe. A mechanical touch probe does not see or sense when it's just above the surface, the probe has to touch the surface to create a trip signal. When CNC12 stops the movement when the trip signal has arrived, the probe will remain in a tripped state. This is the position where your WCS Z0 point will be set. Now you could argue why the probing cycle is not reversing the Z axis movement back up until the touch probe gets out of the tripped status to set Z0 but if you do that, you would introduce a backlash error in your measurement if you did not set your backlash compensation accurately.

When the probe is in a tripped status, the probe protection feature of the MPG is engaged. You can't jog with the MPG unless you set the MPG to 1x speed and then it will allow you to jog in ALL directions. The jog buttons on the Virtual Control Panel will prevent you from jogging into the direction the trip occurred but you will be able to jog away from the trip.

As I said before, the easiest, safest and quickest way to get the touch probe out of the trip situation on top of the stock is to press the "Tool Check" button.

If you use the ProbeApp for your probing, the probe will stop on top of the stock in tripped position to set WCS Z0 but after you confirm the Z0 position with Cycle Start, the probe will retract by the amount configured in the Probe Retract parameter to get into an un-tripped position after probing so you won't have that issue when probing with the ProbeApp.

-swissi

[Hjavaher]

If you use the ProbeApp for your probing, the probe will stop on top of the stock in tripped position to set WCS Z0 but after you confirm the Z0 position with Cycle Start, the probe will retract by the amount configured in the Probe Retract parameter to get into an un-tripped position after probing so you won't have that issue when probing with the ProbeApp.

-swissi

Perfect, Honestly this is exactly what I was very poorly trying to explain and is the functionality that completely makes sense to me. In my opinion this should be default in CNC12.

Thanks!