Casting function?

[Scary]

Hi all,
I am loving learning the intercon software so far but I have come across an issue. I machine alot of castings etc in the lathe that I forge myself and although I can quickly program the finish profile in intercon I find that I am spending most of my time cutting air. Is there a way to have an offset face/roughing type profile that I can set up so it can just machine between the two profiles rather than treating the stock as a solid piece? I understand I can probably do this with cad but intercon seems to do everything so well I'm wondering if I can do this at the machine.

[Nigelo]

Not entirely sure what you are trying to do but lookup the Repeat F2, Mirror F3 and Rotate F4 functions in Intercon under the Subpgm F9 section

[Nigelo]

Sorry, just seen you are using a lathe not mill so my comments may not be appropriate

[cncsnw]

At the G code level, the G73 cycle does essentially what you are asking for.

I do not think Intercon has a cycle that posts to G73, but you could experiment with posting a turning-mode Profile cycle, then changing G71 to G73 and perhaps editing some of its parameters.

Read up on G71 and G73 in Chapter 10 of the Lathe operator's manual, while looking at the codes that Intercon posts for a turning Profile.

[Scary]

As always cncsnw, you are a wealth of information. I will look into using these functions it just might take me a while to figure it out. It would be a nice feature if you had an option to select the stock being at the right profile just 1/8 oversized. As a second thought, can you make a profile and then skip the roughing sections and just run multiple finish cuts? That might be worth a try……

[tblough]

You can make a profile and skip the roughing cuts. Look at and remember the line number in Intercon that has the finish pass. After you save and post the job, hit F4 Run/F2 search then type Nxx where xx is the line number of the finish pass, hit enter then start.

The control will "run" the lines of g-code before the finish pass without moving the machine, then start with the finish pass.

[cncsnw]

... and yes, you can do multiple finish cuts. Just enter a generous "stock to leave" value in the Profile header, and then enter a non-zero cut amount in the Finish operation.

[Scary]

Awesome, thanks for all the info. I'll give it a go and see if I can speed up the process.