move points

[milul]

I am teaching myself to program, with a little help, and my help is on vacation. Can any one help explain move points, because I am having problems. For example, a simple 3-2-1 alignment on a block- after I do a manual align, I do a dcc align, moving the probe clear of the top plane and hitting the "print" button before doing the line for rotation. then moving the probe in the x until it clears the end of the block again, and do another "print" move point, before taking the second line, along the y axis Then I do a circle on the top plane, using the print button before and after probing the hole.But when I execute, the probe crashes.I did something similar but checking a hole using the minus y axisand a 90/180 probe, and even though I exaggerated the move point up to about 4" in Z, I had to stop the machine to prevent a crash. Any advice??

[MrComment]

Are all your move points and hit points from manual touch points with the joystick? Or were you using a CAD file and clicking on features?

I can think of a couple of things to look at first.

1. Check to make sure your Manual alignment is working correctly before switching into DCC.

2. Make sure your "active" probe is loaded and the probe tip is rotated in the correct direction.

[#2#]

Using the "print" button or ctrl+m will insert a move point with values equal to the values of the current probe location. If you want a move above a hole, position the probe above the hole and insert the move point. Hitting the "print" button may not be inserting move points. The "print" button's function can be changed on some machines. When you hit "print" I assume you can see in the edit window that a move point is inserted in your program. The move point will be inserted wherever your cursor is located in the program. If the cursor isn't where you want the move point it could cause a crashing issue.

Good luck, and run it slow until you are confident it isn't going to crash.

[JIM HARRIS]

Are your move points marked.

[jmgreen]

What everyone else has said. I would emphasize that you check to make sure the move points are where you expect them to be and/or even there. I've had several occasions where they were not recorded when I thought they were. One way to check is to save the program, close it and then reopen. I'm sure there are others.
Good luck, there is a lot of help available here.

[Underspec]

Starting out easy is best if you are brand new. Go into the insert menu in PCDMIS and insert move points that way. Making sure you mark them for execution. Then start getting into the habit of CTRL-M.

[Matthew D. Hoedeman]

I am teaching myself to program, with a little help, and my help is on vacation. Can any one help explain move points, because I am having problems. For example, a simple 3-2-1 alignment on a block- after I do a manual align, I do a dcc align, moving the probe clear of the top plane and hitting the "print" button before doing the line for rotation. then moving the probe in the x until it clears the end of the block again, and do another "print" move point, before taking the second line, along the y axis Then I do a circle on the top plane, using the print button before and after probing the hole.But when I execute, the probe crashes.I did something similar but checking a hole using the minus y axisand a 90/180 probe, and even though I exaggerated the move point up to about 4" in Z, I had to stop the machine to prevent a crash. Any advice??

Have you tried CLEARANCE PLANES? If youare using V3.7, they are quite dependable, V3.5 would sometimes skip the 'up' move. Also, are you using AUTOMOVE for those features? Clearance plane to start the program to ensure that you are clear of the part, NO MATTER where your probe is when you start the program, then use automoves and move points in the body of the program. Auto moves in V3.7 are nice, you can select before, after, both , or none for when it does the automove, and clearance planes ARE nice as teh first move in the program to clear the entire part, with no worries that you left the probe on the LEFT side, at the bottom and the first move point is at the right side, above the part. How will it get to there? Straight line, through the part with a move point.

[cmmguy]

It depends on which 3.7 you are talking about.

Clearance planes were not dependable in 3.7, 3.7 mr1, or 3.7 mr2.

I am now using 3.7 mr3 and they have shown to very dependable and actually work the way they are supposed to work.

[craiger_ny]

Never had a problem with clearplanes. Never. Except that they are not very intuitive but I've never had them act buggy. I don't use 3.5 though so I can't say anything to that effect.

[Peter Warcholyk]

I've never had a problem with them either, but then I don't use them.

Due to the shape / nature of my parts I use move points.

Manual alignment, then depending on complexity of the part, one or two dcc alignments. Use all move points, never a problem.

Just a different way of programming.

Regards,
ZydecoPete

[John Kugler]

In my humble opinion, clearplanes work just fine. I've not had many issues with using them, and I use them all the time. Only issue I've seen is that sometimes if you set a clearplane, measure some features, and realize that your clearplane wasn't enough, when you go back to change the value to a larger length, it seems to keep using the original value, even though it shows the new value.

The fix I use is to put a movepoint right before the first clearplane. Then it fixes itself from then on.

Weird. This may be fixed in 4.1 and 4.2.

[#2#]

Not another movepoint vs. clearplane argument...

[cmmguy]

I had issues in the earlier version of 3.7 where the move.clearplane would not move to the new clearplane setting until after one move.clearplane was initiated. Actually I got into the habit of using movepoints until I gave them another try in 3.7mr3, where they work as intended.

[Bass Assasin]

Is it possible your help has changed the print button to do another funtion like erase hit? Like goodluck said we are assuming when you hit print it is actually putting in a move point and is in the program. Try putting in one off the insert menu and one of the jog box and see what happens.

[William Johnson]

Milul I use the print button to create move points. On one of my cmm's it has a sharp 32 controller. This controller has had problems with getting the read position of the head right ever since I updated to a version of PCDMIS above ver 3.2063. I never had this problem before that version. Look at the xyz values after you create the move point to verify that what it writes into the program vs what the read position is at that time, and see if they are the same.

The only fix I have found for this is to edit the move points to get then to clear the part, or I use clearplanes. For me clearplane does not work for many of our parts because of the shape of the parts. (to many obsticles to avoid) I am running ver 3.7mr3 and I have not gone to 4.1 so I don't know if it works right in 4.1
If you have XYZ lets say in the front left corner of a block. With the probe beyond the left side of the block you should have (x-) value. The same should be true for the y axis also (y-) if you have the probe closer to you. The z axis will be (z+) when the probe is above the part.