Hi Sparky961:
I am certainly no expert on things related to HSM Express, but there is a strategy Keith (one of the technical consultants when HSMWorks was first developed) taught me that works very well in HSMWorks.
He models the clamps in Solidworks as part of the assembly, then includes the clamps in the model definition for the operations where their presence is relevant like your drilling ops.
That makes HSMWorks recognize and avoid them as part of the model, so it makes the retracts efficient because HSMWorks knows exactly where they are and what size and shape they are and will avoid them.
It's a "cheat" in the sense that you're lying to the CAM system but it is an effective one.
It's also quite possible they've refined HSM to allow a clamp or fixture definition by now so this may be a totally obsolete workaround.
In any event, I've found things like retract height definitions and tool path entry points and other dialogue box options that work predictably in other CAM systems to be generally very temperamental in HSMWorks.
I've learned quite painfully at times, that the model definition, the stock definition and how you choose them
for each operation is KING in HSMWorks; other dialog box choices get ignored or interpreted in weird ways, so you have to watch the simulation like a hawk to be sure you get what you intended.
Oddly though; I've found the simulation generally to be very accurate, so it puzzles me that your sim is fine but your code is not.
That's unusual for my limited experience of HSMWorks.
Cheers
Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining
On Edit: Another thing that occurred to me; when you write code using HSMWorks, it is often quite a bit more difficult to interpret it by just looking at it; the reason is that it will set the absolute values of retract heights based on the combination of where you set your origin in the CAD/CAM system, how you defined your retract plane in the "Heights" dialogue box, what feature of the CAD file you defined them from, and what you included in your stock and model definitions for each operation.
If, for example, you pick the sidewall of a modeled hole from your CAD file, HSM will want to default to defining the top of the hole as the starting point for it's retract plane calculation for that operation.
You have to make another choice of feature if you want it to define the retract plane differently.
If you pick "top of model" or "top of stock" it will again define those planes differently and code them accordingly.
So depending on the details of your definitions you can get totally different G code results and when you look at the code it's confusing to interpret because it looks like it's all over the map.
MC