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Powermill 2018 Collision Issues

thinktankgroup

Plastic
Joined
Jul 7, 2017
Looking for some advice from the community on how to handle some collision issues that we are seeing were working with a Kuka KR150 Robot with a Milling spindle on the end of it.

How do we make sure that all collision checking is turned on. We have had collisions with our foam block during finishing passes but when doing simulations it shows everything as being fine.
Photos:
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This could be related but it seems also like powermill doesnt care about the entire tool for collision checking and only the actual robot itself. How do we make sure that when its doing its collision checking its only using the actual cutting part of the tool and not going beyond that and using the entire length of the bit plus the holder.

Last question is there anyway to have it actually check for collisions during the transitions between toolpaths, or when it returns to its home position at the end of a program.

Appreciate any feedback I can get.
 
I'm not sure where to start. I say that because quite frankly, PowerMILL has always had the absolute BEST collision checking I have ever seen ( and continue to see ) in the industry.

Seriously.

With that said, let's hit the obvious and obligatory -

Have you asked your local vendor/rep? What did they say?

Did you back-plot it and check for collisions before actually running it?

Have you turned off collision checking, accidentally? ( it's right there in the tool path forms... )

Have you properly identified/created your tools?

Have you properly identified/created your tool holders?

Have you run the tool path and tool verifications after creating the tool paths?

Honestly, PowerMILL just does this stuff exceptionally well. So much so, that I would bet that you are doing something incorrectly.
 
Powermill has a several different options for checking for collisions.

1 - tool cutting into part model (gouge)
2 - shank and holder hitting part model (collision)
3 - shank and holder hitting unmachined stock within current toolpath
4 - shank and holder hitting unmachined stock from stock model

USING ADVANCED MACHINE SIMULATION
5 - Machine collision with part model

I looked at your picture and my guess is that your tool holder collided with unmachined stock. You should have the tool and toolholder modeled to match what you are using. You need to have "automatic collision checking" turned on before you process the toolpath. If you are using a "Finishing" strategy, it assumes the bulk of the material has been removed.
 
I was using OneCNC for both Mill and Lathe. I went to mastercam for milling, liked it a lot, then got the lathe package. I don't use matercam lathe as it is pretty akward in mastercam for solidworks. I wish I hadn't bought it as OneCNC is perfectly adequate, if not superior.

You already know Onecnc. The lathe is almost exactly the same. The basic 2 axis is pretty cheap (it was around 1800 when I bought it a few years back) and works fine. I don't have the post fine tuned so have to add/modify a few things manualy each time (like decimal points on thread cycles, various M codes etc...), but other than that it is perfect. Programming by hand is pretty lame. We don't do super fancy parts or anything, but there is always some geometry or another that would make a 10minute project an all day affair. I won't even cut soft jaws without a cam system.

And if you decide to just gcode it, at least do it in notepad. I can think of no worse way to spend time other than typing in a program on a cnc control
 
This may sound like a simple answer but you do not have enough endmill for the strategy your using. Out of curiosity what's the density of the foam your cutting. I run power mill 5 axis programs daily, change your strategy and use a boundary.
 








 
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