Baffled By Z offset changing between tool changes

[Jeremy Sawatzky]

I have a Milltronics MB-20 cnc. - I am running a basic part and everything is going fine until I move to change to another tool - all other tool changes prior to this one were fine.

N9024 is where the trouble happens, you can see the z offset suddenly shift. - what this results in is my next tool sitting about a half inch above my part cutting air. - I am transitioning from Tool 7 to Tool 9 and I have rechecked and reset my offsets half a dozen times. I am a novice to this game so maybe I am missing something brutally simple. I am programming using HSMworks and haven't encountered anything like this before.

Below is a video of when it happens. - I cant see a command in my g-code that is causing it to leap like this.

- problem is at the 48sec mark



Thanks

 

[Matt@RFR]

You are changing to T8, but calling G43 H6. Is that on purpose?

 

[Nerdlinger]

Like Matt said, G43 is invoking a tool length offset…which one? The one on the following “H” word. In your case you are calling up Tool #8 on sequence number 9018 but Length Offset #6 on sequence number 9024.

They do NOT always have to match…maybe you want to have a variety of offsets to use on the same tool for any number of reasons, but I’m betting this is your issue.

Good luck!

 

[Jeremy Sawatzky]

Yep shorty after posting I was noticed the offset being called was H6 and should have been H8. - any idea why the program would have done this? its scary because this time it happened to be calling a longer offset than what was needed but if it calls a shorter offset by accident I will have a crash. I have re-exported this program probably a dozen times now.

Found it - I must have fat fingered the length offset button when adjusting the tool in my tool library. - Nice to find the smoking gun though now I dont have to worry so much.

 

[EMTech]

I am not familiar with HSMworks, but the software should have seperate fields for the tool number and the height offset number to allow you to control them separately.