NEED HELP, Methods Slant 1 Namamura FANUC 11T OFFSETS????

Hello all, I have fought this thing for a week.
It is a 1989 Methods SLANT1 Nakamura turning center,with a VDI turret, sporting a FANUC 11T Control.
It is exactly like this one Nakamura Tome Slant 1B 1989 - YouTube
I have manuals, but I dont see anything on how to set offsets, So i assume I am missing a manual or 2, If anyone knows what manual this information is in.
I thought trying to get RS232 Serial file transfer was going to be the problem, but that only took a day.
Now I can punch out directly from GibbsCAM to the machine.
But for the life of me, I cannot get the work offsets, and tool offsets to work.

I have ran a a Mori and a Doosan years ago with FANUC controllers, but they both had tool setters in them.

I tried this video How to set work shift, work offsets and tool offsets on a Fanuc 10T lathe - YouTube , even though it seemed off to me with all positive numbers.

It was going well until the tool offset Z zero measure, my machine did nothing when I hit measure.

I would greatly appreciate any help.

Older turning centers always kick my A$$ for some reason.

I didn't watch the whole video, but I did watch the part where he set Z zero for a tool, and that looked right to me. So, if you're doing it like that, you should be good....

Is there a memory lock key that might not be allowing the geometry offsets to be changed?
Can you enter numbers into the tool offsets directly? i.e. Z .25 Input
Are you sure you're on the geometry offset page and not the wear offset page?

The key lock on this seems to be backwards, to read and write programs in on SERIAL port it has to be set to ON or you get the write protect errors.
But yes it will let me type a number and "INPUT"
Yes I am on the GEOMETRY page.

To set tool offsets on a Fanuc 11T, go to MDI and call the tool and offset desired - say "T0101;" -input-cycle start. Then, manually wheel the tool to the part, touch the part GENTLY in fine feed, with the handwheel using a piece of paper or .001 shim stock. When the tool touches, go to the Offset/Geometry page, select Offset #1, and press "Z0" "MEASURE" and the offset will be measured and calculated. Do ye likewise for the others.

In X, do as above, but GENTLY touching the tool on the diameter of the work and type "X(diameter of work)MEASURE"

The MEASURE button on this control is a soft key under the screen, correct? Are you sure that button is working? I've seen them get stiff and not work if not used for a long time. You can test it to see if the button works for other functions when on other screens.

Other than that, I'm out of ideas. It should work like you're doing it.

Thanks everyone for the responses, I gave up trying to figure this out, I just left the G54 which is what the post processor uses, at X0 Z0, and moved each tool to it position at the part/work piece and typed in the MACHINE position in the tool geometry offsets.
All works fine now, but later it would be nice to figure out how, and what the MEASURE feature is relative to, it gave some strange numbers when I tried to use it.

G54 is work coordinate, not tool offset. So basically, the tool offsets tell the machine where the tools are, the work coordinate tells the machine where the part is.
Take the main tool - usually an OD rough tool - and touch to the work piece, "Measure Z 0" - now the machine will know where the part is.

Advantage is that when yo uare done with a job, and have another job which uses the same turret tools, instead of measuring each tool all over again, just touch the main tool and do a G54 Work 0 measure and you're off and running.

DouglasJRizzo said:

G54 is work coordinate, not tool offset. So basically, the tool offsets tell the machine where the tools are, the work coordinate tells the machine where the part is.
Take the main tool - usually an OD rough tool - and touch to the work piece, "Measure Z 0" - now the machine will know where the part is.

Advantage is that when yo uare done with a job, and have another job which uses the same turret tools, instead of measuring each tool all over again, just touch the main tool and do a G54 Work 0 measure and you're off and running.

Click to expand...

I know what G54 is, I was referencing the fact that I did the simplest thing possible, left G54 with NO OFFSETS, I typed in MACHINE position params for all the TOOL GEOMETRY OFFSETS, because the MEASURE feature was giving me some way out numbers. Like -22." on a machine with like 10" of travel, or the opposite I would get like a X MEASURE of a 1.5" Diameter part, and when I hit MEASURE it would give a -1.5"

I will figure it out later, I can tell when you hit MEASURE that it takes the MACHINE parameter, but then it adds or subtracts some other parameter (RELATIVE) (ABSOLUTE),I Dont know what it is yet, I have seen some strange machines we had in the past where even though the machine HOME position was at the TOP/RIGHT.
The machines MACHINE parameters were based off the middle of the spindle and the spindle face.

Houdini16 said:

I know what G54 is, I was referencing the fact that I did the simplest thing possible, left G54 with NO OFFSETS, I typed in MACHINE position params for all the TOOL GEOMETRY OFFSETS, because the MEASURE feature was giving me some way out numbers. Like -22." on a machine with like 10" of travel, or the opposite I would get like a X MEASURE of a 1.5" Diameter part, and when I hit MEASURE it would give a -1.5"

I will figure it out later, I can tell when you hit MEASURE that it takes the MACHINE parameter, but then it adds or subtracts some other parameter (RELATIVE) (ABSOLUTE),I Dont know what it is yet, I have seen some strange machines we had in the past where even though the machine HOME position was at the TOP/RIGHT.
The machines MACHINE parameters were based off the middle of the spindle and the spindle face.

Click to expand...

Oh, ok. I see what you're getting at.

Houdini16 said:

Thanks everyone for the responses, I gave up trying to figure this out, I just left the G54 which is what the post processor uses, at X0 Z0, and moved each tool to it position at the part/work piece and typed in the MACHINE position in the tool geometry offsets.
All works fine now, but later it would be nice to figure out how, and what the MEASURE feature is relative to, it gave some strange numbers when I tried to use it.

Click to expand...

Hello Houdini16,
When you use the MEASURE function to set the Work-piece Coordinate System, is the G54 Work-shift Offset modified by that exercise? As well as the common G54 to G59 Work-shift Offsets (also numbered 1 to 6), there should be another labeled EXT and or 0. This Offset is G52 and used to set what Fanuc Call a Child Offset within the program to shift the Work-piece Coordinate System relative to the current, active Work-shift Offset G54 to G59. It's useful on a Machining Centre in particular, when the same NC Code has to be repeated at different locations on the Work-piece, or on a lathe where a number of identical features have to be machined along the length of the part.

It is normally this Offset (EXT - OFFSET 0) that is set via the MEASURE function, with no G54 to G59 specified in the program. Via parameter, the control can be set to have a particular Work-shift Offset (G54 to G59) set as the active default on machine start up. Accordingly, its important to have other Work-shift Offsets set to Zero in case one is made active even though its not specified in the program.

Regards,

Bill

Don't know if this is the issue. I used to work in a place with several 11M. The measure function was an option that you had to pay for. We had our fanuc guru out one time and he entered the secret codes to turn it on.

I don't want to mess with it now that it is setup.
I bought this lathe for $8k, on the cheap, because they had ran fiberglass in it, and no one wanted to purchase and clean it.
In truth it only took 3 days to TOTALLY clean it.
It was a one owner machine, never been moved before, and it is in near perfect condition.
but funny thing is I started a my own shop, and I didnt have a turning center yet, but 3 VMC'c
I had a customer say they would give me $250,000 worth of work per year, that they really wanted to move from another shop to me,
but the part had a 1" x 2.25"D hole drilled in the end of a piece of 1.5" x 24" 6061
So I basically spent $8k to get $250k per year, and I don't need it to run any parts but this one simple hole.
HAHA strange shit.

Too add to the issue, I believe the MEASURE yanks from the ABSOLUTE parameter, and for it to work correctly it needed to be ORIGINed at the MACHINE ZERO position.
and I know that it was not.
Once I started to notice this, I realized the guy in the video I linked before, had back tracked and mentioned they were the same, but didn't mention they HAD to be.
but from what I can tell, they have to be.

Since I already have it running, I don't want to monkey with it to figure it out, especially when I don't need the lathe to do anything but drill and bore this little hole.

Thanks ALL!!! Appreciate your time!

Now that i've had time to remember, We had 4 100% identical mills with 11M controls. 2 had the Measure function, 2 did not.
I copied the control Eproms from a machine that did, and put them into the machines that didn't. Then we had out Fanuc guy activate them with the secret codes.

So, if you don't have access to the Eprom software, you're SOL.

Larry Dickman said:

Now that i've had time to remember, We had 4 100% identical mills with 11M controls. 2 had the Measure function, 2 did not.
I copied the control Eproms from a machine that did, and put them into the machines that didn't. Then we had out Fanuc guy activate them with the secret codes.

So, if you don't have access to the Eprom software, you're SOL.

Click to expand...

Good to know! Thanks