Hi!
Z1 is the programmed plane, this is where the X-Y coordinates describe the part. Usually, it's value is the distance between the bottom of your piece and the machine table.
Z2 is the "middle plane", usually it's exactly on the mid between Z1 and Z5.
Z5 is your "upper plane". This plane is, whre you write the vaule of the U-V axis. The U and V values represent the distance between the the upper contour and the lower on this specific height.
For example, if you want to cut a part, where your countour is a 10x10 square, and you want your the tapered side to dectease by .1 on 5 inch, the best way is to set Z5 to 5, and Z2 to 2.5, so here you can simply write che contour like normal with the X-Y coordinates, and simpli write the distance (0.1) with the U-V coordinates.
If i get this right, you are using a taper command (you write the desired angle of the piece) in your program. If that so, basically i believe you can set the Z5 for ehatever value you wish, but we try not to complicate things, so we set it to the height of the piece. Then you set Z2 to a value in the middle between Z1 and Z5. If you like things as simple as possible, you don't write the program accourding where your piece will be actually, but more like it would be sitting on the machine table (zero plane in Z). If your need to move the piece upper, you can simply write it into the program like this:
Z1=0.0+3.0
Z2=2.5+3.0
Z5=5.0+3.0
Here, your part is 3mm/inch (whatever) above the zero plane.
To be honest, we never used the built-in cam, i just described the basic principles that we use.
Hope this garbage i just wrote helps you,not just confus things.
Balint
