Hit a bad toolpath on a $300 block of aluminum yesterday

I was running a job in Akron last week, hogging out a 6061 block for a customer fixture. About 30 minutes in, the machine started making this weird harmonic whine I hadn't heard before. I let it ride like a dummy because the cycle looked fine on the sim. Came back to find a gouge halfway through the part. Turns out my post processor was outputting a different feed rate than what I had set in the CAM. The solution was stupid simple - I started verifying the G-code feed numbers against the CAM file before hitting cycle start. Took me 10 minutes to check, saved me from scrapping another block. Has anyone else caught a mismatch like this between their CAM and actual G-code?

2 comments

2 Comments

simon71717d ago

Yeah I mean who even needs to check that stuff right? Just let the machine do its thing and hope for the best. I had a post once that was swapping my feed and speed values around and I ran a 1" rougher at 12000 rpm with a feed of like 3 ipm. Worked great until the insert exploded and sent a piece of carbide through the enclosure door. Now I just print out the G-code and do a quick readthrough while my coffee brews. Takes longer to set up the coffee than to catch a stupid post processor bug.

mark_thomas17d ago

Yeah no kidding. I caught a post that was dropping my feedrate override codes entirely. Found it when the machine started climbing a corner at full rapids. Now I spot check every damn line before I trust the CAM.