Title says it all. I have the newest version of the control installed, Ver. 3.80A. Threadmilling does not show up as a canned cycle under the Drilling cycles. Jerry Bouvier at Heidenhain has been very helpful in trying to get to the bottom of the problem, but nothing has worked to this point. I called H. H. Roberts ( the builder of the machine) and the guy said it definitely should be in the list of drilling cycles, but couldn't offer any suggestions other than to refer to Jerry Bouvier.
A little history, I bought this machine about three years ago, it's a 1998 model TW-105TRH, 10 hp., with Anilam 3300MK control. After getting used to the conversational control (not very intuitive at first) I am slowly becoming comfortable with it. I installed the offline programming software on an old computer and that really helped with the learning curve.
This is mostly hobby, but being retired now, I have done several paying jobs in the last year with this machine. I'd like to grow into more paying jobs, so I took a prototyping job a few weeks ago that could best be done with a threadmilling operation, as it requires threading a non-standard thread at an angle to the surface of the part. There was not an urgent deadline on the job when I took it, but I want to complete it very soon. I can do this job on the manual lathe, but really would prefer the mill.
I took the job because I ASS-UMED my machine had that option (since it is listed in the offline software) and this job would force me to learn how to do it. A year or so ago I bought some threadmills from Kevin Potter, in anticipation of this day!
I wrote all the programs for the threadmilling, both internal and external threads with the offline software. When I loaded the programs into the machine, I get the error message and realize that the function is not there at the machine. Duh.... I have spent quite a bit of time searching the archives here, but found nothing that addresses my specific problem.
Finally, I'll get to my question(s).
1. Anybody familiar with the control to know if there is a parameter that needs to be changed? Jerry said the Z-axis must be set to LINEAR for the function to appear. It is set to linear. I changed it to DRO and some of the other Drilling cycles disappeared. When I set it back to LINEAR, they reappeared, but no threadmilling. I have read the CNC setup manual for the control, but saw nothing obvious to my problem. Just seems that since the software person AND the machine builder both agree that this function should be available on this machine, there must be a parameter that needs tweaking.
Any thoughts, suggestions, ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Barron
A little history, I bought this machine about three years ago, it's a 1998 model TW-105TRH, 10 hp., with Anilam 3300MK control. After getting used to the conversational control (not very intuitive at first) I am slowly becoming comfortable with it. I installed the offline programming software on an old computer and that really helped with the learning curve.
This is mostly hobby, but being retired now, I have done several paying jobs in the last year with this machine. I'd like to grow into more paying jobs, so I took a prototyping job a few weeks ago that could best be done with a threadmilling operation, as it requires threading a non-standard thread at an angle to the surface of the part. There was not an urgent deadline on the job when I took it, but I want to complete it very soon. I can do this job on the manual lathe, but really would prefer the mill.
I took the job because I ASS-UMED my machine had that option (since it is listed in the offline software) and this job would force me to learn how to do it. A year or so ago I bought some threadmills from Kevin Potter, in anticipation of this day!
I wrote all the programs for the threadmilling, both internal and external threads with the offline software. When I loaded the programs into the machine, I get the error message and realize that the function is not there at the machine. Duh.... I have spent quite a bit of time searching the archives here, but found nothing that addresses my specific problem.
Finally, I'll get to my question(s).
1. Anybody familiar with the control to know if there is a parameter that needs to be changed? Jerry said the Z-axis must be set to LINEAR for the function to appear. It is set to linear. I changed it to DRO and some of the other Drilling cycles disappeared. When I set it back to LINEAR, they reappeared, but no threadmilling. I have read the CNC setup manual for the control, but saw nothing obvious to my problem. Just seems that since the software person AND the machine builder both agree that this function should be available on this machine, there must be a parameter that needs tweaking.
Any thoughts, suggestions, ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Barron