2 trim edge flip op question

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Thomas strembitsky
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2 trim edge flip op question

Post by Thomas strembitsky »

Why does the cutting tool go way past the edge of the sheet when doing the trim operation for flip ops?
We were cutting a 10 ft piece on our machine CS43 5x12 and it crashed into the tool holders and went into e stop.
should the program check that its not exceeding its table boundries?
Intel(R) Core(TM) i-13700K @ 2.70GHz 32.00 GB RAM
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http://www.trueform.ca
CS43 cnc
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Clint Buechlein
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Re: 2 trim edge flip op question

Post by Clint Buechlein »

Thomas,

It goes past the edge of the sheet based on how much your Lead amount is set to in Flip Ops First to make sure the entire edge has been trimmed. It starts past so the entire edge has the same cut direction, and we have to trim the entire edge because we don't know if someone is using a flip fixture to nest the sheet against.

We typically recommend setting up Pin Area Only when your sheets are going to touch the pop up pins. This fixes when you have sheets the full table size, and reduces cutting time. But its not and end all fix. If your sheets can't touch all the pins, you won't have a way to gauge the sheet flip against the waste board that is against the pins (or a flip fence). So depending on sheet size you may need to swap between sheet trim and pin area only.

To your question regarding why it hit the tool grippers and should the machine have stopped itself, it shouldn't and yes it should have. The machine has a protected area around the tool grippers that it can't invade when Z is down from home. This is set up by us here at the factory, typically on a semi-conservative amount. This value is stored in the PLC and is not modifiable by a user, only us here at Thermwood.

So potential reasons why it crashed into that area:
- Machine was retrofitted with a different style dust hood, rake, labeler, etc. that would have changed the location of how the dust hood and spindle are set up, but the value was not updated.
- We were asked to modify the value, but the value wasn't safe in all scenarios.
- There is a PLC output override used for tool changes. If someone turned the output on that would let the machine go wherever. There is a slim potential there is a bug in the tool change macro for your THM software version that doesn't turn that output back off, but that's very slim.
- Slight chance the X axis home switches are set wrong. If the clearance area was set tight, then the home switches moved, you may still have enough travel on X at the other end of the table to fix fixture offset, but now that tight area for the safety zone is gone.

I would get in touch with CNC Automation to figure out what could have been changed, and work with them on getting the value set properly.

-Clint-
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