how to control 5 axis rapid motion?

[ptc-4325965]

Hello all,

How do any of you control 5 axis rapid motion? Currently when we program, we'll use a retract sphere to clear all of our tooling and fixtures. When moving between sequences in a single operation, I am assuming that the tool vector stays normal to the sphere----be we have had a few instances where the tool vector gets pretty out of whack. How is the tool vector controlled?

I also would like to be able to control the resolution (number of control points around the sphere) that the 5 axis rapid is broken up into....is there a parameter somewhere to adjust that?

One other thing that would be nice to be able to control is to choose a primary retract axis------for example, if I am doing work on one side of a part and need to flip the rotary axis 180 degrees, it would be nice to have my rapid move consist of a Z retract and a simple rotary axis spin, rather than have a lot of motion in the A axis (trunion) as well.

Any suggestions or pointers would be greatly appreciated!

thanks so much,

Matt

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[JasonPensack]

I am running into the same problem when it comes to 5-axis positioning work. Using the sphere option for the retract looks nice but it creates a lot of unnecessary x,y,z,a,b moves in the code. Right now I am using a Go Delta move (to a Z of 10) on the last sequence that does work on a given side. The code looks good, but I am afraid I may miss one someday and it won't get caught at the machine (until it goes BOOM). I'm thinking of trying to get my post to output a clearance move everytime it sees a change in A or B. But i wish there was an easier way.

Does anyone else do 5-axis positioning work? And if so, how do you handle this?

Thanks in advance!

[aoler]

Our manufacturing guy is asking about this very same problem now. Has any solution been found? We have found by increasing the tolerance of the sphere you do not get as many extra steps, but the problem still exists.