GearHeads Corner

Good Morning-

I am probably the newest member of this group and have a couple of questions for some of the more experienced users of gearotic software...here goes. I have ,in the past done a couple of separate gear exhibits and at the time I put everything together in SolidWorks and created all of my tool paths in Mastercam. I would like to preferably output a file type ( DWG or even better IGS) that some of my other software can recognize or... failing that, send the G and M code output straight from Gearotic. I probably differ a little from some the usual users in that my plan is to cut these components from materials other than wood- think G-10 or Brass or steel, with thicknesses staying under .125. so I would like to retain more control of the feeds and speeds as well as wire EDM having a lot separate settings that are quite a bit different than that of normal CNC. These projects would be non-commercial in nature but I would be utilizing Haas DT-1 Vertical machining centers and a mits fx-20K Wire EDM  from my place of employment. I am still test driving the Demo version of gearotic- so there are likely some features that are disabled in my version. Are there any registered users on the group that have any of the same needs and or requirements?

                                                                              Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Welcome to the forum Eric,
Unfortunately, that out put is presently unavailable, perhaps down the road from what is read but for now, believe it is on the back burner set to low.

Ken

Hi Eric:

>>I would like to preferably output a file type ( DWG or even better IGS) that some of my other software can recognize or... failing that, send the G and M code output straight from Gearotic.

  I understand what your needing I think. The DXF's should be loadable in most cad programs that can do CAM work, and while Id
love to put out IGES, its a very expensive format to use. Gearotic, being a hobby level priced program would be hard pressed to
put out some of the new CAD formats simply due to the complexity and costs of those formats. (Think GM's price times 3 or so..).
    My compromise to that was to offer a better DXF than I ever did before, it should be loadable by most software in the higher end.
I do constantly keep my eye on options for me to offer things like IGES, but another problem is such formats arent truly graphics formats but manufacturing formats which describe each operation in a build..( ex: take a cylinder, subtract the following mesh, add the following texture, then rotate and invert the cone ..etc...) which makes it very hard to confirm to even internally.

    Where DXF doesnt allow enough information for high end CAM for things such as EDM, STL's often can work, but even there I understand where a better format would be handy. All I can say at this point is that I am always testing and watching the situation
to see when I can jump in with some sort of conversion operation to allow an IGES type of output, but I dont see it happening
very soon to be frank. Things like IGES are why many CAD/CAM programs now sell in the range of $1000 - $10,000 a copy.

  Now when it comes to Gcode, I plan to have an even better GCode generator when the program is complete that can give you better
options and control of feed/speeds, though if your using a Haas or other high end machine the unit overrides are probably good enough
to allow for the current Gcode to do the job quite well. I dont yet offer a post processor, but the Gcode is kept quite generic on purpose
using only G1/G0 combinations so that we dont make anyone suffer with incompatabilities until such time as I offer a postprocessor
selection.

Any thoughts are welcome, GM is driven by user input to a level much higher than most software, like Mach3 before it, its users
determine its path with myself as simply a benign dictator most of the time. :)

 
Art

 

  Many thanks for the speedy reply-

            After looking at what formats are going to be of use for what I have in mind- It turns out that IGES may not be critical to creating a wirepath, I may need to do a little research on the practicality of using the STL format for the wire EDM work- some of the information that has been relayed to me states that there may be some very basic STL functionality issues that are specific to Mitsubishi machines in particular, more on that later. Some of the real fun (and frustration) for me when I was proofing out the original Bilobe gear design machine code was creating and testing the different tooth geometry until the integrals were right (a big nod to Mr. Fred Cunningham of Cunningham Industries for his incredibly valuable help here) without him I would have surely gone bald trying to figure it out. It was an internship project so time spent was my own and as plentiful as could be and money however was in short supply!! Thanks again for the input to Ken and Art, I will play with the demo version some more and will very likely have more questions as I move through the learning curve.



    Eric

    I've used the code from Gearotic on a Haas VF5 with and without the A axis, and also on a Chmer wire edm. The code sometimes takes a little hand tweaking to get it machine specific, but basically G code is G code. I've also loaded the DXF files into AutoCAD, TurboCAD, Rhino, GibbsCAM, and a few other CAM packages for code generation with machine specific post processors. 

Thank you , that IS good to know. The new DXF facility for GT was
to ensure as wide a coverage of DXF issues as I could get as GM had issues
with some cad programs. Nice to know its living up to my expectations.

Art