Hi guys, this is my first post here at cnczone. I am a 3rd year engineering student and have been recently hired by a company to work CAMWorks 2013. Nobody at the company knows how to use CAMWorks and nobody has the time to learn it, so that's where I come in. I was hired to basically get this program up and running. I am very proficient in SolidWorks but have no CAMWorks experience whatsoever. I have spent the last week reading through each of the manuals on the CAMWorks installation disk and playing around with the software. I have viewed the Tech DB and understand the basic purpose of most of the features. My biggest problem is the lack of instruction for this software. Nobody at the company knows how to use it properly and I can't find any good tutorials for beginners or anything helpful besides the manuals that come with the disk. The "tutorials" that come with the software work great for the parts they are made for but when trying a lot of the similar commands on my part, I run into all types of errors.
The machine I'm working with first is a Mori-4000 with 120 tool stations. The company manufactures one specific part very regularly and that is the first part I am supposed to configure with CAMWorks. I have opened the SolidWorks file of this part and played around with CAMWorks only to come across several errors. For instance, when I click "Extract Machinable Features", I receive various errors such as "Machining depth is set to zero. Please check Tech DB" or "The machining diameter or depth defined in Tech DB for the MS Hole operation is zero. So no toolpath will be generated for this operation". When I enter the Tech DB to try and troubleshoot these problems I can never seem to figure out what's wrong. For instance, I want to set it so that any time a feature with these parameters is recognized, to perform this machining sequence. I have defined a custom User Defined Strategy and assigned a machining sequence but the software never seems to recognize this. I have also run into errors in the Features & Operations section while trying to set recognizable parameters saying that my entry overlaps with another entry even if it doesnt.
I have also noticed that when Generating an Operation Plan, some features stay highlighted in pink text and won't work, and some features that do work will grab the wrong tools. I understand that I need to populate my own custom tool crib to match our tools in our machine but the software comes stock with a default tool crib so I don't understand why it would grab the wrong tools. The goal is to get to the point where the software will only search for tools within my own tool crib when recognizing features. Another error I get in the CAMWorks NC Manager is that there will be a small red exclamation point next to the feature's icon and when I click "What's Wrong?" it will display this error "Tool selected was not from the tool crib. Clearing this error will clear the status of all the operation nodes using this tool."
From my understanding, the basic steps I need to take are as follows:
1. Build a custom tool crib for the tools available in our machine
2. Set up a custom strategy and machining sequence for specific unique features on our part
3. Generate/simulate toolpath and tweak anything from there
4. Generate g-code and dry run it on our part
I guess my overall question is: WHERE DO I BEGIN?! What is the process for setting up CAMWorks for a new machine and how do I get it to work? It would be EXTREMELY helpful to have a detailed step-by-step on how to go about this project. I don't have any resources here but myself so I'm really hoping someone can walk me through this. I have tried calling the company's tech support who sold us the software and they were extremely unhelpful. I'm running out of resources! I have figure out quite a bit on my own, but I definitely need someone to help me with the rest.
I apologize in advance for the extremely lengthy post but I am in urgent need of help and would appreciate ANYTHING you can do for me. Thank you very much!
The machine I'm working with first is a Mori-4000 with 120 tool stations. The company manufactures one specific part very regularly and that is the first part I am supposed to configure with CAMWorks. I have opened the SolidWorks file of this part and played around with CAMWorks only to come across several errors. For instance, when I click "Extract Machinable Features", I receive various errors such as "Machining depth is set to zero. Please check Tech DB" or "The machining diameter or depth defined in Tech DB for the MS Hole operation is zero. So no toolpath will be generated for this operation". When I enter the Tech DB to try and troubleshoot these problems I can never seem to figure out what's wrong. For instance, I want to set it so that any time a feature with these parameters is recognized, to perform this machining sequence. I have defined a custom User Defined Strategy and assigned a machining sequence but the software never seems to recognize this. I have also run into errors in the Features & Operations section while trying to set recognizable parameters saying that my entry overlaps with another entry even if it doesnt.
I have also noticed that when Generating an Operation Plan, some features stay highlighted in pink text and won't work, and some features that do work will grab the wrong tools. I understand that I need to populate my own custom tool crib to match our tools in our machine but the software comes stock with a default tool crib so I don't understand why it would grab the wrong tools. The goal is to get to the point where the software will only search for tools within my own tool crib when recognizing features. Another error I get in the CAMWorks NC Manager is that there will be a small red exclamation point next to the feature's icon and when I click "What's Wrong?" it will display this error "Tool selected was not from the tool crib. Clearing this error will clear the status of all the operation nodes using this tool."
From my understanding, the basic steps I need to take are as follows:
1. Build a custom tool crib for the tools available in our machine
2. Set up a custom strategy and machining sequence for specific unique features on our part
3. Generate/simulate toolpath and tweak anything from there
4. Generate g-code and dry run it on our part
I guess my overall question is: WHERE DO I BEGIN?! What is the process for setting up CAMWorks for a new machine and how do I get it to work? It would be EXTREMELY helpful to have a detailed step-by-step on how to go about this project. I don't have any resources here but myself so I'm really hoping someone can walk me through this. I have tried calling the company's tech support who sold us the software and they were extremely unhelpful. I'm running out of resources! I have figure out quite a bit on my own, but I definitely need someone to help me with the rest.
I apologize in advance for the extremely lengthy post but I am in urgent need of help and would appreciate ANYTHING you can do for me. Thank you very much!