Post Last Edit by cutter at 2012-5-28 21:35

Over time you grow to trust things that have worked. Tapping is one that falls into that category for me. So I am cutting my very first parts on my new mill. I no longer have my old faithfull V14.5 loaded and instead I am using 2012. It is a good thing to regen your cam plan in these cases as there may well be differences and the plan in any case needs to be in the version you are using. This had always worked before with S&F in the tool library so I regen and post without thinking I would have to check the data ahead of time. First two holes sounded labored and on the third the tap shattered. I am thinking here what the heck, first part new mill NOW WHAT! So for your entertainment today I present the new tap library input for S&F for a 1/4 18 NPT. The tool library has always been skimpy here but the data associated with it was correct. User beware, you will have to double check everything and trust nothing with cam and tapping now.

On a seperate note here. Categories. Discuss,share and ask?? How stupid is this and what was wrong with the four categories that worked for so many years on the old forums. New and improved? How about new stupid and unworkable. You go to upload pictures and you have to guess that the blue patches with no label are relevant. Then when you figure that out you have to figure out where to go on the tabs to paste the pic to the post. WHEN are you guys going to start fixing these things you have been so busy improving? Not at all pleased to see that evidently the forum coders are now doing the tool library too.

Don't worry about my complaints though as in a few weeks the Solid Edge yearly user convention will happen and I expect that within short order there will be a cam program of some sort for SE. I don't care if you fix this or forget this as soon for this user you will be a bad memory. Customer from 2005 to 2012 but no more.

2012-5-28 21:10

Hi Cutter,

I have created an example for taping, it was for the M10*1.5 thread. The options of feed and speed have been set as following figure.

In this case, I intentionally set the wrong values for the feed options. We know that the S&F relation should be in strict accordance with the equation as Feed= speed * pitch in taping. For this example the value of the feed should be 200*1.5=300. You can guess that would be caused some problems: the NC would output a wrong value 1500 instead of 300. Let’s check the real NC file.

Obviously, both of the speed and feed are right. Why? When tapping, the option of the feed would be in grey, it is different from the others operations. It means that if the value of the feed would not be used whatever you define. (I thought this may be a little confusing for users, it would be better if we disable two of these options or automatically calculate the value according to the equation. We will improve it.) I also attached the file for your reference.

You could get the attaced file from following link:

http://files.zwsoft.com/en/ZWCAD/Tips/ForumImages/cutter.zip

I hope you can send us the Z3 files, CL files and NC files to us by email.

Our ZW3D technical support email address is ZW3D@ZWSOFT.COM.

Thanks

Reply 1# cutter

Hi cutter,port patience in 2013 you will resolve all

Suffice it to say to customers that you can't and to wait for

OK, you may be right. I went back today and ignored the stuff in the prompt boxes and the out put was right. I assumed that what I was reading on your speeds and feeds was what was being entered and quit looking right there and entered my own data instead. But you do know that real feeds and speeds should always be shown. Finish the job before you move on and remember we are not mind readers to know what you have done here.

I don't know what happened here and all I know is when I entered the data and ran it the second time it worked. The first time it did not and I just don't much care anymore.

Hi,Dave, thanks for your details of your question, I think Tony has answered and sent a good solution to you. Machining needs to be careful and do as wishes, that is why we develop ZW3D to be safer for those kinds of work you mentioned.

If there is any more question about your machining, could you please send your question to zw3d@zwsoft.com, we are happy to arrange the online meeting to assure your machining work done as you expected

Best regards
Colin