Great video, thank you. Just a little trick which may help, instead of writing comments where you make a change, which may need to be deleted later on, I use a "debugMode" variable, and a little function "writedDebug", based on writeComments, which is written ONLY when debugMode=1, or true. function writeDebug(text){ if(debugMode){ writeComment("DEBUG - " + text); log("DEBUG - " + text); } } That way, it is both in the code output and in the log file, in case there is a problem for the processor to post.
I think it's still valuable to wrap up all those calls in plain if statements though if (false) { writeDebug() ..... } That way you can isolate certain areas of the post you want to debug, instead of being overwhelmed with information you don't need to solve a particular problem.
If you're really wanting some version tracking tools, look into the git extensions for vscode. In software development, the ability to check out an old version and track changes over time has tons of power. (Would also maybe allow moving some of your comments out into commit messages, though having them in-lined is nice when you're reading the file.)
That's hilarious that you should post this now. I'm using your previous tips from other videos to try and figure out how to get inverse time running on a LinuxCNC post processor.
Looking forward to more videos on your Okuma journey, do to the fact I run them every day. (Mostly mill-turn) The post of the letter “O” plus some numbers in the start of every program, typically is do to the postprocessor being set op to post every program as a subprogram and not a main program. Okuma sub programs start with “O” EVERY TIME and is followed by at least 1 letter then either 3 letters or numbers, or a mix. As an example “OA001" or "OA01A". This is also why your sub routine for checking toolheight is starting with an "O" (OTLOX). Okuma often uses a lot of sub-routines/programs. Also if a subprogram is created, the file extension must be ".SSB". But if it’s a main program the file extension must be ".MIN" A lot of times Okuma machines is a bit picky with how the exact syntax should look like, and in what order for example specific g-codes should appear.
If you haven't already tried it, or figured it out, you can call up a new post processor and your old one like you described in "compare". Then open up "CNC Selector" to see how each post processor handles the code it's spitting out. I'm in the process of trying to get circular milling to work in my old processor that I've highly modified for an old Mazak. Tedious to be sure, but this little trick is for sure a "game changer". Thank you very much.
we got our MB4000 a few years ago so im a bit fussy on the details but I remember being going through the same thing. We had a really good fusion post for our M560 and M460 5AX so I thought the horizontal would need little if any modifications, It ended up being the most challenging post i've had to get it working properly.
When I am adding stuff to a post I add a lot of comments that I do not want in production code. I add “var debug=True;” at the top of the file and then lines like “if (debug) writeComment("onOpen");” where needed. This emits the comment when debug is true. Set it to false for production code that is clean and machine friendly.
As always good stuff and I learn something ....very few RUclipsrs... Can impress me like John. Now I am going to try my hand at creating a fourth axis post for a Shapeoko. Pray for me
when i had to modify a post i contacted Autodesk post editors and literally almost every time the next day they answered with a solution which worked flawlessly. 5* Post support
Smallest note but in the diff view for vscode, there are two hidden up and down arrows so you can skip through the code without worrying about the mini-map's small lines If you ever want to look for other tools, because there are many, and some with nicer interfaces than others, the main name for this is diff'ing two files.
I've previously always used Winmerge to compare 2 text files. Its also a very handy free utility. Nice to know VS Code can run a post proc just like a compiler and find code execution points. Very handy feature. I use Notepad ++ for my .nc editor with the G-Code language plug-in. Notepad ++ can also compare files natively.
I had to modify a ton on my okuma post to get it to work on an older machine with only 128kb of memory. I did get it working great and had it where I could enter a common variable to the number of duplicate parts I wanted to make and it repeat each tool on however many work offsets I wanted, incrementing the offset until it reached that number then move on to the next tool change. It made changing up the number of times I would pattern something real simple at the control instead of in inventor/fusion.
i have modified my post to stop machining, whenever there is a tool in the spindle which has an exact length like 90.000mm. If its 90.001 or 89.999mm then the machine continues.
Hi John - something to keep in mind with your [0,360] range, is that 0 IS 360. So you've technically already gone a little bit over. You could say [0,359] but your tooling might be smaller than 1 degree, so what you really want is something that represents "from 0 to, but not including, 360". I don't know if the software automatically handles that or not. A trick you can use to keep things in range of 0-360 is to use modulus, which is often indicated by the % operator. (angle % 360) would let angle go past 360 but you'd only keep the remainder and the value would always be 0..360.
Hey John, this is cool. But you will have to unpick all that hardcoded machine config stuff from your post eventually. Instead you will need to set up your machine config in Fusion 360. It's actually far less abstract doing it in the machine config UI anyway.
I'm trying to do what you're showing here but the provided examples don't have a program Number included so my POST proc just crashes onOpen and won't process any of the example files. Any ideas on how to fix this? I've searched the web and only found a couple posts about the HSM plugin doing this but they aren't related.
Most of this video was chinese to me. Thats not a knock against john. For some reason i can never wrap my brain around this stuff. I was tickled to death when i figured out how to change where our hurco would home to at the end of the program lol. If i knew half of the stuff mentioned in these videos it would be a game changer for what i do.
Please share how you do that. I have a 2004 Vm1 with ultimax that goes to the home(back right) position after a end of cycle. I usually edited it in my dnc software if I’m running a lot of parts. I also want to figure out how to turn the coolant on at the feed height instead of the z height before it rapids down.
@@Jraksdhs i don't know yet how to permanently edit the post. For now when i post the program and it jumps over to the visual editor program i scroll down to the end of the program where it calls out m30 (i think? Honestly cant remember for sure if thats the right code at the moment) x0 y0. I just change that to x whatever y25.0. I run a 2014 vmx50 50 taper so x is 50" y is 26. I'll position the x differently depending on the job and then i do y25 instead of 26 because for some reason i got an over travel warning even though the machine will actually go to y26.025. Dunno why but 25 is good enough. I also can add an m52 at the beginning to turn on air blast and m62 at the end to turn it off. Theyre auxiliary function codes and 52 &62 turn off the air nozzle mounted next to the spindle. I dont have through tool air (wish i did) and i haven't figured out how to turn on through spindle coolant. The machine has it but the fusion hurco post doesn't support it. So i assume its something that needs change just like in this video. But i dont need it that often so i just push the button on the control when i need it.
@@TJ4A9 i watch these videos and literally im blank lol i can model and do reasonable cam work on fusion but beyond that I'm pretty computer dumb. I get confused just on file types like step and dxf and stuff. I just dont have much use for a computer outside of fusion. I dont even have Microsoft word in my laptop.
I have only got Visual Studio Code to work once. Once I saved the modified post VSC has never jumped to a line again by clicking the Gcode line. WTF did I do wrong?
Do you mean if you select a milling function from the left side from the nc-gcode extension and run it with your postprocessor.cps, you cant click a line in the .nc output file and have it bring you back to where it was generated in the .cps file? Im having that same problem. Got it to work once and now it wont.
@@Lambo429 Exactly. Only worked until I made changes. Once I saved the changes it never worked again. Ive tried uninstalling and reinstalling. Nothing works. Not sure what setting is messed up but obviously John has it working all the time.
@@greg2337 I rolled the fusion hsm extension back a version and it started working but then it quit working again. I feel like its something dumb that im missing
@@Lambo429 I feel the same way. John talks about how great it is. I watched the original video 100 times to see if there was some setting I missed but I can’t see anything different.
Great video, thank you. Just a little trick which may help, instead of writing comments where you make a change, which may need to be deleted later on, I use a "debugMode" variable, and a little function "writedDebug", based on writeComments, which is written ONLY when debugMode=1, or true.
function writeDebug(text){
if(debugMode){
writeComment("DEBUG - " + text);
log("DEBUG - " + text);
}
}
That way, it is both in the code output and in the log file, in case there is a problem for the processor to post.
Love this!
Thanks for that Le Bear... somehow I've missed that after all these years. I've been using some other techniques, but this is a lot better.
I think it's still valuable to wrap up all those calls in plain if statements though
if (false) {
writeDebug()
.....
}
That way you can isolate certain areas of the post you want to debug, instead of being overwhelmed with information you don't need to solve a particular problem.
If you're really wanting some version tracking tools, look into the git extensions for vscode. In software development, the ability to check out an old version and track changes over time has tons of power. (Would also maybe allow moving some of your comments out into commit messages, though having them in-lined is nice when you're reading the file.)
And then when Fusion puts out an updated post you could pull it into the repo and see a diff of changes.
It’s technical but it needs to be. This is for sure a help for those of us running odd ball unsupported machines.
That's hilarious that you should post this now. I'm using your previous tips from other videos to try and figure out how to get inverse time running on a LinuxCNC post processor.
Looking forward to more videos on your Okuma journey, do to the fact I run them every day. (Mostly mill-turn)
The post of the letter “O” plus some numbers in the start of every program, typically is do to the postprocessor being set op to post every program as a subprogram and not a main program.
Okuma sub programs start with “O” EVERY TIME and is followed by at least 1 letter then either 3 letters or numbers, or a mix. As an example “OA001" or "OA01A".
This is also why your sub routine for checking toolheight is starting with an "O" (OTLOX). Okuma often uses a lot of sub-routines/programs.
Also if a subprogram is created, the file extension must be ".SSB". But if it’s a main program the file extension must be ".MIN"
A lot of times Okuma machines is a bit picky with how the exact syntax should look like, and in what order for example specific g-codes should appear.
If you haven't already tried it, or figured it out, you can call up a new post processor and your old one like you described in "compare". Then open up "CNC Selector" to see how each post processor handles the code it's spitting out. I'm in the process of trying to get circular milling to work in my old processor that I've highly modified for an old Mazak. Tedious to be sure, but this little trick is for sure a "game changer". Thank you very much.
I was encouraged to use Fusion and also edit my posts for DMG and Haas , from this channel 🌸🌸
we got our MB4000 a few years ago so im a bit fussy on the details but I remember being going through the same thing. We had a really good fusion post for our M560 and M460 5AX so I thought the horizontal would need little if any modifications, It ended up being the most challenging post i've had to get it working properly.
When I am adding stuff to a post I add a lot of comments that I do not want in production code. I add “var debug=True;” at the top of the file and then lines like “if (debug) writeComment("onOpen");” where needed. This emits the comment when debug is true. Set it to false for production code that is clean and machine friendly.
As always good stuff and I learn something ....very few RUclipsrs... Can impress me like John. Now I am going to try my hand at creating a fourth axis post for a Shapeoko. Pray for me
May the 4th be with you
Good video John! Nice to see some of the edits in action.
when i had to modify a post i contacted Autodesk post editors and literally almost every time the next day they answered with a solution which worked flawlessly. 5* Post support
Smallest note but in the diff view for vscode, there are two hidden up and down arrows so you can skip through the code without worrying about the mini-map's small lines
If you ever want to look for other tools, because there are many, and some with nicer interfaces than others, the main name for this is diff'ing two files.
I've previously always used Winmerge to compare 2 text files. Its also a very handy free utility. Nice to know VS Code can run a post proc just like a compiler and find code execution points. Very handy feature. I use Notepad ++ for my .nc editor with the G-Code language plug-in. Notepad ++ can also compare files natively.
I had to modify a ton on my okuma post to get it to work on an older machine with only 128kb of memory. I did get it working great and had it where I could enter a common variable to the number of duplicate parts I wanted to make and it repeat each tool on however many work offsets I wanted, incrementing the offset until it reached that number then move on to the next tool change. It made changing up the number of times I would pattern something real simple at the control instead of in inventor/fusion.
Awesome work, John. Thanks for sharing.
i have modified my post to stop machining, whenever there is a tool in the spindle which has an exact length like 90.000mm. If its 90.001 or 89.999mm then the machine continues.
Hi John - something to keep in mind with your [0,360] range, is that 0 IS 360. So you've technically already gone a little bit over. You could say [0,359] but your tooling might be smaller than 1 degree, so what you really want is something that represents "from 0 to, but not including, 360". I don't know if the software automatically handles that or not.
A trick you can use to keep things in range of 0-360 is to use modulus, which is often indicated by the % operator. (angle % 360) would let angle go past 360 but you'd only keep the remainder and the value would always be 0..360.
Excellent, as always. Thx. Keep the great content coming! :) ...
Congrats on the Horizontal!
I love that okuma.
It kinda blows my mind how many manufactures don't realize that free and solid posts sell machines...
Hey John, this is cool. But you will have to unpick all that hardcoded machine config stuff from your post eventually. Instead you will need to set up your machine config in Fusion 360. It's actually far less abstract doing it in the machine config UI anyway.
If you use the machine model in your set up, and select no rotation the machine will output b rotations in the post
Hello.
I have an old Okuma MC VAE. Is there a post anywhere for it?
awesome
I'm trying to do what you're showing here but the provided examples don't have a program Number included so my POST proc just crashes onOpen and won't process any of the example files. Any ideas on how to fix this? I've searched the web and only found a couple posts about the HSM plugin doing this but they aren't related.
Any idea if that extension for VSCode will work with posts from other CAM packages?
Nope. Only the HSM based posts.
Most of this video was chinese to me. Thats not a knock against john. For some reason i can never wrap my brain around this stuff. I was tickled to death when i figured out how to change where our hurco would home to at the end of the program lol. If i knew half of the stuff mentioned in these videos it would be a game changer for what i do.
Please share how you do that. I have a 2004 Vm1 with ultimax that goes to the home(back right) position after a end of cycle. I usually edited it in my dnc software if I’m running a lot of parts. I also want to figure out how to turn the coolant on at the feed height instead of the z height before it rapids down.
@@Jraksdhs i don't know yet how to permanently edit the post. For now when i post the program and it jumps over to the visual editor program i scroll down to the end of the program where it calls out m30 (i think? Honestly cant remember for sure if thats the right code at the moment) x0 y0. I just change that to x whatever y25.0. I run a 2014 vmx50 50 taper so x is 50" y is 26. I'll position the x differently depending on the job and then i do y25 instead of 26 because for some reason i got an over travel warning even though the machine will actually go to y26.025. Dunno why but 25 is good enough. I also can add an m52 at the beginning to turn on air blast and m62 at the end to turn it off. Theyre auxiliary function codes and 52 &62 turn off the air nozzle mounted next to the spindle. I dont have through tool air (wish i did) and i haven't figured out how to turn on through spindle coolant. The machine has it but the fusion hurco post doesn't support it. So i assume its something that needs change just like in this video. But i dont need it that often so i just push the button on the control when i need it.
Honestly just start documenting all of these things you’re learning. Eventually you’ll be in a position you’d never believe in a few years
@@TJ4A9 i watch these videos and literally im blank lol i can model and do reasonable cam work on fusion but beyond that I'm pretty computer dumb. I get confused just on file types like step and dxf and stuff. I just dont have much use for a computer outside of fusion. I dont even have Microsoft word in my laptop.
I have only got Visual Studio Code to work once. Once I saved the modified post VSC has never jumped to a line again by clicking the Gcode line. WTF did I do wrong?
Do you mean if you select a milling function from the left side from the nc-gcode extension and run it with your postprocessor.cps, you cant click a line in the .nc output file and have it bring you back to where it was generated in the .cps file? Im having that same problem. Got it to work once and now it wont.
@@Lambo429 Exactly. Only worked until I made changes. Once I saved the changes it never worked again. Ive tried uninstalling and reinstalling. Nothing works. Not sure what setting is messed up but obviously John has it working all the time.
@@greg2337 I rolled the fusion hsm extension back a version and it started working but then it quit working again. I feel like its something dumb that im missing
@@Lambo429 I feel the same way. John talks about how great it is. I watched the original video 100 times to see if there was some setting I missed but I can’t see anything different.