Tool and work offsets

I haven't been able to setup tool and work height offsets correctly in Gmoccapy. It's likely I'm doing something wrong so I just touchoff every tool when changing to get things going but that gets pretty time consuming. I think the main problem is I don't know what the reference 0 for the rest of the tools is. I assume the idea is to toolchange to "tool 0", then "touchoff tool Z" the empty spindle on a reference surface like a 1-2-3 block. After that touching off every tool in the table (that's in a repeatable holder) against the same surface should set the tool offset.

When setting the workpiece Z offset, I assume I should be able to use the tip of any tool in the table and that should set the workpiece Z-0 with that tool loaded and the offsets should be applied, or is this where I'm doing this wrong and one of the G-code commands should be applied?

You might find it simpler to use either a real tool or a dummy tool to touch off the work to. Then all the tool offsets end up being dimensions relative to that tool.

Better still if that tool is your probe.

Don't forget the G43 when you change tools.

Hmm, G43 is likely what I've been missing.

So I suppose if you touch off one tool selected from the library to the work, G43 should be active for every tool changed after that to apply it's offsets?

I did actually just setup touch plate probing in Gmoccapy and I'll say that's a must have feature there. I was figuring I'd have to buy a bunch of drill chucks to hold common drills and keep an offset. The past couple days I've been slapping bits into the quick change chuck and probing after every tool change pretty much takes the guesswork out of it.

blazini36 wrote: So I suppose if you touch off one tool selected from the library to the work, G43 should be active for every tool changed after that to apply it's offsets?

No, it needs to be explicit. Just get used to M6 T4 G43 being the incantation.

If you have a tool in spindle and G43 active and you then change the tool by GUI buttn or MDI command, gmoccapy will take care to load the new offsets. If you use gcode file, please take care of adding a G43 after each tool change.

Norbert

newbynobi wrote: If you have a tool in spindle and G43 active and you then change the tool by GUI buttn or MDI command, gmoccapy will take care to load the new offsets. If you use gcode file, please take care of adding a G43 after each tool change.

Norbert

Thanks Norbert,

I am still not very familiar with Gcode itself. The Auto-touchoff is something I wish I had thought to set up sooner, It makes slapping different drillbits into a single keyless chuck go much quicker. I noticed 2 things about it though:

For some reason if I run from line, it will execute a touchoff for every previous M6 that is in the Gcode. Is there any way around this?

Also, the easiest way I've found to measure "block height" with the machine is to use a tool that has a Z offset in the tooltable and touch it off to the workpiece. I subtract the current absolute Z height (while the tool is toouching the workpiece) from the tooltable offset and that is the blockheight. Is there an easier way to do this rather than touching the table then touching the workpiece?