reorient axis

[eric@velmex]

I am playing with the CAM demo and I drew my part on the wrong coordinate system and am having difficulty changing the plane my initial sketch is on. Is there a way to do this or is there a way to orient my coordinate system in CAM?

 

[Lew_Merrick]

Eric -- Create a New Part and perform a BOOLEAN Unite and use it to Insert your Part in the "corrected orientation." It works!

 

[bigseb]

If AlibreCAM cannot let you re-orient the part or allow you to select a machine spindle axis that would be a major letdown for a CAM software. My opinion.

Also (this comes up regularly) I don't believe a part can be 'drawn in the wrong co-ordinate system'. A part is merely a part. Context can created using assemblies. In your case booleans would work too, as Lew suggests.

 

[MikeHenry]

If AlibreCAM cannot let you re-orient the part or allow you to select a machine spindle axis that would be a major letdown for a CAM software. My opinion.

So far as I can recall, it was only the earlier releases of AlibreCAM that had no feature to realign parts along different axes and more recent versions incorporated the realignment capability. Perhaps the demo/free version that the OP is using doesn't have that support.

https://mecsoft.com/DataSheets/AlibreCAM2017/DataSheet.pdf

 

[bigseb]

So far as I can recall, it was only the earlier releases of AlibreCAM that had no feature to realign parts along different axes and more recent versions incorporated the realignment capability. Perhaps the demo/free version that the OP is using doesn't have that support.

https://mecsoft.com/DataSheets/AlibreCAM2017/DataSheet.pdf

Could be... although it would be very limiting for AlibreCAM if it were true. What if you were running a Maho for example (where the Y and Z axis are switched)?

 

[bigseb]

Btw just had a look at the pricing for the expert package... $2000... not bad not bad. Is it still integrated like before?

(As you can tell I like integration. One file for 3D model, drawing, CAM and FEA)

 

[MikeHenry]

Could be... although it would be very limiting for AlibreCAM if it were true. What if you were running a Maho for example (where the Y and Z axis are switched)?

This was early on in the Visual Mill product line - maybe 2008 or so? Or maybe I'm thinking of the free AlibreCAM that came with Alibre (maybe Expert) for a while. In any case an Alibre user friend uses a recent version and I don't think that it suffers from that limitation any more, though the demo version might.

 

[KMoffett]

Mecsoft has a lot of one hour Youtube video tutorials out there for VisualCAM (AlibreCAM).
One on Orientation:

Also, the people at Mecsoft (Uday and Chrish) have been extremely helpful for me.

Ken

 

[fabcadmz]

Eric -- Create a New Part and perform a BOOLEAN Unite and use it to Insert your Part in the "corrected orientation." It works!

The problem with this method is, you can no longer use sketches to drive machining operations, one of the advantages of integrated CAM. It is much easier to re-orient in the CAM browser.

 

[KMoffett]

fabcadmz,
Am I missing something? I'm using Alibre Design Expert 2017 and AlibreCAM 2017 Expert, and have no problem using Boolean Unite or Component Placement in a Sketch to reorient a Part and then setup the linked CAM MOPs.

 

[DavidJ]

This can be done using the machine tool coordinate system. Personally I don't find the descriptions on the buttons to set this up very helpful, so I end up playing until I get it right. Definitely an area where MecSoft could improve usability...

[EDIT - is actually best done within the Setup option (allows you to change part way through job by defining new setup) - still very similar and could be more intuitive, some of the wording doesn't really convey intent].

 

[fabcadmz]

KMoffet,
No you are not missing anything, I wasn't very clear. What I meant was: the original sketch used to create the feature in AD can no longer be used to drive a MOP in ACAM if boolean is used. Sketches still work, but they need to be projected from the Boolean part or redrawn.