Fanuc Manual

[Florence Rocle]

Doesanyone here have any experience with these controls? A friend of mine has been considering some machine tools that have this control, and I was curious what they are like in terms of usability etc.

Personally I love fanuc controls. and I have used all 3. I find siemans to be a bit of a pain and to have a lot of unnecessary features and screens to navigate through where the fanuc is a lot more straight forward and easier to find your way around with fewer sub screens.

Heidenhain, one of the most powerful conversational controls on the market, both mill and lathe. I have seen a lot of people over the years struggle with the control as they are a bit different than everyone else, but on the other hand I know guys(few) who are wizards on the things.

MGi has some functions that the "old" FANUC interface does not. Iindependant I/O Channel for one. You can have your I/O set to 5 on the Settings/Offset page yet while in MGi, you can press "M CARD" and it goes right to your Flash Card, or on the newer ones, you have the choice between USB and your flash CARD. To change G54 to G55, you can press 55 Alter and it changes. To change Y10.0 to Y12.0, you just press 12.0 and Alter. WHn you have your cursor on many g codes, it will tell you what it is in an area of the display. To select a program to run, in edit mode you just press O-List, highlight the program you want and press input. That program is now your active program. Copy, Paste, UNDO, yes you saw it right UNDO, and REDO. Lots more but you.

For 2 axis turning, siemens shop turn knocks the pants off the fanuc manual guide. Way simpler to use and more powerfull. It is almost as simple as prototrak. We looked at fanuc and siemens when we were deciding what lathes to get and laughed at the fanuc in comparrison, so we went with the seimens and havent regretted it.

But you wouldnt want to prog a milling job on the machine as it's not running and earnign you money while you're doing it (yeh I know there's background edit but does anyone really use this if you're doing complicated work?).

We had an issue early on with our siemens where it couldn't count (there was no parts count at all in the 810 - who'd have thunk, a lathe that can't count???) and it threw alarms occasionally on boot up.

The MTB sent out siemens and the tech was great and cured the bootup (although he swore he never touched that fault but 3 years on the machine has NEVER had that problem following his visit ) and he wrote a R variable prog we call within all progs that part counts and gives cycle time as well.

The only things that have failed are on the oimc machines (oldest of all) which has been an MPG handwheel, 1x spindle motor fan (on top of machine), 1x cabinet fan, and 1x capacitor (the main big one) on the control.

This person is only looking at purchasing two mills, (no turning). Siemens support here I believe is pretty poor as well. As this person knows Heidenhain well, and there are number of experienced Heidenhain operators locally, I'm thinking that he will be best with Heidenhain,

Again that knocks the pants off fanuc for programming on the machine and getting the job going. Half of the south of England has heidenhain for this reason, and it's big for 5ax because of it's ease of use (cycle 19). You can also get a stand alone programming box so you don't have to program on the machine.

Yes, my opinion is that the Heidenhain is the most suitable option. The last company I worked at had two borers from the UK, which were retrofitted with Heidenhain, and two five axis machines that had TNC 530i controls on them. They never missed a beat, and they were easy to programme.

When I post the file using "Generic FANUC" the code has MO6 for the tool change which sends the machine to the tool-change position but the machine does not pause to allow a manual remove and replace of the tool. I have to edit the code for MOO after every MO6.

If you're on a PC, on the post dialog click Open config and the postprocessor will open in your editor after editing you need to save to a different directory. One option is to save to Documents then follow my instructions in the thread to load the post to your cloud folder. One thing to note make sure you use a zero and not a letter O like you have in your post.

Thanks for the help. I have found the file and renamed it, changing what I can but I do not know the correct syntax to add the COMMAND_STOP as suggested by Atomkinder67. If you wouldnt mind could you advise the line if code I need to add and should it go directly underneath the (6). I have searched DrGoogle and youtube for help on syntax but could not find anything able to steer me in the right direction.

Enabling Optional stop in the post processor dialog may give you what you need anyway. By default if you hve the optional stop button active on your control, it will stop the machine right before the tool change.... it will just do it for every tool change.

robot is added to scan list with 32 bytes in/out, connection points O->T 101 T->O 151 and config 100 according to a fanuc manual, ethernet ip in ACM is set to 32 bytes in/out and control word and statistics lists disabled, robot controller connection is set to 16 words in/out, digital inputs/outputs are set to rack 89 slot 1.

The following descriptions explain in brief, the operation of the Retract and Recover functions. Most of these functions are options and may also require hardware (such as push buttons) and PLC changes to work. Also, there may be limitations associated with each.

Tool Retract & Recover

Using this very powerful option, a tool can easily be removed from a part & returned to restart machining. The tool retract and recover operation consists of the following steps:

Recovery (Return): Pressing the Recovery button after returning to automatic mode causes the tool to return to the initial retraction position following the reverse path of any of the up to 10 recorded end positions.

Retraction For Rigid Tapping

If emergency stop, reset or tool retract button is pressed while tapping in a Rigid Tap mode, the tap needs to be removed using the Rigid Tap mode or the tap may break or destroy the threads being cut into the work piece. To alleviate this problem, this option stores information about the Rigid Tap commands and uses this to safely remove the tap to the R point. If, under an Emergency stop condition, the tap does not retract completely out of the work piece, an additional amount α, is set in parameter #5382 thereby causing the retraction distance to increase.

This option is available for the 30 series M & T controls, but just M controls on the 0i, 21i, 18i and 16i series.

Manual Intervention and Return (0i Series)

If Feed Hold is applied during automatic operation, Manual Mode can be selected and the tool can then be jogged off the part and to a spot where it can be checked (manual intervention). Upon returning to Automatic Mode and pressing Cycle Start, the tool will be returned to the position where it was before Feed Hold, or manual intervention, took place and the cycle will continue. This is described below.

One must be very aware of where the tool is when cycle start is activated because, unlike Tool Retract & Rover, the tool will return to the part using non-linear type positioning. This can result in a crash!!

Threading Retract (Canned Cycle) (T Series)

Normally, in a threading cycle (G92 or G76), if the Feed Hold button is pressed, the current threading pass in finished and the tool is retracted to the start point. Using this option, if the Feed Hold button is pressed, the tool immediately retracts using the same chamfer angle as programmed, then the tool returns to the start point.

Retrace

Retrace is used mostly for plasma and water jet machines but can also be used in turning & milling machines. This can be a complicated option but, in brief, turning on the retrace switch:

During reverse execution, if the retrace switch is turned off, the reverse execution is stopped (after completion of the block if not in single block or feed hold) and forward execution is then restarted. Forward execution will continue until the spot where the retrace switch was turned on and the regular program will then continue.

Manual Handle Retrace is similar to Retrace, except the MPG is used to move the axis in the reverse or forward execution mode (i.e. every click of the MPG in the minus direction will cause machine movement in reverse direction and MPG movement in the plus direction will cause machine movement in the positive direction).

To get rid of soft overtravel alarms 500-505 - Hold down the P and CANCEL buttons on the MDI panel while the control is powering up. This will ignore the soft overtravels until the first manual zero return is done.

CNC Engineering, Inc., FANUC FA America and Koma Precision, Inc. have joined forces to support the Manufacturing Technology program at Asnuntuck Community College, located in Enfield, Connecticut. This year, FANUC FA America donated three new FANUC control systems to students and staff of Asnuntuck Community College.

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