Sum3d frustration

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macminn

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I wonder if anyone else has had this issue with Sum3d. Every once in a while this happens, and I can't track down why. It only seems to happen when we mill a full puck. We select our milling strategy, create a puck, hit mill, and away we go. Instead of each step in the process having just one line, they each have multiple lines. For example, in our strategy, the first step is internal rough I believe. Most of the time that step will just be one line. But occasionally there will be 6 or 8 or even 13 lines all named "Internal Rough", followed by a dash and a sequential number, 1,2,3,4, etc. What's goofy as well as the number of lines has nothing to do with the number of crowns in the puck.

So the next step will be external rough. Again, instead of just having one line, there will be a matching number of lines as the internal rough had.

Another quirky thing is at times one or more of these steps will be blank. In other words, in the vpanel it will say 0kb of 0kb for a step or two.

This happened to a full puck this afternoon. It skipped an entire step. I'll see what it looks like in the morning.

Very frustrating.
 
Marcusthegladiator CDT

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Sounds pretty normal to me. You got more than one job in each block. Each job has its own instructions in each block. If it blank, it's ok, it wanted to skip that step. For reason like there's no reason to internally finish that area with that bur or something. Wish I was there. Sum 3d is great. Just be carefully. One question, these problems you say your having? Is everything failing or are you Milling successfully?
 
Sevan P

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Have you tried to calculate the strategy first then send it to the mill? If you use a DWX-50 from roland then at the end do a dwx-50 send then say yes or no to send to the mill once calculated. Also if you could do a screen shot of what the issues is that could help. How many unit are you milling at one time? Cause when you do multiple unit there will be multiple inter rough lines and so on. Also check the parameters in the strategy maybe a tool is missing or something is off. I have a 8unit bridge once and we did a on the start mill instead of send mill and the calculation got hung up around the crown rough dinco next morning still was hung up so I had to scrap the mill where it was, i couldn't have the machine tied up till luigi got back to us from cimsystems. Don't know what the issues was till today but now on I always calculate first then mill on any big bridge.
 
DMC

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Insertion axis, or milling angle is what you are seeing.

Normal. If you have ten teeth that are not rotated, then a bridge rotated a few degrees....then you get Two sets of instructions.
 
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Sounds pretty normal to me. You got more than one job in each block. Each job has its own instructions in each block. If it blank, it's ok, it wanted to skip that step. For reason like there's no reason to internally finish that area with that bur or something. Wish I was there. Sum 3d is great. Just be carefully. One question, these problems you say your having? Is everything failing or are you Milling successfully?

This is the strange thing, this isn't how it's calculated most times. Usually there's just one line for each step in the process, no matter how many units on the puck. We typically run full pucks, and only once in a while does it do this.

It doesn't mill completely. This case for example, after rendering, the screen comes back in Sum3d, and there's only one unit that has the red mill tracks on it. The rest don't have anything. They all milled most of the steps, except for the final external finish step. I kept the puck in the machine, selected a different milling strategy, so it would re-render again, and same thing. It milled most of the steps, but didn't finish milling the units.
 
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Marcusthegladiator CDT

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Are your units failing or are you milling successfully?
Everything your seeing on sum3d sounds normal to me.
I know you may not see these thing every time you calculate a job.
But still, this is normal.
I would have to see a screenshot to explain it better so were looking at exactly the same thing.
Sevan, there's no reason to scrap a job that's unfinished. Unless its broken of course.
But if your mill stops and the job isn't finished.
Ask luigi to show you how to post process the cnc. This way you can pick up where you left off.
I spent an entire Saturday with luigi last year and had him all to myself while we sat at the computer playing with sum3d. It was quite the learning experience. And I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time as he visited Los Angeles.
Of course you can always post process by deleting blocks of G code from the CNC file your milling, but you have to know what your doing or you'll break stuff. Lotsa stuff.
 
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Are they breaking or are they unfinishing?
If they are failing, my best suggestion would be to use whatever strategies you have that ORIGINALLY
cam with sum3D. Not any that have been altered.
If needed I would ask Luigi or one of his constituents for some new crown and bridge strategies that are simple as can be and give them a shot.
Unless you can build a new CandB strat yourself.
This is all assuming your machine and its tools are in working order and your tools are mapped out in sum3d correctly.
 
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Marcusthegladiator CDT

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phew... I was worried...

Yes, someone may have inadvertently adjusted your strategy. Even in a small way.
I would start fresh with new strats or if you knwo what your doing, make your way down the process tree and make sure everything is in order.
And if they are not finishing.
Do not scrap them and do not remove the puck.
Simply post process.
Find out how far you got in the process...
Then find that step or to be safe a few steps in the tree ahead of that step and select that step and right or left click on it to bring up a menu and ask it to be Post Processed. This will give you a new CNC file that doesnt include the steps youve already milled.
This way you dont have to start all over again from the beggingin.
If i was there i could show you but i cant from here, if you have trouble, dont TRY anything, just be carefull.
 
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phew... I was worried...

Yes, someone may have inadvertently adjusted your strategy. Even in a small way.
I would start fresh with new strats or if you knwo what your doing, make your way down the process tree and make sure everything is in order.
And if they are not finishing.
Do not scrap them and do not remove the puck.
Simply post process.
Find out how far you got in the process...
Then find that step or to be safe a few steps in the tree ahead of that step and select that step and right or left click on it to bring up a menu and ask it to be Post Processed. This will give you a new CNC file that doesnt include the steps youve already milled.
This way you dont have to start all over again from the beggingin.
If i was there i could show you but i cant from here, if you have trouble, dont TRY anything, just be carefull.

Good advice Marcus. I'm muddling my way through this a bit.

When you say make your way down the process tree, what am I looking for that would send up a red flag? That's part of my frustration, not knowing what to look for, etc.

This is how we broke a $100 diamond bur. The software missed one of the roughing steps with the 2mm tool, and the 1mm tool broke.

I'm having a hard time getting Sum3d to simulate the milling as well on these files. I thought I would use that to see what step or steps it skipped.

And to clarify, the milling process is being completed, but it's skipping a step somewhere in there. The last step is internal finishing, and that's completed. Not sure if it's not generating the G code, or if it's just skipping it.
 
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Marcusthegladiator CDT

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Ug a broken bur is such an unnecessary upset.
Do you know if you have some strategies saved in a file folder somewhere that are just base strategies luigi hooked you up with to get things started.
Always save these in a safe place for this reason.
Sometimes its easier to just rebuild your strategy then to find whats wrong with it.
The features and parameters in sum3d are for professionals and there could be a hundered tiny little parameters in each step to go over.
Your best off asking for new basic C&B strategies...
Maybe till you get these, you can change the tools on your wax/pmma C&B strategies and mimic the spindle and feed rates from your Zirc Strategies.
and rename them Zirc strats...
But DONT do this if your not sure, lol.
I hope this is intermittent and your able to mill. Its no joy when everything comes to a hault.
 
Marcusthegladiator CDT

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Hey I was just talking to someone and reminded of something...
I have to ask...
when the machine stops...
where is the tool...
is it cutting...
or is it mid rapid movement... as in, has the tool come to the top of the z axis on its way back down to mill another unit...
these movements in between cutting are the rapid movements and im curious when exactly its stopping...
 
DMC

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You guys need to send each other the CAM files to actually see what doing.

And, maybe a copy of the exported g-code?
 
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Sum3D has it's issues and bugs as well. I had to reinstall a couple on times already, same problems: crowns unfinished, insertion paths ignored. Strategies looked unchanged, reseller puzzled, was trying to blame on the CAD...reinstall solved problem at the end... On the other hand it still had reminiscent 16 bit DOS code until the last update...kinda weird...
 
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DMC

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We had issues at first, but that was almost wo years ago.

Maybe minor bugs, but I think it was mostly our fault for doing things the wrong way.

The latest release is very solid. IMO We run Two seats of SUM3d for over 100units a day with no issues on many mills.
 
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Hey I was just talking to someone and reminded of something...
I have to ask...
when the machine stops...
where is the tool...
is it cutting...
or is it mid rapid movement... as in, has the tool come to the top of the z axis on its way back down to mill another unit...
these movements in between cutting are the rapid movements and im curious when exactly its stopping...

The machine stops at the end of the process. So the tool is parked back in it's holder.
 
nik1618kin

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Software bugs are always there waiting for you.

It happened to us once with sum3D. We were milling two 12-units bridges on wax using fast mode (diagnostic wax-up bridges). During internal finishing of the second bridge an error message appeared: "there are no data for this step" or something. I suppose this means that there was some uncompleted part in the toolpath calculation...
 
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Can you send me the CAM file of this project?

Scott

I trashed the file so it didn't get run again by mistake. I'll keep that in mind next time we have an issue.
Thanks!
 

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