IE 470 – Manufacturing Processes II
Fall 2022
Programming Personal Plate
Introduction
Each student will program the mill to cut his/her personal design into a 5” x 2.5” x 0.125” aluminum plate.
Part Program Coding is similar to Lab 4. Refer to the Lab 4 handout and follow the required guidelines. A part
of those guidelines is attached below for your reference. The additional requirements for this lab are:
? The program should have at least 100 lines of code.
? There should be at least two OFF-AXIS arcs in your design.
Note: Off-axis arcs are defined as any arcs that are not symmetric about the x-axis, y-axis, and the 45 and
135 degree line. Any arcs that are symmetric to these 4 lines will be considered on-axis arcs. So, please
make sure your personal design has off-axis arcs.
Please bring program in on a flash drive and saved as an MPF file.
1. Part Program Coding
Your part program has to be developed based on the following guidelines.
1. Line number 1 to 4 should be as follows:
WORKPIECE(,"",,"BOX",0,0,-0.125,-80,0,0,5,2.5) *NO SPACES*
N10 g70 f20
N20 g90 M03 S4000
N30 g00 x0 y0 z1.0 M06 t6
Line 2 sets the axes format to inches., and the IPM mode. Line 3 sets absolute programming mode.
Line 4 brings the cutter 1 inch above the workpiece at x0 and y0 position.
2. Line 4 onwards should contain the part program to obtain the required tool motion. The top of the
workpiece is in the z = 0.00" plane. It is unknown where the cutter begins, therefore the first
movement should be to raise the cutter to .5". All non-cutting tool positioning motions must be done
after withdrawing the tool to a z-axis value of 0.5". All cutting motions must be performed with a z-
axis value of -0.02" !
3. Choose the axis position and arc center values carefully based on the programming mode you are in,
namely absolute or incremental programming.
4. The initial position of the tool will be at (0.0, 0.0, 1.0) in the absolute scale.
5. The lines at the end of the part program should be as follows:
n__ g00 z1.0
n__ g00 x0 y5
n__ m05
n__ m30
The value following the N-word address will depend on the length of your program. The above
lines remove the cutter to a safe and convenient location, shut off the spindle, and signify the end of
the program and restarts the program.
6. Use only g00, g01, g02, and g03 for moving the cutter. Do not use any M-codes and G-codes other
than those mentioned above.
7. While calculating center positions, be aware to go to 4 decimal places if necessary. 5 decimal places
will result in an error. NOTE - The distance from the center of an arc to both the starting and end
points needs to be the same rounded off to 4 decimal places. Unused decimal places will assumed
to be zeros.
8. Use g00 (Rapid Traverse) only for non-cutting cutter positioning motions. These include moving
the cutter above the point at which to start cutting and moving the tool vertically out of the
workpiece.
9. Do not move the tool below the z = -0.0200" plane.
10. Do not let the tool center come within .25" of the edges of the plate, else the tool path will interfere
with the fixtures.
11. Arc moves should start with a G02 X_Y CR= radius. All radius should be to the fourth decimal
place.
***Step By Step Instructions To Mill Your Own Plate:***
1. Draw your part to scale on measured graph paper.
2. Write a program that satisfies your handout requirements.
3. Stay at least ? inch away from the edges of the plate.
4. Save your program as a text file (your lastname.txt) using “NotePad.”
- Please use your last name for your file name and save it in the root directory.
5. Please bring program in on a flash drive and saved as an MPF file
NOTE: A commented program needs to be turned in when you attend the lab session. The commented program,
the drawing on the graph paper, and the uncommented code will all be considered as part of the lab report.
However, the commented program will NOT be used to mill your plate because comments will be read as
errors by the machine. Therefore, the e-mailed copy of the code should be uncommented.
6. When ready to run your plate on the mill, please bring the following the Mark Rausch:
a) CAD drawing
b) Program listing with comments on each line
You may also save your file in Word as a PLAIN TEXT document.
Be sure NOT to save it as a RICH TEXT document.
Both are .txt documents but only the Plain text will work.
Again, remember to save the file as your lastname.txt.
Then, we can verify the toolpaths on the Siemens simulator.