The shop has a copy of MasterCam, and all they have is a generic
FANUC postprocessor.
They asked me if I could post it for a Cincinnati bridgemill. I
believe that MasterCam has a post to output APTSOURCE output, but
we don't have it as far as I know.
You would think that an APTSOURCE output would be an option for MasterCam, but apparently not.
Does anyone have a script or utility to convert NCI files they would share?
Or can someone point me to where one could be purchased?
Randy Hitzeman
Hi Randy,
my opinion is buying the Aptsource is the way to go. I made a post using Icam, and spent a month coding to grab information I needed for the cutters, holder, spindle, etc.
ICAM can READ an NCI and post it... but extracting info took quite an effort.
I pretty much made my own converter.
I believe you can buy the converter for about 3K from the place you buy mastercam.
Dave
Dave Frank * Dasco Engineering.
NC Programming Lead
COE Product Co-Chairman, Digital Numerical Control
Randy,
Not sure if NCI_TO_APT is still available. There is a web site shown on the attached screenshot. It was also configurable to your flavor of APT
Good old Larry Jones at AZPost has both 3 axis and 5 axis NCI to
APT converters.
He is giving me a copy of the 3 axis one, and the 5 axis one is
$995. The 5 axis one also has lathe and mill/turn capability.
I remember Larry from way back, he is one of the sharpest persons I know.
If you need a post, AZPost is one of the best.
Randy Hitzeman
Tim,
I contacted John Billings at www.postprocessors,com.
He does not provide a stand alone NCI to APTSOURCE converter.
He can provide it as part of his custom postprocessors.
We have our own posts, so this was not a solution for us.
Randy Hitzeman
Randy,
Sorry to here that. The software I was referring to was from back in 2000. They must not support or sale it anymore. We had a contract programmer back in 2000 that used MasterCam and that was what he used to generate APT to run thru our post.
If I hear of any other options I'll pass it on.
Hi,
I have my own CAM-POST developer package (Mill-Turns and Robots included) from ICAM into my arsenal of NC-Programming Automation tools. In my experience it is by far the best post-processor solution out there especially if someone would like to keep customizing/developing posts for their machines.
But in this case I would stick with AZpost for NCI to APT converter if you are using any other existing post-processors. However you really don't need NCI to APT converter if you are using ICAM. And if you would like to use ICAM for this task or any other requirements then it can be done just as Dave mentioned earlier.
