Click on link below for info

Adding a control to the menu with settings

4th axis mill info…GeoPath Mill doesn’t automatically know you want full 4th-axis vs.

indexing 4th-axis. Unlike GeoPath Lathe, which presumes ZC mode (turning and milling), GeoPath Mill presumes you want indexing only unless you do something special.

+ You’ve activated the 4th-axis setting correctly.

+ You’ve made a Contour cut correctly.

To make this a full 4th-axis mill cut, add the following:

+ Put the Contour cut in a Macro (add a number to the Contour Cut Info

window’s “Cut is in Macro” box).

+ Make a Macro Cut > Convert to rotary axis, and enter the radius to the

OD of the bar in the “Radius” box.

Attached is an example of this.

With the “Convert to rotary axis” Macro, you can control / have separate

wrapped 4th-axis cuts vs. just indexing 4th-axis cuts in the same program.

Remember that if everything is wrapped in the entire program, you can

just cut the part flat, then use Save+Make Program > NC-Utilities > Wrap

XY Around Rotary Axis to output a wrapped 4th-axis mill program.

Please let me know if this answers your question.  You can reach me at

[email protected], or at (408) 249-1529, x241.

MORE INFO ON 4th AXIS…

+ if converting to G-code, use a post that is full 4th-axis (M901, M904

for example). + the round(-ish) corners become helical arcs when wrapped, so these

output as dozens of small XYZB moves.  In Mazatrol (as a Manual

Process), this is a large number of shape lines – you might want to

activate the MAZMAC.INI setting “ManPgmAsEIA=1”, so that this makes a

Mazatrol main program and an EIA sub-program (with 4th-axis mill cuts in

the EIA sub).