ONGAA CAM for Wood CNCs

From those of us that are accustomed to working in ‘Machine Space’, the Z-Axis is always UP.   So why on earth does SolidWorks insist that Y is up?

Rather that ask and then answer the question, I’d would rather show you how to change it.  What we will do in the steps below is reset the default views and rename the default planes for both parts and assemblies and save the changes into the Part and Assembly templates.

Open Solidworks and create a new PART

The default view is most likely trimetric view and look like this.

We will be using the Triad to change and verify the views we want in several steps.

First, change to the Front View.  Use Ctrl-1 or the Heads-up menu or Spacebar
The Triad should look like this.

Now use the Spacebar to get access … Read the rest

INCHES for Operators

Although the ‘underlying’ Units of measure of both SOLIDWORKS and WoodWOP are metric, this does not help operators accustomed to units in Inches.

Since one of the 4 ‘Guiding Mandates’ of ONGAA CAM is ‘ allow the operator to perform all operations as before’, we felt we should do something about this.

As of version 1.3.34, ONGAA CAM generates WoodWOP programs in Inches.  This is independent of the Units of Measure of the model or programming units.  Simply turn the option ON and ONGAA CAM creates the MPR with the WoodWOP Inch indicator ON and values in inches.  All ‘geometric measures’ are converted to Inches as the MPR is generated.  This includes all X,Y,Z locations, distances, radii and depths.

It should be noted that, at this time, programming in ONGAA CAM is still in metric (expected and displayed).  This ensures that all programs (old and new) will … Read the rest

Automating manufacturing comes with a long list of questions.  The question that follows ‘Which CNC machine to buy?’is usually followed by ‘How do get from my drawing to the CNC making parts ?’.

Each CNC vendor has a basic solution for that.  Type in all the numbers by hand …. or at least try to type them in (correctly).

If the ‘program’will never change and will make several million units,then this simple process is cost effective enough.  But what about the smaller manufacturer?  2-10 Units a year (of that size and shape).  Manually typing in each number for every size is just not practical.

If you use a 3D modeling program like SOLIDWORKS then adjusting the size of a ‘Model’is relatively simple.  If there was only a way to attach the processing information to the Solidworks Model.  That way the processing stretches as my model does.  Even better …why not … Read the rest