Adding tool locations

Milling machines generally have a single tool location, which is quite easy to set up. Lathes and turn/mill machines may have multiple tool posts and need several tool blocks for mounting tools of different types. Setting up the tool locations properly may be the most difficult part of creating a working machine design file for a lathe or turn/mill machine.

Before you define the tool locations for a lathe or turn/mill machine, make sure you read these topics:

• Add Tool Location dialog
• Overview of tool blocks for tool posts
• Tool Block dialog

Here is a summary of the various tool block types:

Type	Required?	If unspecified, uses
X tool	Yes	Not applicable
Generic Z tool	Yes	Not applicable
OD turning (RH)	No	X tool
Z drilling/milling (only)	No	Generic Z tool
Z boring (only)	No	Generic Z tool
OD turning (LH)	No	X tool

Here are some tips for working with tool locations and tool blocks:

• To create a tool post tool location, the tool post solid must have a LCS. Go to the Local Coordinate System dialog and set the UCS before setting the tool location. See the lathe overview section of Add tool locations for details about the location and orientation of this UCS.
• Make sure that the CNC file you are using specifies a tool post for each of the locations you specify in the Tool Locations tab (for example, Main Lower and Sub Lower are not interchangeable).

When first defining tool locations and tool posts, it can be difficult to work out why things do not work, and to determine what you have (or have not) defined. Here are some tips that may help you:

• For Milling machines, you can only associate one tool location with a solid. You can select your solids one-by-one and examine the dialog settings (in either the Add Tool Location or Tool Block dialog). However, the dialogs do not clearly indicate if no tool location is defined for a particular solid. If the Existing UCS option in the Local Coordinate System dialog shows STOCK, it is probably not defined.
• If you are unsure about the state of a location, delete it and define it again. You can use Delete Tool Location to remove tool locations created with either the Add Tool Location or Tool Block dialogs.