Coming from a haas and need help with setting tool heights

Mill
1

Hello. I am new to the forums here and I just purchased a tormach pcnc 440 and it has the auto tool changer on it.

I come from using HAAS machines for the last ten years. My Tormach will be here in a week.

I bought this machine with the tool changer because the part it will be making requires 3 tools to finish the part. So my question is can I set tool heights in the same way I used to with the haas, which was I would load the 3 tools in spot 1 2 and 3. Then I would call up tool 1 and touch off using a half inch gauge block on parts surface. That I would set as G54 Z zero. I would then call up tool 2 and then 3 and touch them off with the same half in gauge block on the same face of the part. But for tool 2 and 3 I would go to my tool offsets page and hit the button called tool offset measure which would know the height difference from T1 G54 Z zero and put that value under tool 2. And so on and so on.

After this I would go to the main G54 Z zero I set from tool 1 and I would -.500" in the Z then all my tools were set on the face of the part.

So T1 was g54 Z zero
T2 was tooloffset measure
T3 was tooloffset measure

Can I do similar tooling touch off’s with the Tormach mills with the pathpilot software? And if not what would be a similar way.?

This machine will always run multiple tool programs. And is in a job shop so keeping dedicated tools in dedicated slots in the auto tool changer is not an option.

Second question what is your go to cam software with the Tormach and why? I am used to Surfcam.

Looking forward to hearing replies. And love seeing an active forum for these machines.

2

Jacob,

You don’t assign pockets to a specific tool, Pathpilot will just assign a tool to the closest open pocket. Yes, you can touch off tools the same way. You can enter a value in the “touch Z DRO” and press the “touch Z” and the tool offset will be set so that the work coordinate has the given value. To set the work coordinate you can just type a value into the axis DRO’s on the lower portion of the screen, press enter and they’ll take the entered value.

If you hadn’t heard of it before you can check out Pathpilot Hub to get familiar with the interface.

Thank you,
Norman

3

A really old but still accurate video on this topic is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoIB_Fatt44&t=425s

4

Thank you all for your quick replies and help.

Also what Cam software do you recommend I am very used to surfcam.
I see tormach really pushes sprutcam is that a good choice for these machines?

5

Fusion 360 works well for me