I am beginning to attempt to program off a cad model. I have a sample part, every time I press cad=part my alignment moves off my cad model. I am actually trying to program off of cad on a part I have a sample for before I make a program off a part that I have no sample for.
Nope, never had a problem getting confused. Since 90%+ of what I do can NOT sit so cad axis matches machine axis, and 100% of what I do MUST STAY in the native CAD position, 'swapping' machine axis means nothing at all to me. I will say that sometimes I wish I could have the rotate view cube on the screen without having the rotate view active, but that is ONLY when I have to go and make changes to an existing program, when programming a new part, I have to have the rotate view active to navigate around the part. I much prefer the CUBE over the trihedron since it gives a 'solid' view of the axis, there are times when the tri doesn't really tell you much since it has no 'faces', so is that 'X+' arrow pointing down and to the left or up and to the left? Much easier to see at a glance with the cube.
AND, for people that get a cad model "way out in space" but want to program to PRINT values (which I never have to do), you can STILL do it following this method. After you get the CAD=PART alignment, you can make another alignment, where you simply set the axis origins to the features you want to be ZERO, do NOT do CAD=PART, and the cad data will now 'appear' to be zero where it once was Z1.5. This is another reason I say you don't 'need' to translate the cad model.
Nope, never had a problem getting confused. Since 90%+ of what I do can NOT sit so cad axis matches machine axis, and 100% of what I do MUST STAY in the native CAD position, 'swapping' machine axis means nothing at all to me. I will say that sometimes I wish I could have the rotate view cube on the screen without having the rotate view active, but that is ONLY when I have to go and make changes to an existing program, when programming a new part, I have to have the rotate view active to navigate around the part. I much prefer the CUBE over the trihedron since it gives a 'solid' view of the axis, there are times when the tri doesn't really tell you much since it has no 'faces', so is that 'X+' arrow pointing down and to the left or up and to the left? Much easier to see at a glance with the cube.
AND, for people that get a cad model "way out in space" but want to program to PRINT values (which I never have to do), you can STILL do it following this method. After you get the CAD=PART alignment, you can make another alignment, where you simply set the axis origins to the features you want to be ZERO, do NOT do CAD=PART, and the cad data will now 'appear' to be zero where it once was Z1.5. This is another reason I say you don't 'need' to translate the cad model.
