Building a Virtual Haas VF3 with 4th Axis in Mastercam for Machine Simulation - Part 1

Machine Simulation is used to acuratly check for collisions in your program before you take the gcode file to the machine. Machine Sim is one step beyond your typical Verify. Verify is really only checking your Stock, Fixture, and Tool for collisions. Machine Simulation can add machine components as well.

Typically, Machine Simulation is not used until you get beyond the 3 Axis machine, which does not mean you cannot use for simple parts but, more often it is employed in the 4+ Axis setups.

Mastercam does include several prebuilt machines of all sorts of different configurations but none that fit our desired setup...a 4x Haas with the rotary on the right side of the table. Modeling the machine accurately would be extremely time consuming. Luckily, some machine builders will provide you will basic models of your machines. Typically you will have to contact your MTB and ask for the files. Haas, being the super swell people that they are, have all the files you need directly on their website. Simply find the machine and rotary combo you are after, and click download.

https://www.haascnc.com/

Once you have the files, some file cleanup will be needed. There will be some extra solids that are not necessary for simulation. You may even need to modify some of the existing models to better suit your intent with simulation. Once imported and cleaned up, the axis origins must be aligned.

With alignment done, each group of components will need to be exported as an STL. These STLs will be used in building of the machine in the Machine Simulation environment.

The next video will look at the next steps of the machine build.


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