Table of Contents

Setup

Pre-simulation configuration: the physical entities and components you configure before running a simulation. Once set, these form the fixed environment of the simulation.

Tip

New to building a project? Start with the Project Data Checklist — the list of data to collect from the machine owner before any of the components below can be configured. It is a workflow rather than a setup task, so it lives with the other end-to-end guides.

The Equipment group below is ordered as the Equipment page's Control Tree lists it; the placement tasks and the tool house follow.

Equipment

  • Machine Tool — Load a machine tool's kinematic chain into a project, and reshape it there
  • Fixture — What holds the workpiece on the table, its geometry, and the roles that place it
  • Workpiece — The stock and the finished shape, where they sit, how finely they are meshed, and what they are made of
  • Spindle Capability — What the spindle delivers: power, torque, thermal ceiling and gear shift
  • Coolant — Pick how the cutting zone is cooled, and set the shop's ambient temperature the thermal model starts from
  • Controller — The brand your NC programs are read with, and the tables that brand grew

Placing It All

  • Anchors and Roles — Bind each part's role anchors, and set the branch transforms that place the fixture, the workpiece and the program zero on the machine
  • Program Zero Alignment — Put the program origin where the NC code expects it, once the workpiece is placed

Cutting Tools

  • Cutter — Create a tool, give it a cutting geometry and a holder, and reuse a whole tool house across projects

Which NC vocabulary a controller brand honours is not a setup task — it is NC Dialects. Neither is what a cutter's quantities mean: the body types, the two ways a cutting envelope is expressed, the upper beam and the angles are Cutter Geometry, and the smart holder's sensor settings are Smart Tool Holder.

See Also

  • Technique — the models behind these settings: milling physics, NC dialects, machine capability
  • NC Dialects — what each controller brand's code actually does, brand by brand
  • Basics — the window, the project and the screens these tasks are performed in
  • Running a Simulation — what the equipment configured here is then used for
  • Utilities — the screen beside these tasks: browsing the files a project is built from