Gentlemen,

We have started to use our brand new EMCO TURN 325 II CNC lathe today for making our bullets, but we seem to have run into s slight hiccup.

We have all our drawings in Aurocad, and this machine has the Siemens 840D CAM software, which does not recognise it.

We spent all day entering data laboriously by hand so that we can make some samples, and eventually did make a bullet which did look the same as we had made previously on another machine.

But, this seems to defeat the object of what we had in mind. That is desiging our bullets on Autocad, and then make them on this machine.

Any help from those with experience in these matters would greatly appreciated it.

Saeed when i have trouble i post it here .
I know this is kinda cheap of me to try and send you to a diffrent board but this is one of the best Machine Shop Forum board's there is on the net for gunsmithing and bullet turning on the net

Welcome to the Machine Shop Forum

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi

Sorry saeed that the best answer i can give you

SAEED HERES A FREE DOWN LOAD TO RUN IN AUTO-CAD
www.CADOPOLIS.COM/SHAREWARE_LIST.ASP? THEN SHAREWARE, THEN PROGRAMING SOFTWARE,THEN THE SHAREWARE PROGRAM IS CNC_PATH_V2.ZIP I HAVE BE PLAYING WITH IT IT SEEMS TO WORK GIVE IT A TRY THE PRICE IS RIGHT. WELLS

I can not find the manual right now but I am 90% sure mastercam will post to the siemens.

Don't know anything about the Siemens control, worked mostly with GE, Fanuc, and Mazaks. If I read your post correctly, you're trying to feed your machine directly from Autocad. Autocad is a Cad package, used for designing things. It does not process machine language(g-code type stuff) without an additional CAM package(not familiar with the latest version of Autocad, may be an add-on available for it). Now, if the Siemens control has the ability to upload IGES, DWG, STEP or one of the other design formats, then process from there you may be able to export one of those formats from Autocad and do the programming on the control. I'm sure MasterCam has a post processor for the Siemens control, it comes with over 100 Post Processors on the CD. I've been using MasterCam Mill for several years to program for Aerospace parts. It's a great, and powerful program that also has a very good design (CAD) package built in. You really should get in touch with your lathe dealer for help with the programming and importing capabilities of the machine.

You might try exporting your cad file as a "DXF" file.
The Siemens software might let you inport a DXF file.

Saeed,

I do a lot of engineering metal at work. The AutoCAD files usually don't download into the CNC ( any variety ). Currently I use CAD for only two dimensional flat drawings.

For three dimensional work Solidworks is a much better tool. Basically a 3-D design tool that you can export IGES, DWG, or STEP files.

I am not saying it can't be done with the new 3-D autocad but it is not cost effective to do so in my production engineering environment.

Solidworks Link:
http://www.solidworks.com/pages/products/solidworks/

Saeed,
you need a CAM software, that can either work with your autocad files or a cad/cam that can export your g-code with a siemens post processors.

Solidworks and solid CAM are great for this, but a little spendy.

i have heard RAMSOFT will import your drawings and convert... though a 2d to 3d is going to be fun.

jeffe