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Southwestern Industries, Inc.
TRAK
KMX Knee Mill, Bed Mill & ProtoTRAK
KMX CNC Retrofit Safety, Programming, Operating & Care Manual
5.3
Planes and Vertical Planes
A plane is any flat surface. If that surface lies flat on the table, it is the XY plane. That
is, if you move your finger along that surface or plane, you are moving in the X and/or
Y direction, but not in Z (or at least not until you pick your finger up). If you tilted that
surface (think of it as a piece of paper) straight up so that it faces the front of the
machine, it would be in the XZ plane. If you tilted it up so that it faced left or right, it
would be in the YZ plane.
A vertical plane is any plane (or surface) tipped up on its edge on the table (see below).
Unlike most CNC controls,
the ProtoTRAK KMX CNC can
machine arcs in any vertical
plane rather than just XZ or YZ.
5.4
Absolute & Incremental Reference
The ProtoTRAK KMX may be programmed and operated in either (or in a combination)
of absolute or incremental dimensions. An absolute reference from which all absolute
dimensions are measured (in DRO and program operation) can be set at any point on
or even off the workpiece.
To help understand the difference between absolute and incremental position, consider
the following example:
5.4.1
Some Rules for Incremental Reference Positions
In the section above, it was pretty clear what was meant by an incremental
move. There are times that this is not completely clear. This occurs when you
want to use incremental references for the first X and Y dimensioned data in a
new event and the ending point of the previous event is not obvious. For
example, with a circular pocket the ending point is not defined, what does the
INC SET reference mean when programming the next event? Since this is not
FIGURE 5.3
Vertical
planes
