Documentation / User manual

Analysis and diagnostics

Analysis looks back at a run: where the time went, the twin's estimates of force and chatter, and how the cut part compares with the design. Diagnostics shows the machine's power chain and signals, and lets you inject faults into the twin to practise finding them.

Looking at a run

Analysis (Alt+5, Engineer level and up) fills in once a program has run.

• Runs, on the left, lists this session's runs: the program, how it ended, its machine time and when it started. Runs that ended in an alarm or an error are red.
• In the middle are the curves, and under them two tabs: Line profile and Stability lobes.
• Last run, on the right, sums up the last run: how far it got, the lines that took most time, the highest cutting force and the highest chatter margin with their lines, the material removed, the lines where the feed was not reached, and the events.

The curves, the profile and the summary are those of the last run.

Line profile lists the lines that took time, longest first: the time and its share, the feed asked for and the feed reached, why it was not reached, the cutting force, the chatter margin, the material removed and the events. Double-click a line, or press Enter on it, to go to it in the Program editor.

Why a line did not reach its feed:

• the axes' top speed;
• corners too close together to speed up between them;
• the arc's chord limit;
• the controller's planning, the sender or the controller's reading falling behind;
• a feed override under 100 %, or a feed hold.

Time: estimated and actual

Before a run, Studio estimates the machine time from the program's feeds and rapids: the machine bar shows about that time, and the Program structure in the dock shows it for each section. During and after a run, the times are the twin's machine time, with the acceleration and the controller's planning in them: the machine bar shows the time run and left, Program structure the time of the whole run, and Line profile each line's time.

All times are machine time in the simulation, not the time on your clock.

Force, chatter and chip thickness

The curves show the run's readings over the last 10, 30 or 120 s: the feed, the actual speed, the spindle's speed and load, the cutting force, torque and power, the chip thickness, the chatter margin and the following errors. Click a curve's name to show or hide it.

The chatter margin is the depth of cut divided by the depth that is stable at the spindle speed in use:

Stability lobes draws the stable depth of cut against the spindle speed, for the last cut (or, before any cut, for a full slot 1 mm deep along X). Click Work out the stability lobes. A red dot marks the cut as it was, a green dashed line the most stable speed.

View > Colouring colours the tool-tip trail by feed rate, cutting force, chip thickness, chatter margin or program line, and the workpiece by material and depth, deviation from the part or program line.

These are the twin's estimates from a physical model (see Twin models).

Comparing with the design part

To see where the cut part differs from the design:

1. In Setup, step Setup, click Part STL (compare)… and choose the part's STL file (in mm, its origin at the program's zero).
2. Run the program.
3. Choose View > Colouring > Workpiece: deviation from the part.

Result: the workpiece is coloured by how far each point is from the part: within ±20 µm counts as good, the other colours show stock left and gouges. Stop comparing removes the part. The example parts load their own part.

Comparing two runs

Analysis shows the last run. To compare two runs of a program:

• in the Program editor, Compare (Ctrl+D) gives both versions' run times and the time of the lines that changed, when both have run to the end in this session (see Comparing two versions);
• the AI assistant can draw two runs side by side (see The AI assistant).

Exporting

Export curves (CSV)… (in Last run, or File > Export curves (CSV)…) saves about the last 160 s of the curves as a CSV file: a time column in seconds, then a column for each curve, with its unit in the heading and the values in the display units.

Export workpiece… in Setup, or File > Export workpiece…, saves the cut workpiece as an STL file (in program, blank or machine coordinates) or as a height map.

The Diagnostics workspace

Diagnostics (Alt+6, Technician level and up) shows the machine's power chain as a diagram: power flows from left to right. Solid lines carry power, green when live; dashed lines are signals. Each part is green when it is good, grey when it is off, amber for a warning and red for an alarm or a fault.

Click a part to see its details in the column on the right. Under the diagram are the controller's inputs, fault injection and the drive alarms.

The power chain

The MC-1's chain, from the mains to the spindle:

• Main switch QF1 and the 24 V supply for the controller;
• the Controller: its state or its alarm;
• E-stop SB0 and KM1, the contactor it opens;
• the 48 V supply for the drives;
• the X, Y and Z drives and their axes;
• the VFD, the Spindle and the Coolant pump.

The controller's inputs

A lamp for each input: the limit switches (X− limit, X+ limit, Y− limit, Y+ limit, Z limit), the Tool setter, the E-stop and the Drive alarm. A lamp is grey when the input is off, and amber or red when it is on.

The Tool setter lamp is the controller's probe input: it also lights when the touch probe touches.

The drives

Each drive shows Ready and its following error, or Disabled, Alarm, Starting or Off. The details give the drives' power and the following error of each axis, with its highest value.

The spindle drive (VFD)

The VFD shows its output frequency and current, or its fault: OC (overcurrent), OL (overload) or LU (undervoltage). The details give the spindle speed and the speed asked for, the load and the pump. A spindle that ran without its coolant is listed under the warnings, with how long it ran dry.

Injecting faults into the twin

Fault injection lets you practise finding and clearing faults on the twin; the machine in your window is changed, no real one.

• Wires: set any of the machine's wires (the limit switches, the tool setter, the drives' alarm chain, the E-stop line, the KM1 circuit, the RS485 bus, the VFD's fault relay) to Open, Short, Intermittent or Glitches (a single 50 µs drop-out). Normal puts the wire right.
• Drive alarm: X, Y or Z makes that drive report a fault. A drive's alarm clears only when the drive loses power: follow the steps back to work on the machine bar.

Each injected fault is listed under the warnings, written in the console and recorded in the audit log. After a drive alarm, the machine bar's cause names the fault you injected and the time.

Alarms: each one and its recovery

Every alarm, what it means and its causes: Alarms. The machine bar gives the steps back to work for the alarm you have (see The steps back to work):