Machine simulation moving clamps question

[jchaplain]

Has anyone figured out a simple way to have things like clamps move from one side of the part to the other while machine simulation is running ( and without stopping the simulation?)  Example...operator clamps part on left side and does some milling, program stop, operator moves clamps to the other side of part and cutting continues. Collision checking is done for clamps in both positions.

 I was thinking that using assembly arrangements would be the best way to show the clamps in position a or position b, but getting the arrangement to switch in the middle of a machine simulation without stopping the simulation run is something that I don't know if we can do?

Manually pausing the machine simulation and switching the assembly arrangement resets the simulation so that doesn't really help.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

John Chaplain 

[thomasfeind]

For that case you have to work with multiple channels. That means you must create a channel with the machining movements and a channel for the clamps. 

[smoffat]

I ran into this a while back.  I think what I did was specify multiple collision pairs in simulation collision settings, because you can change those during simution.  So hide the clamps in position one, unhide them in position 2, uncheck "check collisions between objects" on collision pair 1, check it on collision pair 2.  A bit cumbersome but it was the only way I was able to get it to work if I am remembering correctly.  Also I think I might have had to add them as individual setup elements in the machine tool navigator.

[JSchraitle]

Just to add a thing related to assembly arrangements:
When you switch the assembly arrangements. NX CAM reacts as if you have moved your geometry, or in this case probably Check geometry. That leads to updates to all CAM operations.
Thus, I am quite sure this is not a solution to most CAM scenarios.
Joachim

[jchaplain]

Thanks for all the comments. It looks like the answer for this customer is no. As I thought, its just not worth all the effort, but was interesting to consider if there were any possibilites.