PowerMILL 16.

Customising PowerMILL

16. Customising PowerMILL

Introduction
There are various ways in which the user can customise PowerMILL specifically to their
needs. This chapter looks at the creation of a pmuser macro and a User Menu.

Home Area
For the User Menu to work it is necessary for a Home Area to exist in Windows. This can be
in any convenient area on the hard disk.

• To check if a Home area exists on your computer, open Windows

Explorer, right click on My Computer and select Properties.
• In the System Properties form select Advanced.

• Click Environment Variables (NT may be a different form).

The Home variable already

exists, highlighted in the form.
• If no Home variable exists then select New.

Note: You must have Admin rights

to create a new user variable.

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• Create a folder called pmill2 in the Home area. (E:\Users\Training).

If the pmuser.mac, user_menu and any other macros are be stored in this folder, then
PowerMILL will have immediate access through the default Macro search paths.

Macros
A Macro is a text file, which contains a sequence of commands to automate PowerMILL
operations. These can be created by recording each command or by typing in the commands
directly. Macros (which have a .mac extension) can then be run within PowerMILL from
the explorer.
When PowerMILL starts up, it attempts to run the initialisation macro called pmuser.mac, a
copy of which exists in \dcam\product\PowerMILL5xxx\lib\macro. By overwriting or
adding PowerMILL commands to this blank macro, you can set up your own default
settings, and parameters.
A pmuser.mac can be placed in the pmill2 folder, directly below the users Home area (this
will enable personalised macro settings for individual login accounts). The pmill2 directory
is also a convenient location for storing other user-defined macros ideally arranged in
suitable sub-folders. This will be covered later.

Creating a pmuser macro

Macros are created in PowerMILL by recording the operations you perform. Only flags or
parameters that are physically changed will be recorded into the macro; therefore to record a
value that is already set, it must be re-entered or a flag re-switched. For example, if the
finishing tolerance is currently set to 0.1mm, and it is required that the macro stores the same
value, then it must be re-entered over the existing copy in the form during recording.

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Recording a pmuser macro

• Select File Î Delete All.
• To start recording, right click on Macros in the Explorer and select
Record.

• Save the pmuser, macro by browsing to E:\Users\Training\pmill2 in

Save in and entering pmuser in File name followed by clicking Save.
• If pmuser.mac already exists in this location you will be asked if you want
to overwrite the existing file Select Yes to confirm if this is the case.

The Macro icon goes red when recording is in progress.

Remember! All data or options must be entered if you want them
to be included in the macro.

The pmuser.mac is automatically run whenever PowerMILL starts up thereby providing the
user with their preferred settings.

• Open the Feedrate form and change Rapid to 9999 and Accept the form.

• Open the Rapid Move Heights form and in the Incremental Heights
section, change Rapid Move Type to Skim, Safe Z to 6, Start Z to 3 and
Accept the form.

• Open the 3D Offset Finishing form; change the Tolerance to 0.02. (This
value will now be set in all the Finishing forms) Accept the form.
• The last operation has created a toolpath in the explorer. This needs to be
deleted or it will be there whenever PowerMILL opens.

• From Tools > Options, select the View tab. Untick Graduated and select
a colour of your choice. Accept the form.

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It is important to remember to Accept forms that are opened during Macro creation and not
to Apply them the only exception to this being NC Program Preferences (An initialisation
file is for pre-setting forms but at this stage without executing the commands).

• Select Stop on the Macro Menu to finish

recording.

• Select the Plus (+) sign next to Macros in the explorer to open the tree.

• Right click over pmuser the select Edit.

This is a standard Wordpad document that can be edited with new values and then saved.
To try this out you will need to exit and re-load PowerMILL.

• Exit then restart PowerMILLto check that the settings from the pmuser
macro have been activated.

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Other suggested Macro Applications

Apart from tailoring PowerMILL by the creation of an initialisation macro other useful
applications include macros for setting the NC Preferences, Simple tool databases, and
regularly used machining sequences or settings. Note the pmuser macro can be run through
the browser at any time during a PowerMILL session to restore the user’s settings.

Creating NC Preference macros.

• From the PowerMILL explorer, record a macro called h426_Prefs in
C:\temp.
• In the NC Programs > Preferences - Output tab select the Machine
Option File Æ Heid400.opt.
• In the NC Programs > Preferences - Toolpath tab select Tool Change Æ
Always and Coolant -> None
• Accept the form.
• Stop recording the macro.

Note: Even if already set it is essential to re-specify settings if they are to be recorded into the
macro.
A macro (h426_Prefs.mac) is now created that sets up NC Preferences for the H400 post-
processor option file and the command lines are shown below. To make this macro even
more accessible it can set up to be accessed from the User menu.

EXERCISE
• Create two more NC Preference macros in C:\Temp for the Fanuc 6m and
mazak controls with the filenames fanuc6m_Prefs and Mazak_Prefs.

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User Menu
In PowerMILL it is possible to create a User Menu enabling the user to further streamline
and customize the command structure. To bring up the menu, right mouse click within an
empty area of the PowerMILL explorer. A User Menu will normally be created
automatically to the Home area during installation of the PowerMILL software (if the
PowerMILL Utilities are included).

• Right click within an empty area of the explorer to access the current User
Menu (if it exists).

This menu is created from a text file called user_menu. It

must be in the pmill2 in the HOME area of the computer for
the individual user and saved as a text file (not a word
Document) and with no extension.

• If a User Menu does not exist when attempting to right click in the
explorer area then from Windows select;
Programs

• If the PowerMILL Utilities do not exist then this part of the software will
have to be put on by selecting Custom install from the installation CD.

The user menu provides access to the PowerMILL Utilities, which contain a Tool database
and the Setup Sheet generator. In addition the user can add to the User Menu command
lines to control the running of PowerMILL commands and macros.

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• Load the user_menu (which is in the pmill2 folder) into Wordpad.

Below is a copy of a user menu file with a line added to control an existing macro.

• Insert this line into the User Menu.

This line calls the h426_prefs macro created earlier in this chapter. It needs to include the
correct drive and path where the macro is located. All lettering must be in the correct upper
or lower case and include the inverted commas and hyphens where necessary.

From line – T “User Menu”

S = Separator
From Line – I “PowerMILLUtils….

From line – I “Heidenhein 426” 1….

Exercise
• Create a macro containing some useful tools and then create a line in the
above user menu to control it.

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Assigning Folders to buttons 1 and 2

PowerMILL allows the user to assign folders to Dialogue Buttons, 1 and 2 to be used as a
short cut when Running or Recording Macros, Importing or Exporting Models, Saving
Project Templates or selecting the Examples area from the File pull down menu.

Locates the last loaded Project which will be displayed in the Look in area.

Accesses the Examples area where the Training examples are stored.

Provides direct access a user-defined folder set-up from the Customise Paths area.

Provides direct access a user-defined folder set-up from the Customise Paths area.

• From the Main toolbar select Tools - Customise Paths.

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The form has a pull down menu that shows the five
path options available.

If Macro Paths is selected, the search order for

macros is displayed in the main area of the form.

NC Program Output location is also set from this

form.

• Select the option File Dialogue Button 1 from the list.

• Click on the icon Add path to top of list

The Select Path form appears allowing you to

choose the drive and folder required for
Dialogue Button 1 to locate.

• Select C:\ Temp from the form and then OK.

The path selected can now be seen in the

main area of the form.
Dialogue Button 1 will immediately
locate this folder when selected.

For multiple locations further paths can be added to the list for both Dialogue Buttons 1 and
2, but only the path currently at the top of the list will be applied.

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• Click on the icon Add path to top of list

• From the Select Path form select D:\ dcam then OK.

The new path goes directly to the top of

the list.

If Dialogue Button 1 is selected it will automatically locate the path that is at the top of the
list in this form.
If it is required for Dialogue Button 1 to search for the path C:\Temp then it must first be
moved to the top of the list.

• With the mouse select the path C:\Temp to highlight it blue.

• Select the icon Move selected path up list.

The selected path is now at the top of the

list making it the default search for
Dialogue Button 1.

If it is required to delete a path from the list, simply select it and click the Delete icon

To move a selected path to the bottom of the list, simply select it and click the Move selected

path down list icon .

• Close the form and select File -> Import Model.

• Click on Button 1 from the form to see that it searches for C:\Temp.

Exercise
• Set Dialogue Button 2 to provide direct access to the
PowerMILL_Data\Models directory.

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