Holder Clearance is the Collision Nobody Budgets For
Everybody checks the tool. It’s the thing cutting the part, so it’s the thing people watch in simulation. What gets missed a lot more often is the holder sitting above it, and a holder that’s wider than the tool can catch an edge or a fixture wall the cutter would have cleared without any problem. CIMCO Edit Ultra can catch this for you with holder-to-stock checking, but only if the holder geometry behind your tools is actually accurate. Today we are going to walk through setting that up properly.
This one’s less about clicking through a settings dialog and more about making sure the data feeding that dialog is right, because a collision check is only as good as the geometry it’s checking against. Let’s get started.
Adding Holder Geometry to a Tool in the Tool Manager
Open the Tool Manager and pull up the tool you want to check. If you’ve been defining tools with just the cutting geometry and skipping the holder, this is the step that’s been leaving a gap in your verification the whole time.
Look for the holder definition fields on the tool. Depending on how your tools are set up, this might mean adding a holder profile directly or assigning one from a library if your shop has holder geometry defined separately. Either way, the goal is the same. The holder’s actual outer diameter and length need to be represented, not a generic placeholder that happens to be close enough.
If you’re not sure whether a tool has real holder geometry attached or just a default stand-in, this is a good time to go through your most commonly used tools and check. It’s tedious the first time through, but you only have to do it once per tool.
Verifying the Holder Shows Up in Backplot
Once you’ve got holder geometry attached, open Backplot (Ctrl+Shift+P) and load a program which uses that tool. Take a look at the 3D view during a rapid move or a deep pocket operation. You should see the holder rendered above the cutting tool, not just the tool by itself.
If you don’t see it, go back to the Tool Manager and double check that the holder was actually saved to the tool definition. This step matters because if the holder isn’t visually present in the simulation, it isn’t part of the collision check either. What you see is what gets tested.
Turning On Holder-to-Stock Checking
Under the Stop Conditions button in the ribbon, make sure that you have Holder To Stock enabled. (Along with any other options you may want.)
This is a good time to also confirm your Tool/Workpiece Collisions setting is scoped the way you want it, since holder checking runs alongside whatever you’ve configured there. If you set this up following our earlier post on collision detection, you should already have Rapid Moves selected, which is the setting most likely to catch a holder clipping a fixture wall during approach or retract.
Need help setting up Collision Detection first? See our step-by-step guide, How to Set Up Collision Detection in CIMCO Edit Ultra, for a walkthrough of the Collision Settings and Simulation Report.
Testing it With a Program That Should Fail
The best way to know this is actually working is to test it against a program you already know has a tight clearance somewhere, a deep pocket with a short tool and a holder that’s close to the wall, or a job where you’ve had a near miss before.
Run Check collision and limit errors from the Simulation tab and watch the Simulation Report. If the holder geometry is set up correctly, you should see a holder-to-stock flag show up at the exact operation where clearance is tight. Click it and you’ll land on the line in the editor that’s causing the issue. (In my screenshot below, I increased the stock height to cause the interference.)
If nothing shows up on a program you know has a clearance problem, go back and check the holder geometry on that specific tool. Nine times out of ten, that’s the missing piece.
That’s the whole workflow. Holder crashes have a way of feeling like bad luck when they happen, but they’re one of the more preventable ones once the geometry behind the check is actually accurate. Let us know if you’ve had a holder crash that this would have caught, or if you run into tools where the holder library needs some cleanup to make this work well.
Have Questions or Need Help?
Every shop is different. If you have questions about CIMCO software or need help solving a specific programming, communication, or manufacturing workflow challenge, Managed Solutions is here to help.
Visit our CIMCO Edit product page to learn more about Edit Core and Ultra. If you need help configuring CIMCO Edit Ultra for your specific tooling, machines, and controls, contact our team. We’ll be happy to walk through it with you.
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