Having collision detection turned on in CIMCO Edit Ultra is only half the job. If you still have to run a full simulation from start to finish and watch for the exact moment something goes wrong, there’s always a chance you’ll miss it. That’s where Stop Conditions come in.
In this walkthrough, we’re going to set up Stop Conditions so the simulation automatically pauses when it detects a collision or over-travel error. Instead of having to catch the problem as it happens, CIMCO Edit stops the simulation and brings it to your attention.
It takes about five minutes to configure once you know where to look, and it turns simulation review from something you have to watch into something that actively helps you verify the program. Let’s get started.
Finding Stop Conditions in the Backplot Ribbon
Open the program you want to check and jump into Backplot (Ctrl+Shift+P). They used to be in the Simulation tab, same place we go for the collision settings. Now they are right on the ribbon in the “Toolpath” section.
This is where you tell the simulation what events should pause playback automatically instead of letting it run through to the end.
Turning On Tool And Models and Travel Limits
There are two settings here that matter most for catching the errors we care about.
Tool And Models stops the simulation the moment it detects a collision between the tool and anything else in the scene, whether that’s the workpiece, a fixture, or a clamp. Turn this on.
Travel Limits stops the simulation when a move asks an axis to go beyond what the target machine can physically reach. This is a different kind of error than a collision. Nothing has to touch anything else in the scene for a move to be invalid. The machine just can’t get there. Turn this on too.
With both of these active, you don’t need to watch the whole simulation waiting for something to happen. If either condition is triggered, playback stops right there and the report tells you what caused it.
Adding Program Stop Codes If You Want Them
You’ll also see options for stopping on program codes: M00, M01, M02, and M30. These aren’t error conditions. They’re just standard program stops. So whether you want the simulation to pause on them depends on how you use your review time.
If you’re doing a full walkthrough of a program and want to check in at every planned stop the same way an operator would at the machine, turn these on. If you’re only interested in catching collisions and travel errors and don’t want the simulation pausing at every M00 in a long program, leave them off. Neither choice is wrong, it just depends on what you’re using the simulation for that day.
Running the Simulation and Seeing It Work
Now run the simulation the way you normally would. Instead of watching the whole thing play out, you’ll see it stop on its own the moment it hits a condition you’ve configured.
When it stops, take a look at the current position in the 3D view and check the Simulation Report for the specific error. You’ll be sitting right at the move that caused the problem, which is a lot more useful than trying to reconstruct what happened after the fact from a report generated at the end of a full run.
If you’ve also got collision checking configured the same as we covered in a previous post, running Check collision and limit errors first and then stepping through the simulation with these stop conditions active gives you two ways of catching the same problems. One that surfaces everything at once in the report. And one that walks you to each issue in context as the simulation plays.
That’s the whole setup. Once these conditions are on, reviewing a program stops being something you have to sit through and pay attention to the entire time, and starts being something the simulation manages for you.
Let us know how you’re using stop conditions in your own review process, or if there’s a combination of settings you’ve landed on that works well for your shop.
Have Questions or Need Help?
Visit our CIMCO Edit product page to learn more about Edit Ultra. If you need help setting up Stop Conditions in Ultra to pause simulation at detected collisions and travel-limit errors, contact our team. We’ll be happy to walk through it with you.
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