What Don’t you Like About that Canned Cycle?

28 Apr 2025

How I Made It: Mark and Nancy Rohlfs
Turning Machines 25 Apr 2025

How I Made It: Aneesa Muthana
23 Apr 2025

3 Strategies for Effective CNC Programming Standardization
Turning Machines 22 Apr 2025

3 Trends From PMTS 2025
Data-Driven Manufacturing 21 Apr 2025

Enhancing the Shop Floor with AI
Inspection and Measurement 18 Apr 2025

Surface Finish Underfoot
Economics 16 Apr 2025

Last Chance! 2025 Top Shops Benchmarking Survey Still Open Through April 30
Turn/Mill 15 Apr 2025

“Turning” the Tables: 10 Must-Read Articles to Sharpen Your Lathe Game
Economics 14 Apr 2025

Metalworking Index Reaches Expansion for First Time in 2 Years
Data-Driven Manufacturing 11 Apr 2025

Digital Twin Provides Real-Time Feedback on Part Quality

Published 7/19/2010

What Don’t you Like About that Canned Cycle?

Almost all CNC users take advantage of control-based canned cycles. Even CAM systems commonly output G-code programs that contain canned cycle commands. This includes hole machining canned cycles, such as drilling, tapping, boring and more, and whatever milling cycles the machine may have. For turning centers, it includes roughing and finishing multiple repetitive cycles.

Mike Lynch

Founder and President, CNC Concepts Inc.

If you use canned cycles on a regular basis, you’ve probably come up with something about one or more of them that you don’t like. The more of these you use, the more likely there’s something you wish one of them would do differently.

Consider the G83 deep-hole, peck-drilling cycle. Will your control enable you to vary the depth of each peck so that it gets progressively shallower as the hole gets deeper? If you specify a total depth that is not evenly divisible by the peck depth, what happens? Can you control the rate at which the drill reenters the hole after each retract motion?

When you think about it, you can surely come up with other canned cycle limitations you’d like to overcome. Maybe you wish your drilling cycle would begin the hole at one feed rate—possibly just enough to engage the drill—then machine the balance of the hole at a faster feed rate. Or, maybe you’d like a drilling cycle that would feed through one surface, then rapid to another and feed through it as well.

Does your control provide a canned cycle for the machining operation you need to perform? Maybe you’d like a grooving cycle for turning centers, a pocket milling cycle, a thread milling cycle or a face milling cycle. The potential list of improvements to canned cycles is lengthy.

With custom macro B, you can modify the function of canned cycles or create new ones. You can even make them behave in a modal manner and cancel them with a G80 word.

To achieve this, the custom macro must first be written in the normal manner to perform the machining operation in the fashion you want. The only consideration here will be the program number. If you want the custom macro to be activated by a G code, possibly the same G-code number that is currently being used for the canned cycle you don’t like, you must use a program number that will enable you to do so. Program number O9010 is the first in a series of ten program numbers that enable you to create a user-defined G code.

Once the custom macro is written and verified, it can be called with the standard custom macro calling G code, G65. However, to keep from modifying your current programs, you should call the custom macro using the same G code used to call the canned cycle your custom macro is replacing. To accomplish this, a parameter must be changed.

To find the parameters related to user-defined G codes (they vary from one control model to the next), you must reference the custom macro section of the control’s programming manual. Pick the first available one (currently set to zero), and change it to the G-code number you wish to use to call your custom macro. If you wish the calling G code to be modal, as hole machining canned cycles are, the value must be negative. For example, if parameter number 5061 is the parameter related to the first available user-defined G code program, and you want to change the way G83 behaves, change parameter number 5061 to -83. Again, be sure the program number for your program matches the one used by the parameter (such as O9010). The next time the control sees a G83, it will execute your custom macro instead of performing the normal function of G83.

To cancel your user-created canned cycle with G80, you must also modify the function of G80. Pick another user-defined G-code parameter, and place a value of 80 in it. Finally, match this program number with the program related to the parameter number. This will cancel normal canned cycles as well as your user-defined G code. If choosing the second-available, user-defined G code, the program number will be O9011 — and here it is:

O9011 G80 G67 M99

This program will cancel canned cycles as well as modal custom macro calls.

Related Content

Measurement 12 Jun 2024

Orthopedic Event Discusses Manufacturing Strategies

At the seminar, representatives from multiple companies discussed strategies for making orthopedic devices accurately and efficiently.

The Future of High Feed Milling in Modern Manufacturing

Achieve higher metal removal rates and enhanced predictability with ISCAR’s advanced high-feed milling tools — optimized for today’s competitive global market.

Holemaking 28 Oct 2024

Finding the Right Tools for a Turning Shop

Xcelicut is a startup shop that has grown thanks to the right machines, cutting tools, grants and other resources.

Cutting Tools 8 Jan 2024

Briquetting Manufacturer Tools Up for Faster Turnaround Times

To cut out laborious manual processes like hand-grinding, this briquette manufacturer revamped its machining and cutting tool arsenal for faster production.

Automation

AMRs Are Moving Into Manufacturing: 4 Considerations for Implementation

AMRs can provide a flexible, easy-to-use automation platform so long as manufacturers choose a suitable task and prepare their facilities.

Basics

Machine Shop MBA

Making Chips and 91��Ƶ��վ�� are teaming up for a new podcast series called Machine Shop MBA—designed to help manufacturers measure their success against the industry’s best. Through the lens of the Top Shops benchmarking program, the series explores the KPIs that set high-performing shops apart, from machine utilization and first-pass yield to employee engagement and revenue per employee.

Economics

Last Chance! 2025 Top Shops Benchmarking Survey Still Open Through April 30

Don’t miss out! 91��Ƶ��վ��'s Top Shops Benchmarking Survey is still open — but not for long. This is your last chance to a receive free, customized benchmarking report that includes actionable feedback across several shopfloor and business metrics.

91��Ƶ��վ��

What Don’t you Like About that Canned Cycle?

Share

Related Content

Orthopedic Event Discusses Manufacturing Strategies

The Future of High Feed Milling in Modern Manufacturing

Finding the Right Tools for a Turning Shop

Briquetting Manufacturer Tools Up for Faster Turnaround Times

Read Next

AMRs Are Moving Into Manufacturing: 4 Considerations for Implementation

Machine Shop MBA

Last Chance! 2025 Top Shops Benchmarking Survey Still Open Through April 30

What Don’t you Like About that Canned Cycle?

Share

T J Davies, Co., Inc.

Featured Content

CNC Engineering, Inc.

Featured Content

Featured Videos

Heidenhain Corporation

Featured Content

Featured Videos

SMW Autoblok Corporation

Featured Content

Featured Videos

ZEISS Industrial Quality Solutions

Featured Content

Featured Videos

All World Machinery Supply

Featured Content

Featured Videos

Mikron Corp.

Featured Content

Featured Videos

QualiChem Inc.

Featured Content

Featured Videos

Related Content

Read Next