Heidenhain Full Circle
- October 29, 2025
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Heidenhain Work Offsets Explained
Category : Heidenhain
CNC Training Call David: 07834 858 407
Heidenhain Work Offsets Explained
Heidenhain Work Offsets, traditionally the Heidenhain coordinate system was kept very simple. It was like the “Click and Collect” of the CNC World 20 years ahead of its time.
Anyway all you did was go to the place where you wanted as your offset and zeroed the display.
That was the datum and when you had a new part you just zeroed it again.
WARNING THIS POST CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE AND NUDITY FROM THE OUTSET
Easy….
Simple as Jack Shit.
It even had a self destruct button.
With this button you could really easily delete your program by accident.
I vividly remember having to lie and cheat my way out of that one.
Fortunately they moved it, well it’s gone anyway.
Now this button Wow….. Don’t even get me started. It was still there all those years ago.
Watch this if you can’t stand the intrigue.
I Digress
Back to Heidenhain Work Offsets
Nowadays everything is so complicated. I still can’t work the fuckin TV remote control and my central heating comes on in the middle of the night for no reason.
I just put the heating full up all the time now, admittedly the kids have to stay outside in the summer but I like to keep things simple.
Some People Are Never Satisfied
Not happy with one work offset everyone wanted six. Then it went crazy with extended work offsets some of you greedy bastards (and you know who you are) have 99. Come on that’s just CNC debauchery.
Limitations with old Heidenhain Work Offsets
Joking aside it did have its limitations. Anyway now you can have as many as you want.
As we all know everything nowadays needs to be backwardly compatible. (I don’t actually know what that means, I heard a bloke say it in the pub)
Anyway the new machines have to still do what the old ones did.
From this screen you can make an offset active.
Once this offset is active any subsequent position move will be in this offset.
In your program you need one of these.
The above would call Datum 3
Above would call Datum 9
This would take it back to Datun 0
Come on surely you get it now.
Heidenhain Work Offsets
The number (in this case zero) is the datum you wish to call. This would call the standard datum (can’t miss it it’s top of the list and it’s red)
Don’t forget this is modal so once selected the datum will be used all the time until you change it.
Now you have started using these datum you must have one at the beginning of each program. It’s a bit like taking out a mortgage (you can’t escape).
Obviously if you make it active in the datum table and then call a program. If that program has no datum call then it will use whatever’s there.
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Full Circle Heidenhain (Macro Program)
Category : Heidenhain
CNC Training Call David: 07834 858 407
Macro to program a Full Circle Heidenhain
Heidenhain has its own form of parametric programming it uses Q values sometimes called Q DEF.
Er what you on about now David? You ask.
Ok sorry to shroud you in a cocoon of total bullshit.
It’s like Macro on a Fanuc Control. What you do is you program a circle and instead of putting numbers for the X values n stuff you put a Q number like Q1 or Q10
Then you tell it what the Q values are. So instead of X-20. you could have X+Q10
If you then went on to define Q10 as -20 then X would be X-20.
All will be revealed.
Take a look at this code.
Full Circle Heidenhain
This code will mill a full circle and because it’s in incremental (note the I in front of the X value) you can dump one anywhere. By that I mean you can mill one of these circles anywhere not take a shit anywhere.
Now watch it in action.
This is great but it is not easy to control. If we wanted a different diameter there are quite a few figures to change. If you are a bit of a prick like me then you’d probably get it wrong and scrap the part.
Q DEF To The Rescue Full Circle Heidenhain
Using Q def is really easy. You could start by using it to change the feedrate. Look at the code now.
Line 7 and line 17 define Q1 as two different values.
So when each one calls LBL 1 the feedrate in line 25 will change to whatever value is in Q1.
Clever eh…..
But that’s not all.
You can have loads of Q values whopeeee.
Stick Around For The Exciting Stuff
Heidenhain Circular Interpolation
Category : Heidenhain
Heidenhain Circular Interpolation
CNC Training Call David: 07834 858 407
30 five star ratings on Google (just saying)
Heidenhain circular interpolation, mm what bullshit, this just means cutting in a circular move.
Very often wrongly called interpolation here is Wikipedia meaning.
Well that’s definitely confused me. But to me interpolation means movement.
Circular interpolation moving in a circular motion, full or part circle.
Linear interpolation moving in a straight line.
Heidenhain circular interpolation, there are four ways to produce a circular move on a Heidenhain control. You will love the flexibility of this control once you take the time to get to know it.
CNC Airfryer
Heidenhain is the Air-fryer of CNC controls, it does the lot and in many different ways. Now the healthy option is the one that suits your drawing and require the least amount of Maths.
Here are some Air-fryer recipes to try at home.
Come on David Where are The Fuckin Circles????
- You can use the same way as a Fanuc using
which is end point and radius. - Using
tangent and end point. - Using
circle centre and end point. - Intersecting corners then program the
function.
This video explains it all. You’ll have four useful tools in your programming toolbox.
Subscribe to my YouTube channel please
The Heidenhain control offers multiple choices when it comes to circular moves try to use the information straight from your drawing.