Hmmmm...."integral spindle"....having been very badly bitten 20+ years ago with Hitachi machines, which all had integral spindles, when they need a rebuild it is mega-expensive. I really don't think you can beat a direct drive spindle with coupling - thinking Robodrill, Matsuura's, even my 15k rpm Feeler machines had that. Really simple and IMHO, technically far superior to keep the motor (many KW = heat) well away from the spindle bearings....

I can replicate by clicking a few links to the site quickly. Maybe 3 or 4 within a few seconds.

I can't put a photo because it says there is no space. I have uploaded the photograph in the link in the first Post

I don't click links I don't recognize for safety reasons so I'm not sure what's there, but I can tell you there's no ban or restrictions on your account as far as I can tell. Sometimes our anti-bot system will put the brakes on someone trying to access the site if it's noticed a lot of unusual traffic and that can occasionally catch innocent, real users. Sometimes even I'm forced to watch a loading screen. If you can post a screenshot here of what kind of message you're seeing that indicates you're banned I can take a look

I try to enter emastercam and I always end up with the same notice https://ibb.co/KLnT6Np any admin?

Last place I worked at had a KF5600 with the mold package. It's a pretty well built machine from what I remember. The integral spindle was super nice as well.

Try reaching out to @mkd he was working with Heidenhain controls I think.

does anyone have a basic code format sample i can use to get a simple program going in iso mode? thanks

I was thinking out loud, with not a lot of thinking! Wondering if the pdf is similar in construction, to a DXF - which is a text file containing all the data geometry. Because I know there is the "measurement" command within a 3D pdf, so you can measure distances etc. So I guess....the geometry within the file has to be "accurate"? But as the pdf is lots smaller than wireframe or model file, it can only be stripped out or compressed

I've been spoiled for quite a while now, and my modeling skills have suffered for it due to lack of practice. We have a Catia guy whose job is to validate customers models and prints. Then he modifies the models to nominal dimensions. This means I've been doing very little serious modeling. What modeling I do, is mostly building surfaces for toolpaths if needed.

Yeah that could be possible,.. Most of the time the CAD models that are given to me aren't nominal anyways,.. a 1.000 +.002/-.000 is usually modeled at 1.000 (those sort of things) but generally speaking locational tolerances are good. If I'm drawing in mastercam I feel like it's way easier for me to just misinterpret the drawing or fat finger a location/size (and I am definitely no GD&T expert) I know I definitely wouldn't trust it haha!

Anyone have any experience with Hyundai WIA machine tools, good and bad ? specifically the XF6300 and XF2000i

I wonder if this is anything to do with liability of data - "print is master"? They (Customer) may have been previously burnt by "designer" modelling inaccurate and machine shop making to model and it doesn't meet print....There was a TONNE (note metrico - larger than imperial :lol:) of this going on where "designers" didn't understand or couldn't comprehend the need for accuracy, or just didn't care. How accurate is pdf to cad - does that take the dimension to drive wireframe? Or pdf3d to model - again does this take the actual dims (unsure how smart a pdf is - prolly not?)

A LOT of years I did ALL my CAD in Mastercam. It's VERY good at the part level for CAD... minus not being parametric. However, there came a point around 2006 or so IIRC where it became just too much because certain projects I was working on were changing too frequently so then I got into CATIA. Around 2015/2016-ish I migrated to Autodesk Inventor for nearly all my CAD needs. From time to time, I will draw a part in Mastercam... because I can , and sometimes certain features that I cannot figure out how to build in Inventor, I'll build in Mastercam... again... because I CAN. You could drive CAD from a spreadsheet. I was awesome. I did a BUNCH of lathe family of parts projects with it. I was REALLY sad they abandoned it. I KNEW it would be hard though.

Possibly flowline is a better option but without a file to look at it is just a guess.

May want to use reverse wear comp.

Parametric is wonderful....

I have tried to push for it,.. but we are not. New "big" customer, they want a small family of parts, supposedly around half a mil per year of work so we are doing it on the house. Makes no sense to me but I'm just a measly paid-by-the-hour programmer.

Right, which is I don't consider the wireframe stuff as parametric

Simplest I understand what you're going for it however, it doesn't truly align with what is a "Parametric" modeling CAD system. Mastercam is an Etch-a-Sketch compared to a parametric CAD system. It is functional, it does work. You can do some pretty trick things with it....it does however take a lot more to get stuff done I certainly hope your front office is quoting that NRE for that work

Lately we have had a few customers (even a big aerospace one) give us only .PDF prints and no CAD files whatsoever. Has been a bit annoying having to draw and extrude these parts lately, as I am not super experienced so it can take me over a whole day just to draw up and model a part LOL. I mean, it all pays the same, but it's annoying and it opens the door for me to mess it up even easier haha. Not to mention it's just time I should be spending doing something more important, and I know we do not charge for this process, we just eat the cost.. When the print has CLEARLY got 3d views of a modeled part but the customer swears up and down they don't have access and can't get a solid file... anyways rant over, and apologies. I will sometimes use multiple machine groups in the same .mcam file, one for soft jaws/fixturing op and then the op2/whatever. It is a big can of worms that I know we have all discussed before but when doing "parametric fixturing" it really comes in handy. I will program the op2 before the fixturing, so I can manually move around the soft jaw wireframe and regen the soft jaw solid. Or adjust a large chamfer on a fixture to accommodate a certain toolholder/whatever situation I encounter while programming. Amateur-tip: when creating your own solids for parts/fixtures I definitely recommend notating each extrusion/boolean/whatever for when you want to go back and make changes. I'm currently working on a part for the MAM which the customer of course did not supply a solid for, so I had to create one. Nice and clear notations I also have the baseplate, which bolts to the pallet, and the subplate, which of course locates and mounts to baseplate, modeled up and labeled as well. And for each nut/bolt/dowel pin, it's got the description as well as the mcmaster part number.

In its truest sense, Parametric just literally means "driven by parameters." Pragmatically, that means that there's a way to alter the parameters and regenerate the model based on the edited values. You can expand that to whatever degree you want, but whether the parameters making it are generated by manually adjusting a dimensions or by a formula or by referencing a spreadsheet, the result is the same. This is why Solids in Mastercam is parametric (edit the base wireframe and the solid will update) and the wireframe is not (there's no parameters that will cause wireframe to automagically adjust). Mastercam can absolutely do the same thing as SolidEdge, when you extrude a solid, there's an option on the advanced page to create it without history. From there you can use push/pull, move, etc. There's various stages to what they mean (half the time they don't know ).... Parametric CAM can mean something like Mastercam (update the solid/wireframe and the toolpath will update) all the way up to generating toolpaths based solely on an input formula.

I've seen people mentioning Parametric CAM. Not sure what that means though. Does that just mean the solid has a feature tree?

You can use spreadsheets to drive different configurations of parts, you can use formulas to dimensions, you can define a single dimension as a variable and then tie many things to that single variable.... The Push/Pull in Mastercam is akin to utilizing a blow torch and butter knife...yes, it works but it is a rudimentary tool.. One of my guys was timid over bringing on Solidworks for our design work...now that he's up to speed on it, he wouldn't go back.