Jump to content

Welcome to eMastercam

Register now to participate in the forums, access the download area, buy Mastercam training materials, post processors and more. This message will be removed once you have signed in.

Use your display name or email address to sign in:

Beta Testers for IKE Post customization


Recommended Posts

The In-House Solutions Post Team is looking for volunteer Beta Testers to provide feedback on the customization of our IKE Posts.

MPMASTER has been retired from active development, but we still want to keep our eMastercam community up to date with the latest technology in post-processors. We are planning to do this by offering free versions of select 3 and 4 axis IKE posts, which we will be actively developing.

We are looking for eMastercam community members with experience on MPMASTER and MPLMASTER posts to act as Beta testers for our IKE Mill and IKE Lathe products to ensure that we are fitting the needs of eMastercam users. We want to make sure the post is both customizable enough and powerful enough for users who dabble in post development and customization.

If you are interested in participating, please send me a message and I will get you shiny new IKE post to customize and play around with.

In your message, please indicate: Who you are, Where you work, The best email address to contact you, What machine(s) you would be testing this with or benchmarking against, and What experience you have had with post customization in the past.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Tim,

Many mpmater features were considered when building IKE so it already does most of what mpmaster does, and more.

Both posts run through the mp.dll so if you have specific postblocks that were written custom for mpmaster you should be able to drop into the IKE post and run them with a little bit of tweaking (variable names might be different)

Alex

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please read the thread above. We currently offer mpmaster and mplmaster for free. If you are interested in downloading either of them, here is a link.

Free mpmaster and mplmaster post processors. - Post Processor Development Forum - eMastercam.com

However, we are no longer doing development on these posts, and there is concern that they will fall behind. Years ago we stopped providing mpmaster and mplmaster posts with our paid customers and are instead providing IKE mill and lathe posts.

We are now planning to offer free versions of these posts to keep supporting the eMastercam community. This Beta testing is an opportunity for eMastercam users that value mpmaster to provide their input for its replacement.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alex,

Can you elaborate a bit on what "new features" are supported in the IKE Posts? Will these be a "universal 3X or 4X Post", the way that MPMaster was, or are these going to be tailored to a specific "machine type/brand"?

Does the IKE support "Mastercam Machine Simulation"? If yes > what is involved in setting up that function from an end-user perspective? (Do we just add STLs to the "machine" that is being built, and have the IKE Post share the "same name" as the Mach Sim Machine?)

I am assuming that these Posts will require a PST/PSB setup, with much of the logic locked down. (Which does make sense.)

Will these IKE Beta Posts be timed?

Will they be "version limited"? My concern here is that I'd spend a significant amount of time developing a Post using the IKE version, and then not be able to run that Post in a future release of Mastercam without paying for it.

I've got dozens of Posts which started life as a "MPMaster" 4X Vertical or 4X Horizontal, and have now been deeply customized to support specific machines.

For example > with an IKE "4X Vertical Post", would I still have the ability to develop the Post for "any 4X Vertical Machine"? Same question for Horizontal Machines.

Is this IKE Post "tied into the Machine Definition" more deeply than what was available "by default" in MPMaster? Does the IKE Post read "the kinematic layout" of the Machine Definition, or are we still limited (by default) to only reading the 4th Axis Rotary Properties?

Thanks and best regards,

Colin

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Colin,

Thanks for asking these great questions.

An example of a new feature that is supported in the IKE post is safety zone transition moves with 4/5 axis drilling. It was a new feature added into Mastercam that required a post edit to fully support, and these are the sort of post edits that are not being put into mpmaster any more. I don't know what other new features are being added into Mastercam for future released, but I know that we are constantly developing IKE posts to ensure all the latest features are fully supported.

Another new feature that our IKE post support is the built-in HTML setup sheet. This feature is integrated into the post and provides the option to generate an operation list and/or tool list when generating the nc code. It is not released yet, but we have also been working on an IKE+ interface to help customize the setupsheets, Hopefully more on that later. The best thing about the IKE built-in setup sheet is that it is completely free for users.

The intention at this point is for it to act a sort of mpmaster replacement, so we will be offering fairly generic Fanuc 3/4 axis IKE posts. With our post library, we do maintain different post versions for different controllers, so we have IKE Haas, IKE Makino, IKE Mazak, IKE TNC, etc. I would love to see all of those be released for free for eMastercam users at some point, but I think for now we are starting off with the Fanuc.

The IKE posts do support machine simulation, and like the HTML setupsheet it is integrated into the post, however this is a paid add-on. This is further complicated since this feature now requires licensing from ModuleWorks. But if we are able to get past that, the machine sim setup is pretty easy. You need to setup the STLs and the XML (same as always), then there is a few machine sim specific settings in the post that are setup, similar to the XML setup. Its a bit beyond the scope of the free 3/4 axis posts, but we can definitely continue this conversation and talk more about machine sim support in IKE if you are interested.

You are correct, there will be PST and PSB sections of the post (sorry) but that is more to hide away the math and background stuff. All (or at least most) of the output is in the PST file.

There isn't any plans to time the Beta version of the posts, or the free ones once we launch them. They should also be able to update to newer versions of Mastercam without much issue. The older posts may not support the newer features, but the newer posts will also be available.

One tool we may be able to explore is out post template feature in IKE+. It allows you to save the settings from one post to apply then over to another. This could be beneficial if you have gotten your IKE post setup how you like it, but then find you need to update to a newer IKE release to take advantage of added features.

Thanks,

Alex

  • Thanks 1
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the info Alex, I appreciate the info.

Machine Simulation inside Mastercam is looking more-and-more feasible, especially since Autodesk just changed the licensing scheme for CAMplete. Although CAMplete is a great tool, I'm really disappointed that they are giving the software their "subscription treatment", like they've done to every other software package that they bought. Once they own the market, then they start jacking up the price...

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/18/2021 at 12:04 PM, Colin Gilchrist said:

Machine Simulation inside Mastercam is looking more-and-more feasible, especially since Autodesk just changed the licensing scheme for CAMplete. Although CAMplete is a great tool, I'm really disappointed that they are giving the software their "subscription treatment", like they've done to every other software package that they bought. Once they own the market, then they start jacking up the price...

Autodesk would never do such a thing. They pinky sweared to the customers they care about American Manufacturing and are in it for the long haul not to be a greedy corporation doing everything they can to squash the competition. :phone:

  • Like 1
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 3 months later...
On ‎7‎/‎1‎/‎2021 at 11:23 AM, crazy^millman said:
On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2021 at 3:04 PM, Colin Gilchrist said:

Machine Simulation inside Mastercam is looking more-and-more feasible, especially since Autodesk just changed the licensing scheme for CAMplete. Although CAMplete is a great tool, I'm really disappointed that they are giving the software their "subscription treatment", like they've done to every other software package that they bought. Once they own the market, then they start jacking up the price...

Autodesk would never do such a thing. They pinky sweared to the customers they care about American Manufacturing and are in it for the long haul not to be a greedy corporation doing everything they can to squash the competition. :phone:

I was surprised to learn when I bought an entry level product that it didn't come with machine sim! :o

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The machine simulation environment is pretty great, I think it has colliders as well?

 

I was thinking a machine environment that reads the gcode into mastercam then simulates it would be cool.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

Join us!

eMastercam - your online source for all things Mastercam.

Together, we are the strongest Mastercam community on the web with over 56,000 members, and our online store offers a wide selection of training materials for all applications and skill levels.

Follow us

×
×
  • Create New...