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Do you prefer Stock Models or .STLs for use in Mastercam.


Stock Model or .STL  

34 members have voted

  1. 1. Which do you prefer using Stock Models or .STLs and why?

    • .STL primarily
      2
    • Stock Model primarily
      21
    • Both depending on situation
      12


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Which do you like using more Stock Models or .STLs what are your preferences based on. I recently have been using Stock Model on some really big optirough and optirest paths and the stock model seems to take a very long time to regenerate so I am tempted to go back to .stl files but along time ago(X4) I noticed if you moved your .stl across multiple operations it had the tendency to get artifacts or glitchy triangles that were paper thin shooting off random faces, anyway please let me know what you think about this. I had time to make this poll and post while my Stock Model was regenerating it still hasn't finished....Tips on making this process faster would also be great

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If you're using stock models for roughing purposes, remember to back off the tolerances! The default tolerance for a stock model operation initial shape and tool shape is 0.001"/0.025mm, which is great for a view of the result of a finishing operation, but orders of magnitude overkill for what you need to drive a roughing path that's probably leaving 0.020" stock-on. Use some common-sense ratios and loosen up your tolerances based on what your roughing paths are actually doing, and you can claw some of that calculation time back. 

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So just like you adjust the tolerance in your arc filter settings to cut down on regeneration times and size of the code when roughing. You adjust your tolerance of your stock model for roughing as well. When comparing your finished part though at a tight tolerance I guess you're just at the mercy of the specs of your PC. Is there any difference between using a stock model for optirest vs an .stl? does one give you better or cleaner toolpaths?

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Stock models only for the work I do. I lost a customer years ago because of linked STL in a Mastercam file. Since X7 the name of the file being referenced for a STL is not kept. The other problem is computer mapping is always different between my computer and a customer computer so even if everything were named 99% of the file the file structure I use will not work on their systems. I do everything in my power to keep everything in one Mastercam file.

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When I first started programming I was taught to primarily use STL files, but once I found stock models I changed my workflow. STL files have their place and I am seeing myself lean towards them for OptiRough stock. But not having to save and retrieve and keep track of additional files seems to save me a lot of time. Converting a stock model to a mesh is a timesaver as well.

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The other thing with stock models I've found is that a lot of them with a few toolpaths work better than a few with a lot of toolpaths.   I.e., You're better off having 5 stock models that process 2 or 3 heavy toolpaths than having one that processes 15.  It will take more than 5 times as long to process the second scenario.

I never use STLs due to the file issues Ron mentions, but I often will create a set of levels with a mesh of my stock model for Machine Simulation purposes.  If you didn't know, you can right click on a stock model > Mill toolpaths > Stock Model Convert to Mesh.   

If you have a lot of 'em and the regen stack is getting unruly, then you can always start a "fresh" stock model by pointing at one of those meshes you exported.

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I will use which ever method will prevent me from having to re-set my settings in simulator options to select what I want to use. 

Every time I open a different file I have to re-set the stock. I'm probably doing something wrong 'cuz I'm fairly ignorant.

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2 minutes ago, Jobnt said:

I will use which ever method will prevent me from having to re-set my settings in simulator options to select what I want to use. 

Every time I open a different file I have to re-set the stock. I'm probably doing something wrong 'cuz I'm fairly ignorant.

This is because those settings are essentially being written to an external file that Simulation looks at when you launch into. You'll notice this especially when you have 2 instances of Mastercam open at once and you're bouncing between them, simulating in both. The settings will keep on overrunning each other.

 

2024 has numerous changes to the location of these settings in the background, to keep them stored on a per-machine-group basis, not even just a per-part-file basis.

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37 minutes ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

The other thing with stock models I've found is that a lot of them with a few toolpaths work better than a few with a lot of toolpaths.   I.e., You're better off having 5 stock models that process 2 or 3 heavy toolpaths than having one that processes 15.  It will take more than 5 times as long to process the second scenario.

I never use STLs due to the file issues Ron mentions, but I often will create a set of levels with a mesh of my stock model for Machine Simulation purposes.  If you didn't know, you can right click on a stock model > Mill toolpaths > Stock Model Convert to Mesh.   

If you have a lot of 'em and the regen stack is getting unruly, then you can always start a "fresh" stock model by pointing at one of those meshes you exported.

Between having my tolerance too high for roughing and using like 8 optiroughs and a bunch of dynamics all in one stock model I now see why I was having really long processing times. Thanks everyone for the input....I do like how quick .stl files can be made but I do see that stock models seem to be more accurate. This may be a silly question but are Stock Models actually solids? it would be awesome if they were and there was a way to save them as .step file. They seem to still be a Mesh of some sort like an .stl anyone care to share what the actual differences are between them?

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6 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

Between having my tolerance too high for roughing and using like 8 optiroughs and a bunch of dynamics all in one stock model I now see why I was having really long processing times. Thanks everyone for the input....I do like how quick .stl files can be made but I do see that stock models seem to be more accurate. This may be a silly question but are Stock Models actually solids? it would be awesome if they were and there was a way to save them as .step file. They seem to still be a Mesh of some sort like an .stl anyone care to share what the actual differences are between them?

No, they're not solids, they're a mesh, but basically when you save it as an STL, it has to convert them from the internal mesh that's stored with a bunch of other data to an STL which is a generic format.  You're going to have to take your processed mesh, then, run it through the converter at whatever tolerances are specified in the config, which is why Stock Models are higher quality, they haven't been ran through a converter.  You can avoid this by converting it to a mesh to keep inside of the file, it'll be in the "native" mesh format that the Stock Model generated.

Here's an example of a project I just finished up, you can see that I never really get more than 4 or 5 optis, and all of these use a ~.005" path tolerance and a .003" Tool tolerance.

image.png.21e5142fbe5fa9ddfbf666ca421af261.png

I have 5 stock models in the first 30 toolpaths.  It'll regen all these in ~5 minutes.

Here's where I exported all of my stock models to mesh so you can use them for Machine Simulation:

image.png.f8aa221947faa00c5589e742be194a4c.png

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Beautiful organization! thanks for the detailed explanation. I did stumble on the post from 2014 that essentially asked this very question. It seems the majority are all in favor of stock model and a few that might not have known how to optimize their function still used .stl or worked on such overwhelmingly large parts and had old hardware like to use .stl due to the low system requirements.

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1 hour ago, [email protected] said:

Between having my tolerance too high for roughing and using like 8 optiroughs and a bunch of dynamics all in one stock model I now see why I was having really long processing times. Thanks everyone for the input....I do like how quick .stl files can be made but I do see that stock models seem to be more accurate. This may be a silly question but are Stock Models actually solids? it would be awesome if they were and there was a way to save them as .step file. They seem to still be a Mesh of some sort like an .stl anyone care to share what the actual differences are between them?

One other thing I thought of that a lot of people miss is to loosen up your tolerances for your opti & dynamic toolpaths if you haven't.  I always set my tolerance to ~20% of the stock to leave, and then be sure to change my filtering to convert as much to arcs as possible.  It'll generally* make it run faster on the machine and the toolpath size wiill be ~50% less, making it generate stock models faster.  Something like this for a ~.030" Stock to leave:

image.png.77035bc881e2e16f6a7955c7fbfe03b3.png

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I typically do that during roughing also but I rarely click the g18 and g19 options unless im surfacing on those planes. I suppose they decrease the amount of code for the ramps lead ins and outs of the path as well! Also I need to loosen my total tolerance as you said. 20% of the stock your leaving sounds safe. I also use the arc filter page to get rid of splines on surfaces. I notice the further I go toward line/arc tolerance the less likely I am to get splines/facets on surfaces.

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It would be huge if they would add a toggle to disassociate stock models to the tool paths used to create them leaving the stock model in place. Then re-toggle it when necessary. 

 

I have part files that have 20 (or more) stock models in them.  It *can* become a pain in the xxxx.

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16 hours ago, neurosis said:

It would be huge if they would add a toggle to disassociate stock models to the tool paths used to create them leaving the stock model in place. Then re-toggle it when necessary. 

 

I have part files that have 20 (or more) stock models in them.  It *can* become a pain in the xxxx.

No it is.

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22 hours ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

One other thing I thought of that a lot of people miss is to loosen up your tolerances for your opti & dynamic toolpaths if you haven't.  I always set my tolerance to ~20% of the stock to leave, and then be sure to change my filtering to convert as much to arcs as possible.  It'll generally* make it run faster on the machine and the toolpath size wiill be ~50% less, making it generate stock models faster.  Something like this for a ~.030" Stock to leave:

image.png.77035bc881e2e16f6a7955c7fbfe03b3.png

Since the introduction of stock models, I always thought that the filter setting would benefit from having the below screenshot:-

Mcam default values for both rough and finish, together with a "return to default" incase of too much blind fiddling :lol:

This would be better to be settable - user defined and saveable.

I'm sure it was Colin ( @Colin Gilchrist ) who did a great write up explaining the settings a few years ago (I know you have explained it in the past too), but I bet 90+% of "programmers" don't even touch the defaults and wouldn't know where to start.

Disclaimer (!) I realize that we all do different types of work and some people love doing stupid tight work that the majority of us would no-bid (sit down Ronaldo :hrhr:) but is it fair to say the majority of users do a "certain/normal" (to them) type of product line, that for the majority of their parts, defaults could be set (and certainly roughing defaults)?

image.thumb.png.2ff7e925e21366e5d5e1dab1e5d80b3c.png

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When necessary, stock model. When I am satisfied with a stock model's result I create a Pmesh then assign the Pmesh to the stock model operation. Next I disassociate the toolpath operations from the stock model operation which helps not need to regen a dozen stock models because of a speed/feed change in a previous op.

Learned that trick from @crazy^millman :cheers:.

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On 3/17/2023 at 8:28 AM, crazy^millman said:

Stock models only for the work I do. I lost a customer years ago because of linked STL in a Mastercam file. Since X7 the name of the file being referenced for a STL is not kept. The other problem is computer mapping is always different between my computer and a customer computer so even if everything were named 99% of the file the file structure I use will not work on their systems. I do everything in my power to keep everything in one Mastercam file.

Our quality systems manager will change the folder name and add confirm new rev or update setup sheets. This always breaks any job setup stl paths.

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On 3/17/2023 at 8:57 AM, Aaron Eberhard said:

The other thing with stock models I've found is that a lot of them with a few toolpaths work better than a few with a lot of toolpaths.   I.e., You're better off having 5 stock models that process 2 or 3 heavy toolpaths than having one that processes 15.  It will take more than 5 times as long to process the second scenario.

I never use STLs due to the file issues Ron mentions, but I often will create a set of levels with a mesh of my stock model for Machine Simulation purposes.  If you didn't know, you can right click on a stock model > Mill toolpaths > Stock Model Convert to Mesh.   

If you have a lot of 'em and the regen stack is getting unruly, then you can always start a "fresh" stock model by pointing at one of those meshes you exported.

This seems like a neat trick, Aaron. I'm curious, are mesh files on a level immune to hollow stock syndrome?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/19/2023 at 9:35 AM, cncappsjames said:

When necessary, stock model. When I am satisfied with a stock model's result I create a Pmesh then assign the Pmesh to the stock model operation. Next I disassociate the toolpath operations from the stock model operation which helps not need to regen a dozen stock models because of a speed/feed change in a previous op.

Learned that trick from @crazy^millman :cheers:.

Would you mind elaborating a bit more on how to create the Pmesh? Can you create a Pmesh from a stock model that was generated from an .STL or would that defeat the purpose...I'm guessing that it's best to create the Pmesh from a Stock Model created from previous Toolpaths. I looked in the Mesh menu and inside my stock model options but can't find Pmesh. All I found from the Content/Help was this line Import STL files into Mastercam as independent lines or as a Pmesh entity (recommended) .

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