quirky

[steve f]

After two hours of programming this morning I tried to post the operations and came up with a 0kbyte NC file.

 

-restarted mcam, opened file, pop up says NCI has been allocated to a different directory and of the 50 or so operations, the last 10 are dirty.

 

-regen, post and the NC file is empty.

 

-posted operations that weren't dirty and the file comes out just fine.

 

This isn't good, since this job needs finishing ASAP. I'm running the latest maintenance release (the cause?). Anyone else run into this before.

 

 

steve

[Mike Whitten CAD/CAM Contractors]

I am not sure I understand?

 

First of all make sure that all the ops that you are trying to post to one nc file have the same nci name and path. When you post the file make sure you know where the nc file is going. I use the setdirs chook.

 

If non of this works, go to an older "known good" MC9 file and post it and see what happens.

 

BTW,

I am having great results with the latest maintenance release.

 

Mike

[steve f]

All the ops shared the same nci destination and produced an empty NC file on posting. The problem has nothing to do with knowing the nci destination or knowing where the nc file is going. The problem is:

 

-there are 50 ops with the same nci destination that, when posted, create an NC file that contains nothing.

 

-on re-opening the file, 10 of the 50 ops that appeared fine before are now dirty.

 

-the 10 ops are regened, the entire group of 50 ops are re-posted and the NC file contains nothing.

 

-the 10 suspect ops are seperated into a different group (with different nci destination) and the remaining 40 ops post out fine.

 

-the 10 suspect operations create an empty NC file on posting...why????

 

Anyway, I may need to delete and re-toolpath on the 10 bad ones. That's life I guess.

[Stone]

You might try to copy the toolpath and regen. I had a similar thing happen to me when I have 2 mcams open at then same time. Thats how I fix my problem.

[steve f]

thanks Stone, I'll give it a try.

 

steve

[Mike Whitten CAD/CAM Contractors]

I am sorry steve, that was all I could think of as I have never had that one. I would be interested to know what the deal is though.

 

Thanks

Mike

[Richard Thomas - Mastercam UK]

I think you should send that file off to Tech Support at your local dealers, or to CNC themselves - nobody likes to have this sort of thing happening to them, so if you haven't done so already, please let CNC have a chance to investigate.

[steve f]

Mike, no prob.

 

I was under the gun and admitedly more than a little frustrated with this NC file fiasco.

 

After banging my head against the desk a few times and some trial and error investigation I "fixed" the issue. Initially I was opening this file on my laptop and went through the process described above. When I opened this up on my desktop pc, the file would get hung up on the nci and then prompt wether the nci error should be sent to file or the default editor. The error stated the toolpath (surface finish contour) and that - one bad section was found. The toolpath in question was the first one in the operation group but looked clean when the file was opened. Instead, an extra dirty op showed up in the group called Merged NCI and the last 10 ops were also dirty. Deleting/re-doing the surface finish contour toolpath and regening the 10 dirty ops got me out my jam.

 

Rich, I agree with you 100%..."unfortunately" the file is working fine again, now that the suspect toolpath has been deleted so I doubt CNC could investigate far with this one. I will give it a shot though.

 

 

Thanks to those who attempted first-aid,

 

 

steve

[billystein]

I just love happy endings.

Billy

[Mike Whitten CAD/CAM Contractors]

Steve,

 

I am glad everything worked out OK. I know how it is though. In a machine shop, there never seems like enough time to program it in the first place and then when something goes wrong it's a real pisser!

 

Mike