Mastercam Video Tutorials

[NeilJ]

It has been stated in this thread that all you have to do is read the Mastercam help file and documentation included with Mastercam to understand something as simple as Lead-In, Lead-out.

 

My contention is that Lead-In, Lead-Out is far from simple and most people (myself included) don’t fully understand all the ways it can be used.

 

The exact same thing can be said about the Mastercam WCS. I've seen many tutorials on the WCS in the form or Powerpoint presentations, videos, etc. Many have been very helpful. None of them have been complete enough.

 

The following was posted by Dave Thompson who worked for In House Solutions and who started this forum.

 

http://tinyurl.com/6k42mx

 

"Your comments on the WCS are bang on. It’s a very misunderstood, and often abused area of the software. As a multi-axis post developer, we see the WCS used where a toolplane should be used. The WCS should represent the orientation of the part as held on the machine for a specific setup."

[Colin Gilchrist]

Sounds good Jon, we can cover both Lead In/Out and WCS. That would be a good start and should take a couple hours, especially with the tangent questions I'm sure it will spawn. I'd prefer sometime in the afternoon, I work kind of a mid-shift at Boeing and really enjoy sleeping in on Fridays. What is the normal work schedule at your company? I'm thinking that an hour after lunch time would probably work well. Right after lunch I get the afternoon nods myself, so a little time to digest would probably help.

 

I'm looking into a subscription to an online meeting hosting service so that everyone who participates in the online meeting can see and hear what I'm doing with Mastercam, and I can even give control over my desktop to a participant, so they can drive the software.

 

I'm sure we can cover a lot in a few hours and make it productive for everyone who is attending...

 

Dave Thompson's comments were also spot on. I spent a few hours last night trying to explain WCS to a new user, but gave up and just showed him how to use just Construction planes to rotate and translate geometry.

 

I agree that WCS doesn't have the necessary documentation to make it easy to understand, but I think part of this is due to the lack of explanation and training for the fundamentals of the WCS system: Graphics Views, Construction Planes, and Toolplanes. If you don't have a base understanding of these features WCS just adds another layer of confusion.

 

Remind me, and I'll show you some tricks and techniques to help you 'see' what plane you are working on. Things like using the screen grid to visualize your plane/depth combo, and using the icons and axis markers to help you see how your part is located relative to your WCS/Planes...

 

Thanks,

[sharles]

Colin,

 

I'll be on vacation for the next 2 weeks, but would I be welcome and what would I need (software) to take part in this? I'd have to talk to my IT guy. I'm not a computer guru, so be explicit or I can just forward it by email to him. Will this cost besides software? I'm a second shifter, but I could come in early, if necessary. Just thinking out loud.

[NeilJ]

"Sounds good Jon, we can cover both Lead In/Out and WCS."

 

I think I finally got the WCS down. See below.

 

Lead In / Lead Out we don't have and we most certainly don't have Transform Toolpath.

 

"I'd prefer sometime in the afternoon"

 

Most of us like to get out early Friday. It would need to be around 1 PM Pacific Time.

 

"What is the normal work schedule at your company?"

 

Machine shop and sheet metal shop is aprox 6AM to 3:30 PM except Friday. I'm often there later.

 

"I'm sure we can cover a lot in a few hours and make it productive for everyone who is attending..."

 

I'd like to give you a list ahead of time and perhaps some of our files. My boss seems to feel this is okay if I strip the Pro-E stuff out that we get from our engineers, etc.

 

"Dave Thompson's comments were also spot on. I spent a few hours last night trying to explain WCS to a new user, but gave up and just showed him how to use just Construction planes to rotate and translate geometry."

 

Dave Thompson "knew" me for perhaps 12 years. We first met on Usenet in alt.machines.cnc before this forum existed. We never had much in common because I didn’t want to use Mastercam until X2 MR2. I hated the product and I badmouthed it. It took Dave Thompson and I less than 10 minutes on the phone to put 12 years of bad feelings to rest. Dave decided he could trust me and Dave Thompson is nobody’s fool. Dave Thompson never asked me for an apology because he knew I wouldn’t give him one. I never asked Dave Thompson for an apology because I didn’t feel I needed one. I trust Dave Thompson. I trust the person who took over when he left. If I had used Mastercam or wanted to use it I would bet every penny I’ve ever made that Dave Thompson and I would have gotten along from the get go. I have no doubt that Dave Thompson understands why I wrote what I wrote on my blog. He many not agree with all of it but he understands where I'm coming from.

 

Teaching the WCS is not an easy job but it can be done. I feel I have a lot to give in this area.

Derek Goodwin is very close to having a complete WCS video to teach someone who has never used the WCS before if he decides to implement my suggestions on his existing WCS video.

 

http://eapprentice.net/

 

Lately he’s put a ton of work into his website and I’m very impressed with his efforts.

 

I feel my suggestions for how to teach the WCS are good because I struggled so hard and for so long with putting it all together. I just figured out how valuable Rotate WCS is after running into a file where what I was doing didn't work. Don't know if you saw my posts on this topic.

 

I probably have more to learn about the WCS. My guess is I will have to start doing rotary and 5th axis work to find out what I don’t know. We are getting a trunnion for our Haas’s very shortly. This will give us 5 axis simultaneous capability. We don’t have 4th axis capability now.

 

"Things like using the screen grid to visualize your plane/depth combo"

 

One of my co-workers showed me this and I use it all the time!

 

"and using the icons and axis markers to help you see how your part is located relative to your WCS/Planes..."

 

This might be something we should go ever. I might very well pick up something here, not sure.

[NeilJ]

Scott said:

 

"I'll be on vacation for the next 2 weeks, but would I be welcome and what would I need (software) to take part in this? I'd have to talk to my IT guy. I'm not a computer guru, so be explicit or I can just forward it by email to him. Will this cost besides software? I'm a second shifter, but I could come in early, if necessary. Just thinking out loud."

 

Colin, If necessary we can wait till Scott is available.

[NeilJ]

Scott, are you comfortable stating what subject matter you would like to cover?

[sharles]

No need to wait. I still need to talk to my IT guy and supervisor. But if this is going to be an ongoing thing, maybe I can jump in in a couple of weeks. I just need to know the details once you decide (software, $, time) so I can talk intelligently to them.

[sharles]

Jon,

 

I could use help on about anything. As I said on your other thread the guy who used to be our guru here at work acted like he never wanted to help or teach anyone. And between my need to be SHOWN how and WHY things work in mastercam (and my personal situation at home at the moment) I just haven't been able to focus on mastering much of any aspect of mastercam. The guys on the floor LOVE my programs, so I get by. But so many of the topics discussed here, I've never even tried, so I don't know if they would be helpful or not.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

---

...Dave Thompson never asked me for an apology because he knew I wouldn’t give him one...

---

... but when you come in here asking for help, get help, then turn around a few weeks later or less, bash the very forum that gave you help, sorry but you DO owe the forum an apology...

 

Jon Banquer/NeilJ or whatever he's calling himself these days is not the first person to personally attack me in here but he does own the distinction of being the only person in here to deliberately lie about me and show zero remourse, as a matter of fact not only does he show no remourse for his behaviour he celebrates it. Of the other members in the forum over the years that have had disagreements, only 2 come to mind that I never mended the fences with so to speak, Kuei (software pirate extrordinare), and Multax (chronic basher with nothing good to add to anywhere). That's it. I stand by my body of work for the last 8 years of helping in here Jon Banquer. Do you have anything but carnage and lies to stand by? Didn't think so.

 

I'm Out!

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Found Something interesting on the Usenet... Can anyone corroborate this???

 

link helps...

 

If anything it's funny as anything I've ever read...

 

[ 08-29-2008, 03:21 AM: Message edited by: CNC Apps Guy ]

[Colin Gilchrist]

Sounds good Jon, a list would be good and any examples ahead of time will certainly give me a good starting point.

 

As a tip before we have this conference, try pressing Alt + F9 to turn on the Cplane and Tplane axis markers. They should appear in the upper left and upper right corners. Nothing too impressive, but I've found it helpful when using this in combination with displaying the 'WCS axis gnomon' (not the default in the lower left which always shows you the 'world top view'), especially for 4th axis work.

 

This is what I was referring too when I mentioned the icons above.

 

Now that you've discovered the usefulness of the 'Rotate' function for WCS, I'd like to show you some tips for using the 'By Geometry' function. I can usually create two edge curves off the solid, or pick 3 points (the first two establish the 'X' axis, the third sets the 'Y').

 

I find I can use this feature and it gives me exactly what I want every time, no rotating required, and its fairly easy.

 

I'll also be able (hopefully) to give you some good tips on creating and positioning stock. Real Stock. Not just using the 'offset' function, but a real world "Ok, I want my part centered on a block that is xxxx big, and I want .100 of excess on top and the remaining excess on the bottom".

 

Let's not get too excessive, but some simple examples with material sizes and an partial tool list would help.

 

Bottom line here Jon is that I want to know how you want to machine a given part, and hopefully I can help you discover some tools that are in Mastercam to make your life easier. I'm sure we'll get into some good discussions with the Lead In/Out functions.

 

We should also try and discuss the filter settings as these are rather important.

 

For example, you might have a straight section of a contour that is actually broken into 3 lines so you can do a 'change at point' and reduce the feedrate in one section. The filter will join these lines together in the code, effectively wiping out your 'change at point'.

 

Another thing would be the 'infinite look ahead' control...

 

This feature is designed to help prevent gouges on a contour toolpath when the tool is too big to fit into an area of the contour. With it turned on, you cannot get your toolpath to 'cross over itself'. Very frustrating until you know that it is there and when to enable/disable it...

 

Anyway, I'm rambling.

 

1 PM would be just fine for me. I'll email you once I get the meeting software all setup and give you the details...

 

Thanks,

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

Today is 13 Frictember 31-st year of Lost Suede Shoes .

Teh day ven last clique idiot vil B extrimunated yet hadd not xxxx !

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

A zebra cannot change it's stripes.

[NeilJ]

"Sounds good Jon, a list would be good and any examples ahead of time will certainly give me a good starting point."

 

I'll be working on it over the holiday.

 

"As a tip before we have this conference, try pressing Alt + F9 to turn on the Cplane and Tplane axis markers. They should appear in the upper left and upper right corners. Nothing too impressive, but I've found it helpful when using this in combination with displaying the 'WCS axis gnomon' (not the default in the lower left which always shows you the 'world top view'), especially for 4th axis work."

 

I leave them on all the time.

 

"I'll also be able (hopefully) to give you some good tips on creating and positioning stock. Real Stock. Not just using the 'offset' function, but a real world "Ok, I want my part centered on a block that is xxxx big, and I want .100 of excess on top and the remaining excess on the bottom"."

 

Many times what I do is import a Pro/E file, establish a WCS and then create a bounding box with the extra stock I'm going to saw cut. I then move the WCS to the corner of the bounding box for my first operation. If you have other methods I'd like to see them.

 

"We should also try and discuss the filter settings as these are rather important."

 

I use the Quick Mask a lot but this may not be what you mean when you say "filter".

 

"For example, you might have a straight section of a contour that is actually broken into 3 lines so you can do a 'change at point' and reduce the feedrate in one section. The filter will join these lines together in the code, effectively wiping out your 'change at point'."

 

I don't think I know what you mean by filter. Sounds like this would certainly be a good area to cover.

 

"I'll email you once I get the meeting software all setup and give you the details..."

 

Great.

 

I just purchased Mike Mattera's video Surfacing CD and I'm going to spend sometime with it this weekend.

 

http://www.tipsformanufacturing.com/html/x_3d_milling.html

 

I've already got his Rotary And Contour video:

 

http://www.tipsformanufacturing.com/html/x...contouring.html

 

I purchased the Rotary And Contour video CD about 8 months ago. I did run into a simple part that I'd like to understand how to program off center on a horizontal mill so I can cut multiple pipes at once. It was basically a pipe with a helix type slot cut in it. From what I can tell to machine the pipes with the helix slot cut in them off center I would have to use Multi Axis Swarf Machining with output set to 4 Axis.

 

Amazing how a simple part like this can get much more complex when you want to move it off center. This isn’t any kind of priority but I would like to get there someday. This topic was not covered in Mike's Rotary And Contour video CD.

 

[ 08-30-2008, 09:02 PM: Message edited by: NeilJ ]

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Too bad you'll still never be any good Jon. My 12 year old will draw circles around you now.

[Eeyore-nonhuman forum member]

The Donkeys cosmology .

 

The God wandered alone in the perfect emptiness of the Universe he had created .

Suddenly he slipped and fall .

Damnation ! It hurts! Looks like I slipped on banana clip !

But universe was empty so God almighty created

Earth with mountains and seas ,and planted it with banana trees- all over.

The magnificent green earth was splendid and God used to come down on Earth and wandered between bananas .

Once he slipped on banana once more and fall.

**** ! Said God .

But there was no **** around so God created

animals ,especially donkeys ,to eat bananas and to make $hit .

Next time God came on Earth he stepped on **** .

F*** ! Said God .

And so love came on Earth .

Next time God came on Earth all the animals (especially donkeys ) were busy with **** and no one paid to God any atention at all [Frown]

To hell with that ! said God and invented hell on earth -predators ,tigers,lions,wolfs ,and others

,and especially donkey-haters (humans ).

Thus on earth came hunt ,hatred ,cry ,blood and tears !

The donkey-haters spread on Earth ,invented war ,weapons ,science,religion,CNC and Mastercam .

Last time God came on Earth ,looked on the results and said :

Go **** yourself !

That`s what exactly happening from that time .

Donkeys and humans !

Try to avoid wrath of God on his next arrival !

 

Based on the classical donkey religious book

"Teh Final Slip "