X3 MU1 IS A JOKE

[Midwest]

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Thats great to hear that there are new toys in X4. I would much rather hear that the new toys were fixes for old bugs.

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Have you never read the "What's New in Mastercam doc.??????

 

@ the end there is a list of Bugs Fixed.

 

Tried to copy and paste the list......but it gave me an error message........lucky 4 you.......

 

I think they R fixing Bugs/problems in the software............Every Cad or Cam software out there have them and fix them and make improvements so they can survive...........

 

Send in your bugs..........they will get fixed.......if they R truly bugs and not operator errors.

 

 

 

 

 

"That's all I have to say about that."

 

 

[gcode]

I am going to bend my beta privelges a bit..

The X4 level manager alone is worth the price of maintenance....very very very cool

[Midwest]

Sweet..............

 

wishin I could be a beta tester.......

[neurosis]

quote:

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Have you never read the "What's New in Mastercam doc.??????

 

@ the end there is a list of Bugs Fixed.

 

Tried to copy and paste the list......but it gave me an error message........lucky 4 you.......

 

 

Send in your bugs..........they will get fixed.......if they R truly bugs and not operator errors.

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Well right back at you

 

If you were to paste a list of all of the new bugs you would probably get the same error message so touche'. And how is that lucky for me by the way? Im sorry that I cant be as passive or accepting of it. I would just rather see working software "BEFORE" new functions are added. Im surprised you dont feel the same. When the last MU was released I had hope and then realized soon after installing it that it actually broke things that were working in the previous release. Maybe you can paste that too. Sorry for the sarcasm but its frustrating to me. I dont feel that I should have to change the way I use the software because of bugs that have shown up in supposed Maintenance Updates.

 

Anyway, enough of that. While it feels good to vent it doesnt accomplish anything so.....

 

And I have filed a bug report and have the number for what its worth. I have been guilty of a little operator error more than once but I try to research my issues before considering them bugs. The forum has been a huge help in that respect and many others.

 

 

quote:

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I am going to bend my beta privelges a bit..

The X4 level manager alone is worth the price of maintenance....very very very cool [smile]

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I was very happy with the progress made to the level manager from X - X2 MR2 SP1. It will be nice to see whats new.

 

[ 02-10-2009, 12:04 AM: Message edited by: Neurosis ]

[iowajim62]

I wish we had this Forum back when it went to full associativity from V7.2C to V8.0 then your statement would look like this.

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There has yet to be a job that we havent been able to tackle with our current version of Mastercam "V7.2C" and i am sure it would be the same with V8.0, but that is not the point. We shouldnt have to constantly find work arounds for software functions that dont work properly.

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We have been finding work arounds forever. Some just aren't that easy and others are like doh, that was easy.

jm2c

[machinehead]

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Sorry but that's just plain wrong for the majority of us that read in CAD Data from other systems. If we don't stay on top of new installs, we're in BIG trouble.

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i don't understand this because i read cad files from both pro and solidworks too. and i can still read them in just as good in v9 as i can in x3. if your'e referring to the solidworks history tree that you can use now, that is a very nice feature. but you don't need 3 downgrades a year to keep it.

 

my hypothetical point(and just my opinion) is, that a lot of software companies including at least some of those providers you named, would not enjoy anywhere near the same level of revenue if they shipped a clean product. even just one time. not when a huge portion of income comes from maintenance.

because even though as you point out, some customers would still want to keep up with the newest v's, a lot of us probably wouldn't see the need. (just look at all the users here on this forum who go back to an old v that they feel works better.)

and they know that when the customer looks for ways to cut costs, a maintenance fee for something that already works would be one of the first things to go.

[Guest]

quote:

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i don't understand this because i read cad files from both pro and solidworks too.

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Actually, no you can't.

 

V9 can not read a native SW2009 file or Pro-E file.

 

You CAN get them in if you have them translated but not straight.

[machinehead]

quite right john. my mistake.

 

so do these customers refuse to translate now because mastercam can read natives? and what is the difference that you know of? other than the history tree. just curious.

[Guest]

Many companies will NOT translate, there can be issues with translation, if you can't open it, that's you're problem in their mind. They want contracted companies to open in native, this is especially true with some of the big aerospace companies.

[Joe788]

Bugs are all relative. Anybody complaining about bugs in Mastercam should spend a few days working with PC-DMIS. When you sit back down in front of X3, you'll thank your lucky starts to only see a few crashes per day!

[Midwest]

Just curious..........

 

 

Did U use Mastercam when they were ge3 files?????

 

 

If you did.........you might understand all the changes .......huge changes that have happened.

 

 

When I 1st came to this forum.........I had a problem with the way some of the senior members went off defending Mastecam, but I just watched and learned as much as I could instead of wasting my time arguing...........now I understand why they do it.

 

 

I've never ran into something I can't find a way to do with Mastercam, I always get the job done.

 

 

[Storkman]

quote:

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Did U use Mastercam when they were ge3 files?????

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yepper, even .geo files

 

Oh crap. Now my age is showing.

[neurosis]

quote:

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When I 1st came to this forum.........I had a problem with the way some of the senior members went off defending Mastecam, but I just watched and learned as much as I could instead of wasting my time arguing...........now I understand why they do it.

 

 

I've never ran into something I can't find a way to do with Mastercam, I always get the job done.

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I just want to add, I do not have a problem with anyone defending mastercam. There are things about mastercam that I absolutely love and wouldnt want to do without. I cant stress how much I want to be one of those that defend mastercam especially since it is the system that we use here and will be until the owner gets fed up with the problems that weve had.

 

At the same time I cant rationalize those problems by saying "There is no job that I cant find a way to do with mastercam"

 

Back when you old timers were using mastercam 3 and 4 I was using Cimatron on an Apollo and then later, Sun Sparc station. Ive seen some growing pains in cimatron when they made the move to pc, but nothing like what ive experienced with mastercam.

 

I also use solidworks for my modeling. I havent experienced even a fraction of the problems with solidworks that ive seen with mastercam. I love solidworks more than any other system that ive ever used but if I had the same problems i would be just as disappointed.

 

Here is hoping that X4 will be the version shuts up all of the naysayers

 

quote:

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Sorry but that's just plain wrong for the majority of us that read in CAD Data from other systems. If we don't stay on top of new installs, we're in BIG trouble. That's at least a 3x per year occurrence between CATIA, UG, Pro/E, SolidWorks, Inventor, and SolidEdge just to name a few. Cumulative they necessitate at least 3 installs of something.

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man did you hit the nail on the head here. Translation is one of the biggest reasons that we keep up on our maintenance other than the worry of future operating system support. If not for those two concerns the decision to keep or drop maintenance would be looked at from a different perspective.

[Joe788]

I just saw this video, and it made me think of all the MU1 complaints:

 

 

(Substitute "Sony" with whatever name comes to mind).

 

Warning- There's some foul language!

 

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Yeah, I didn't even mention OS support. That is going ot become more and more of an issue. With Microsoft pusing that Vista on us. That "Aero" interface or whatever the hell it's called saps so much horsepower from your system it's PATHETIC!

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

I sure like the Tree Style Toolpaths (Currently only HST Toolpaths). Being able to copy toolpaths, changing a roughing toolpath to a finishing toolpath with a few mouse clicks... priceless. Mastercam is by far from perfect, and I know I mercilessly berate them for MATTS/MMT/ whatever they are calling it this decade but on the milling side of things, I could choose any software I want, God knows ALL of the CAD/CAM companies fall all over themselves to get AE's to use their stuff, well at the beginning AND the end of the day I choose Mastercam, WITHOUT hesitation. Mill/Turn on the other hand... going to have to bite the bullet and learn something else. I'm tired of waiting.

[Thad]

quote:

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Being able to copy toolpaths, changing a roughing toolpath to a finishing toolpath with a few mouse clicks... priceless.

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There have been a few times where I've imported a pocketing operation, then after looking a bit deeper, realized that a contour ramp, or contour with multi-pass would work better. In that case, changing from pocket to contour would be nice. Importing the other op isn't a big deal either though.

 

I DO NOT like the tree style toolpath parameter pages. As it is, I have 2 pages to go to to make a change. The setting is either on one or the other. I don't need 6 different pages to look through to find a particular setting. Some of the settings didn't seem to be on logical pages, IMO, from what I remember about the high speed toolpaths. Unfortunately, I think MC is looking to change over to all tree style.

 

Thad

[gargodude]

I use X3 Mill Level 1 (haven't done MU1 yet) and have noticed a couple of bugs so far. One was mentioned above by Bullet Bob, regarding a program with nothing but G54s being re-posted, only to find random tools using G55. Same thing happened to me and I couldn't get rid of them. I tried "edit commom parameters", misc. values and setting the field for work coordinates to "2". Posted it again and they were still there! I gave up and sent the file to CNC Software, who advised me to regenerate the ops and it was fixed. I never thought to regenerate non-dirty ops. Even though the fix was simple, there was still no explanation of why the problemm occured in the first place.

 

The other bug happened Friday when trying to edit a contour toolpath chain's start point. The "edit start point" box popped up for half a second and then disappeared. I couldn't edit my start point! I saved the program and exited Mastercam. Re-started Mastercam, re-opened the file and tried again. Then it worked fine. That never happened to me with X2.

 

Seems like each type of user (Level 1 or Level 3) has different complaints about these upgrades. Seems like most of you level 3 guys with the big, hairy parts have verify or other graphics crashing issues, yet many of us Level 1 users seem to find more problems with really simple user interface problems that should not be malfunctioning this far into the X product life. Does anyone else notice this? In light of the fact that a bug fix list is not available for MU1, I am hesitant to install it, for fear that more problems will be created than solved. As I recall, this was also the case with X2, SP1.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Thad, they are going towards all tree style toolpaths. I can tell you that for me, the time savings is significant being able to chage from one style toolpath to another with a few mouse clicks.

 

I often do Level 1 Parts - about 20% of the time (that really should be done with Level 2 of Level 3) but I like to challenge myself and that's one of the ways I do it. Limiting the functionality of my CAM System forces me to think outside the box for solutions which is critical in my line of work. While there are often legitimate bugs, I prefer to look at them as challenges but report bugs as I encounter them. I'm not sure what level I find most of the bugs though.

 

[ 02-15-2009, 09:47 PM: Message edited by: CNC Apps Guy 1 ]

[Greg Williams]

Has anyone else had problems with C-AXIS cross drill in X3? It seems to work and backplot OK but the code is totally wrong. Even old X2 files that used to work no longer produce usable code

[gcode]

Yes I saw that on a file a while back.. I thought I was doing something wrong, but time restraints

prevented an investigation. I'l look at it again

[cobra95kev]

James or anyone else,

 

The only thing I don't like about copying a HST toolpath is that if there is a CAD file connected to it, for say a restmill operation, when you edit the copied program and update the CAD file it drops the CAD file off of the original toolpath you copied, then you have to go reselect it and regen the operation. Has anyone found a work around for this yet? Besides the obvious not copying ops you have a CAD file tied to.

 

Thanks,

Kevin C.

[gschlen]

Hey Greg and gcode,

 

I noticed the c-axis cross drill was messed up in X3 also. It has been fixed with MU1 though. Nice to have it back.

[gschlen]

Hey Greg and gcode,

 

I noticed the c-axis cross drill was messed up in X3 also. It has been fixed with MU1 though. Nice to have it back.

[gms1]

quote:

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James or anyone else,

 

The only thing I don't like about copying a HST toolpath is that if there is a CAD file connected to it, for say a restmill operation, when you edit the copied program and update the CAD file it drops the CAD file off of the original toolpath you copied, then you have to go reselect it and regen the operation. Has anyone found a work around for this yet? Besides the obvious not copying ops you have a CAD file tied to.

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I get this all the time as well and I do not know a simple fix for it. Have to reselect the cad file and wait for it to regen