WCS - Like it or leave it

[Ray Sander from Battelle]

WCS, do you like it or wish it never came with V9?

 

I tried to create a Poll but I did not have permissions.

[RandyN]

I like it a lot.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

You don't have to use it you know. You can do it the old way.

 

I think it's a keeper though.

 

JM2C

[Reece L Gibson]

It has been my experience with people that try to use it and have trouble with it, tend not to like it. (that is true in just about anything.)I have also been told do not use it all the time and use it for what it was intended for.I think once you figure it out and follow the rules it actually saves you time. You still can change T/C planes the old way for tool paths. It just different, and most people generally do not like anything that has changed. One thing that might throw you for a loop is you can make any view the top view.

That can be a saint or the devil if you do not keep track of who you named the "TOP" view last.

If you run Tombstones and 4th axis its not much different that the old way but a little faster.

Naming new T/C plane is a little different that the old way but a little bit easier.

All and All I think it was a good move.

[d0gFartz]

One hour of training on the use of it and including some example case files and anyone would love it

[cadcam]

As for me it was and is a GREAT tool. It has mad my life much easer.

 

Like stated earler its just getting used to it.

[Jerry Crofoot]

I've got to admit that I struggled with it at the start, but then the light came on and I think WCS is great. It is so much easier to have multiple media/setups with only one geometry file then before. I remember jobs when the second media was on the bottom of the part and being forced to either look through the part or rotate the graphic's view so that I could see my toolpaths. Now I can quickly create a new WCS for the second media, name it, and have construction view be TOP just like if I had rotated the geometry. Nice job Mastercam, I just wish there could have been more documentation for WCS during the beta test phase.

[Tony]

So With the WCS, We can have One Mc9 file with

Operations on all four sides of a block,

as the top tool plane

(I rotate the part myself in my setup).

Instead of having four seperate Mc9 files each with the side Called out/Rotated as the Top plane?

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Tony. Yes. One file, multiple setups, multiple WCS's. Works great.

 

JM2C

[kccadcam]

Has anybody tried to mirrror or translate a toolpath in different WCS planes?

I get some really freaky results.

It seems to mirror about the original WCS.

Other than that I love it!!

[Doug]

WCS I love it. All operations to make a part in one mc9 file . Now when I verify I see a complete part.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

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Now when I verify I see a complete part.

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Oh, yeah!!!!!! Forgot that one. This by itself is a HUGE reason to have all your stuff in one file, fixtures and everything, then when you veryify you can check for collisions and all kinds of neat stuff like that. Of course files tend to get a bit on the large side but hey, when a 20GB HDD runs less than $100, and RAM is running $75 for 256MB, who cares about file size?

 

JM2C

[Zero]

I love it! There are a few minor glitches where it will look back to the original WCS, but nothing that cant be worked around (and in doing so learning how to use it better), but I'm sure the nice folks at CNC are hard at work fixing them.

quote:

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Has anybody tried to mirrror or translate a toolpath in different WCS planes?

---

I just did this the other day. I was lucky, the part was symetrical and the transform/ revolve did work. But you're right, the mirror did look back to the original WCS.

 

Once you get used to it, you won't want to go back.

[DangBubba00]

The crux (sp?) of my problem with the WCS is not the WCS, it's my post. When the WCS is active to a view other than TOP at 0,0,0 and I create toolpath operations all the toolplanes in my NCI file (the 1014 lines) are relative to the WCS, so they all come out defined to TOP. My post is looking for rotation, but it looks at the 1014 lines, NOT the 1027 lines (the WCS) - and I'm not smart enough to edit my post.

 

So..... I'm using it the old slow way still