Please post here if you are new to the Forum

[Claytonic]

Hello, Im an apprentice in a mold shop out of Richmond BC. Happy to have found this great site.

 

Ps Is it just the first page, or is Canada really showing up here.......

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

JFDI,

 

quote:

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Multiple sessions of Mastercam won't work?

 

Sure, but because each session is attempting to sap all of your resources, the system slows.

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This would depend on how much of your available resources you have made available to Mastercam in the first place. Say for example, you have a system that has 256MB RAM, if you have in your allocations, taken say 128 MB, then yes the system would grind pretty slow if you had 2 sessions open because you would be asking for all of the RAM in your system forcing Windows to start swapping. But, if you were to allocate say 64MB in Mastercam, this would run much faster then the previous example. Now with that said, if you wanted identical performance on both sessions, you would most likely have to go to a dual CPU System and set the affinity on both sessions, first run the firsyt session on CPU 0 and the second session on CPU 1. But, I'm assuming you don't have a multiple CPU System. Are you wanting to crunch serious 3D stuff AND do other things in another session while its crunching? Now let me ask you this, would you think it would be wise to open say 2 sessions of something like solid works or even 1 session and try to bring in two seperate files for conversion of surfaces into solids? Would this be wise? If not, then why would it be wise to do a surfacing toolpath in each of two open Mastercam sessions? CAM is not like MS Word, AutoCRASH, errrr, AutoCAD, or even SolidWorks, Inventor, or SolidEdge. There is WAY more math going on in CAM than in CAD so comparing the two is like comparing Apples and Oranges. Should Mastercam be full windows API? Of course, many problems will go away once that occurrs (like the Video Issues shoudl pretty much disappear - except for ATI, they suck, they know it, and they don't really care - IMNSHO)

 

Sorry to say but even when Mastercam becomes full Windows (V10?) you still can't take away the raw crunching power that's neded when software is calculating a surfacing toolpath. Granted, by then computers will most likely be running in the 5-6GHz range and that's fast but it still takes power to crunch and a Windows API won't take that away.

 

quote:

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As far as setting the config file each time...

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You have to set it each time because.....????? I've set my V8 config once, when I new at the company I work for and that was on my first day. Now some times I go into the Dafaults for the toolpath about once a week to make adjustment but that is so I have to do less work later on.

 

quote:

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For the cost of the software, it should save it itself.

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You can ALWAYS program by hand the old fashioned way if you like! But seriously, that mode of thinking is one side of the two camps in CAM these days, "More Automation and Less Control" vs. "Less Automation and More Control". You really can't have it both ways. Take for example software that has automatic feature recognition instead of manual feature selection. In the automatic software, it picks where, when, how deep how fast, etc... What if you don't like how it does it, guess, what, you're SOL. Now the other camp is certainly more laborious - manual selection. This has a number of drawbacks, it requires more user input but you're more likely to get exactly what you want vs. having to put up with what you got. Do I want softare making configuration decisions for me? No, and I think that most Mastercam users would agree.

 

quote:

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Haven't seen V9 yet. One can only hope a better program and not just the usual "Bells and Whistles" upgrade.

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There's added functinality not just "Bells and Whistles." I'm sure if you call CAD/CAM Consulting, they'd be happy to send you the "What's New in V9" document.

 

Sorry for the novel. Just wanted to be thorough.

[cadcam]

quote:

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There's added functinality not just "Bells and Whistles." I'm sure if you call CAD/CAM Consulting, they'd be happy to send you the "What's New in V9" document.

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or go to my site or just right here at emastercam has this info now.

[JAMMAN]

Just for the record-

quote:

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How about config settings that stay set after exiting?

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I have never had a problem with this. Not with any version of MC. Been using since V3.1

As for "GLITCHES", most of them I have come across have been related to system configuration, video card or other bad hardware selection.

Multiple sessions have never been a problem, either. I have run MC7 from 2 different directories with two different configs with two different posts- all on a P200 with win98 and 64 megs of ram. Ouch.

It isn't perfect but I have played with software enough to know it is well written.

OK, I'll shut up now.

[PA Hogman]

Hi all. Long time reader first time caller. Looking forward to sucking the smarts outta you all

[Pierre Côté]

Hi

 

my name is Pierre. I work with MC since V3.

I was doing fixturing and patterns for aircraft company. (Sand Casting Foundry).

 

Now, i am working for a machine tool distributor for wood and plastic industry as an instructor on Mastercam.

 

Very happy to work with MC V9

[tech support]

My name is Kim Kingston and I am the technical support person for School District 46 on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, Canada and the High Schools here have started to use Mastercam.

[Accu-Molder]

I'M A MOLD MAKER FROM ANKENY IA. MOVED FROM THE BENCH TO CNC PROGRAMER. WE ARE A MICRO-MOLDING COMPANY IN THE MIDWEST I PROGRAM SOME 2-D AND A LOT OF 3-D CONTOURS FOR OUR EDM DEPARTMENT. WE USE SOLID WORKS FOR DESIGN AND CONVERT INTO MASTERCAM AS A PARASOLID RUNNING INTO PROBLEMS CHAINING SOME CONTOURS BECAUSE OF LINES LYING VERY CLOSE TO EACH OTHER BUT NOT A DUPLICATE.

[Sem001]

Justin have you tried the c-hook squash?

[Steve1286490650]

Hello

This looks like it will be a very usefull site.

[divisionary1]

Hi

 

I am a designer for a medical product manufacturing company just outside of Philadelphia. Mastercam has been is an invaluable tool used to contour production parts on our Heian and Thermwood routing machines. We mainly cut clear acrylic sheet stock and occasionally pionite sheet.

 

I greatly appreciate all of the help from the very knowledgeable, friendly members and administrators of this forum. You are doing a Great service for people new to Mastercam as well as professionally based software forums like this one. Thank you!

 

I still have much to learn and experience with mastercam and post processing, but willing to share what I know along the way.

 

Wayne

[datengo]

Hello,

 

I am self taught on M-cam. I do 2d and 3d mill

I also took up programing the lathe, it is just as easy as the mill. I am here in Central Texas,

staying away from the cold weather.

[TECHSERV]

this is my first post

I am a machinist at Washington State University running Mastercam V8.1 I am having trouble getting the hatch feature to work on an irregular polygon. Apparently not all of my boundaries are closed. Any suggestions?

Dave

[John C]

As a new member I am looking forward to the benefits of using the forum. I am currently involved in the machining of quartz products for the semi-conductor industry. We have Fadal, Hurco, and Kellenberger machines which gives us a bit of variety. The department consists of 6 operators a manager (myself) and a Senior Cad/ Cam engineer. As the department manager I have very limited experience of Mastercam and rely heavily on the Cad / Cam engineer for support. He must be fed up with me asking him questions all the time as he emailed me the forum details so that he can get on with his job, (at least that is what I think.).

[T Freeman]

Hello all,

 

I'm posting from Carlson Tool & Mfg in Cedarburg, WI. 15 years in the business, the past 7 in programming.

[matt m]

Hi! Yes I am new here. We have just bought V9 and I am

looking forward to learning MasterCam.

I live in the San Bernadino Mts. and commute to

downtown LA. by train, so I can work as a experimental instrument maker for the USC Doheny Eye institute.

We are starting up a small R&D shop and will use MasterCam to program some CNC machines and do some 3-D printing(hopefully). Thankyou all for sharing you wisdom, and if I ever get some, I wil share too Matt McCormick

 

[ 04-18-2002, 02:26 PM: Message edited by: matt m ]

[Roger]

Hello,

This is my first post to this forum, I've been a member for some time now. I've been reading the other post and learning a lot about using mastercam. I took classes at a local college about six years ago, and even purchased my own seat of mastercam, (mill level 1 & lathe version 8.1.1) I think I started with version 6.

 

Anyway, I work for a small company programing their 2mills, and a lathe. Simple 2 1/2 axis stuff. And soon a AWJ machine we are building.

 

That's about it. Just another happy mastercam user.

[heeler]

I am trying this for the first time.

 

I am from Grantsville, Utah.

 

Could someone tell me what the Optimize check box does just below the Cutter Comp in

Control does exactly? I've looked in all my books and can't find the explanition. I am using Ver. 8.1.1

 

Thanks

[Fig sign]

Heeler !

Optimize check box is to avoid bottle necK undercut.

In other words if it is not checked you can cutting some entity with a cutter bigger then slot undercut another one . When it is checked Mc will build maximum possible entrance avoiding undercut.

 

I changed my defaultes and checked it by default.

[heeler]

Explain what you mean by undercut?

[Fig sign]

undercut = gouging in 2.5 axes milling

[MIGHTY273]

Rich Lawson, from La Mirada Ca. Injection Molding Co. I've had M.C. since ver. 3. It was called ClearCut, at the time. I was just reading the posts, on Processors and Video cards. What works the best? I think an update is in order for the requirments. I have a Dell Dim. XPS T500 w/768 ram, ATI Radeon 7200. Ver.9 win.98 Mill 3/ Solids

The computer runs Ok I think it should be faster, but after reading some posts, looks like I'm not the only one who thinks that way. I would greatly appreciate some advice. Thank you

[Team Ferret]

My name is Dave Moore. Ive been a Mastercam user for 6 months, about as long as I have been doing CNC machine work. I own and operate a small manufacturing shop in StCloud, Fl. I manufacture and sell 50 caliber rifle conversions for the AR-15. Our (my wife and I) business and website www.ferret50.com have been up and running since 7-4-01. So far we have done well enough to build a nice shop with two Haas machines and a bunch of other stuff.

[Don Lackey]

Hi,

 

I'm the Director of NC Development with Intercim-Austin. We supply multi axis post processors for most of the major CAM system on the market. We are new to Mastercam but not to NC post processing. We have developed a NCI to APT converter for Mastercam to allow you to post process NCI files through the Intercim G-Post.

 

www.austinnc.com

 

Happy Post-Processing

 

Don

[Sam G.]

Greetings from Austin, TX.

 

We are a long time CAMAX/CAMAND user but are now in the process of migrating to Mastercam.

 

Look forward to talking to all of y'all soon.

 

Sam