Mastercam crashes doing transform

[Kim Frandsen]

When I transform toolpaths it offen occurs that mastercam crashes.

 

When I use mastercam I press ALT+t so that I can see my toolpaths, I also press the icon "Show only selected toolpath" (I think that is the name) in the operations panel. If i start mastercam and don't press ALT+t and "show only selected toolpath" then I will be able to transform without mastercam crashing

 

We have three mastercam stations and the problem is the same on all stations and I belive (as far as I remember) that I have had the problem in mastercam X3, X4 and X5. I have talked with the danish support team, they have never heard about the problem before...

 

Have anyone had the same problem? I'm soon going nuts

[gcode]

What are the specification s on these computers..?

Do they have powerful video cards... This sounds like a crash caused by

an overstressed video card.

[Bob W.]

I would estimate that 60% of my crashes occur during transform and I have always viewed it as a weak point from a stability standpoint. I have always used Nvidia Quadro video cards (FX-1500 on old desktop, FX-3700M on the laptop)

[Jayson Kramer]

I have done allot of Transform in X4 and X5 and I have not seen crash's on my box's. All three of them.

[Kim Frandsen]

Well it is not the newest box's anymore but the system info is:

 

1.

 

MS XP Pro SP3

Dell Precision T5400

Intel Xeon CPU

E5410 @ 2.33GHz

3.25GB ram

Geforce 8600GTS

 

2.

 

MS XP Pro SP3

Intel Core 2 CPU

6700 @ 2.66GHz

3.12GB ram

Geforce 8800GTS

 

3.

 

MS XP Pro SP3

Pentium 4 CPU @ 2.8GHz

3.12GB ram

Geforce 6200

 

 

The only thing that mastercam support recommends is the geforce graphic cards, the don't recommend any special geforce graphic card.

 

What would you recommend as a minimum graphic card?

[gcode]

The GeForce is a gaiming card, though many people use them for Mastercam.

I use Quadro FX cards from Nvidia

Quadro Line Card

 

I use an FX3800 at home and an FX4800 at work and do not have crashes when translating

toolpaths

 

As a minuimum, I'd recommend the Quadro FX-1800.

There is a new series that just came out. The Quadro 2000

is the new model and some our forum members are using it now.

It is cheaper and faster than the Quadro FX-1800 and the people who are

using it report good results.

 

Quadro Product Literature

[neurosis]

I use transform on about 70% of my jobs. In X4 it was very unstable. It would crash constantly. Not only that, but it had a bug that would send various rapid movements below the locating face of my part. I started a thread about it some time ago. Maybe it is still around somewhere. If I had to guess, most of the issues that I had with the rapid movements had to do with the nci file. If I regenerated the operations that were rapid below the part locating face, when I regenerated the transform it would solve the problem. I started to wonder if the crashes were some how related to the nci file as well???

 

Since moving to X5, I have a fraction of the problems while using transform than I did in X4 but it is still buggy. I have intermittent crashes but not near as often. Ive had the same issue on two pc's. Once is running a geforce gaming card and the other is running a quadro fx1500. I highly doubt that it has anything to do with the video card.

 

Does someone care to clear up in my pea brain why a video card driver would instigate a crash while transforming a tool path? That doesnt make a whole lot of sense to me.

[Guest]

I have seen transform crashes and NOT been able to solve them, simple contour, transformed 3 times, their system would crash every time, my system, not an issue.

 

They've since updated to X5 and the issue seems to have stopped so it leads me to think something is wrong with the installation.

 

Beyond that, yeah I have seen this on 2 systems unreproducible on any other system.

[neurosis]

 

They've since updated to X5 and the issue seems to have stopped so it leads me to think something is wrong with the installation.

 

Beyond that, yeah I have seen this on 2 systems unreproducible on any other system.

 

 

This is another thing that I have not been able to understand. Ive seen quite a few issues with blame aimed toward installation. What exactly is so complicated about the installation of Mastercam and what exactly can be botched that would only affect a transform operation and not everything else?

[gcode]

I program a series of impellers here in sized up to Ø65" weighing 6500 pounds

The vanes are sysmetrical and I use transnform/rotate a lot, rotating large

5X curve and 5x swarf toolpaths. I never have crashes while rorating these toolpaths.

X4 didn't crash and neither does X5.

I believe Quadro cards are superior because they have hardware OpenGl support

and GeForce OplenGl is softmodded if its supported at all

 

This is from Mastercam System Requirements

 

Graphics Configuration

 

• 256MB OpenGL-compatible graphics card (minimum)
• Professional-level graphics card designed for CAD/CAM applications required, NVidia Quadro or AMD FirePro series recommended
• Integrated graphics controllers are not supported
• 1280 x 1024 pixel resolution (minimum)
• Full hardware acceleration display setting is recommended
  

[neurosis]

I agree that these are the recommended card for Mastercam. What I dont agree with is that the video drivers are causing transform operation crashes. If this is the case I would like to see some proof of it. It doesnt make any sense at all why a video driver would cause a crash while performing a tool path function. If this were a crash related to verify or something like rotating a shaded part I could understand that.

 

Just because you dont experience crashes in your particular case does not mean that there is not a problem. The transform operation in X4 was buggy. I cant be convinced that the rapid movements that I experienced in X4 were caused by a video driver or a bad installation. There was an issue. I am not the only one that had experienced it either judging by some of the responses that I got to the post that I made.

 

Im not looking to argue, just trying to make sense out of something that does not make any sense to me at all. It seems to me that when things go wrong that people have no explanation for the blame always gets pointed in some bullxxxx direction rather than thinking it conceivable that there is actually an issue with the software.

 

 

And by the way.. I have two computers here that I have installed MC on. One is installed using custom settings, files stored on a server, etc. The other is a stock default installation. When I have issues I move my hasp over to the default stock install and test the issues to see if I have the same problems before even considering posting it here or consulting my VAR. The problems that I have experienced with transform happen on both computers. One has the Quadro and one does not. I have NEVER experienced a crash on the non quadro card that I have not also experienced on the Quadro card. SO FAR that is.

[Roger Peterson]

This is a known issue, and it only happens when you have "Only display selected toolpaths" and you are working with toolpath transform ops. But I would still send it to your reseller or to cnc software.

[Kim Frandsen]

I have purchased a NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800 today, when i recive it I will write a comment about how it behaves.

 

I have also purchased windows 7 64bit and 8GB ram, I hope that mastercam will be able to use a little more ram then.

[neurosis]

I have purchased a NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800 today, when i recive it I will write a comment about how it behaves.

 

I have also purchased windows 7 64bit and 8GB ram, I hope that mastercam will be able to use a little more ram then.

 

Please do.

 

When I was having so many issues with X2, and then X4, I was told several times that our video card was inadequate and most likely to be causing my problems. We purchased the Quadro FX1500 thinking that it would solve allot of the issues but guess what. It turned out that the video card didnt solve anything. It did speed some graphics up and made some things in mastercam and solidworks more enjoyable.. (grin). It turned out that it wasnt the magic that I was hoping for.

[Kim Frandsen]

Please do.

 

When I was having so many issues with X2, and then X4, I was told several times that our video card was inadequate and most likely to be causing my problems. We purchased the Quadro FX1500 thinking that it would solve allot of the issues but guess what. It turned out that the video card didnt solve anything. It did speed some graphics up and made some things in mastercam and solidworks more enjoyable.. (grin). It turned out that it wasnt the magic that I was hoping for.

I will try to install the graphic card on the MS XP system first, so that I can confirm if it has any effect at all, I realy hope it do, I have had 20 or so crashes today

[neurosis]

I will try to install the graphic card on the MS XP system first, so that I can confirm if it has any effect at all, I realy hope it do, I have had 20 or so crashes today

 

There is no doubt in my mind that you will enjoy the new video card. Im just cautious to believe that it will solve your crashing problems while using transform.

[gcode]

When Mastercam is crashing a lot on a Win XP system there are 2 things I check first.

First is the video card... If its a good card, I do a complete uninstall of the drivers

run a registry cleaner like CCleaner then reinstall the drivers.

I'm currently running the latest release in both my Quadro machines

with no issues.

I follow the same proceddure when upgrading a video card from GeForce to Quadro.

The 2nd thing I look at is where is the Mastercam temp file??

Windows permissions issues can play havoc with Mastercam on a WinXP system.

I ALWAY move my temp folder and backup folder out of the username folders and

put them in the root of C.

Rickster had a terrible time with X4 when it came out. He was crashing 20-30 times a

day. I don't recall the exact cure but it was not a Mastercam issue.

He had to change some attributes in his folders structure and it solved the problem.

Even though he had full admin rights to the machine, Windows permissions were crashing

Mastercam.

Neurosis.. I'd love to do an experiement.

Could you put a sample X4 or X5 file on the FTP with step by step instructions

on how to crash it with a toolpath transform??

 

 

 

[neurosis]

When I have some free time I will search out some of the problem part files that I have had in the past. As I stated above, with X5 is dont see a fraction of the crashes so it is harder to reproduce.

 

Here is what I have noticed in my experience with transform and crashing although I think that this caused allot of instability in the operations manager period.

 

the files that I seem to have the most issues with, are files that have several parts nested and a decent amount of operations. The more I copy, move, and drag operations around, the more unstable things become. In X2 the operations manager would become so unstable that just clicking on an operation would crash Mastercam with the unhandled exception error. I showed this to Colin when he came over to my house some years back to give me some personal instruction on Mastercam. The part file in question would crash on any computer that I tried to open the file on. The same issue would arise in X4. The crashes would be intermittent and after a restart of mastercam and/or regenerating operations I would be able to get the path to transform and bugs seemed to mysteriously disappear. This is what made me start to wonder if the crashes had more to do with the nci file becoming f-d rather than all of the smoke and mirrors that I was told to look in to I.E. video card, problem installs, etc, none of which fixed my issues.

 

Now what makes that a real bitch, is that if I were to send you one of those files and you just regenerated the operations and tried to force a crash you wouldnt be able to reproduce it and then you would tell me that my video drivers are xxxxed up or that my install is bad. :| When in reality, I am just disorganized and probably move xxxx around too much because I am indecisive.

 

Even after all of the bullxxxx the crashes were intermittent and I was never able to track down the exact cause. The rapid moves that would mysteriously appear below my part were the same. The more that I copied and moved operations around in the manager, the more of a chance that there was that I would see an issue during transform. If I would do a full regen of all of the operations the issue would just go away. Some times these full regen's would take several minutes depending on the number of operations and how complex the part was (which really seemed like a step that should have never been needed in the first place).

[Jmick]

mine crashes 100% of the time when using the source as geometry instead of nci and I also had match existing offsets selected with it

[gcode]

could you put a simple file on the FTP??

with step by step instructions on how to reproduce the crash..

I will submit it to qc.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

What I dont agree with is that the video drivers are causing transform operation crashes.

They could be one of the sources of issues. Why? DIfferent driver/card implement OpenGL in different ways. Mastercam is a VERY graphics intensive application. THink about everything that is on your screen for a moment, toolpathm part, wireframe, surfaces, shading, gradient background maybe, , etc.... there's lots of very complicated images there. That's why it could be an issue. For a time, I was recieving models from someone that had all of their lines real thick. My computer for whatever reason did not like it one bit. I changed all the wireframe to the default line thickness... all better. Why? Who knows, who cares. I don;t like thick lines anyway. I don't like dense surface/solid displays. Less is more.

 

HTH

[Steve Hattori]

I am with Neurosis on this one- transform operations crashes X4. Two different computers- dual core on XP64, fx3400 card, and quad-core xeon on vista64, fx3700 card. Bad enough that I just gave up and programmed a new op from a new toolplane. Not all transforms in the same program caused a problem, only MOST of them, some 5-axis, some simple 3-axis. Not predictable.

I don't think its a video problem, because its not doing anything on the screen- its calculating when it crashes. Maybe X5 will solve it- I haven't time to try, but I will give that a go and see what happens.

[Kim Frandsen]

Well now I installed the new graphic card on my system, my system data is now:

 

MS XP Pro SP3

Dell Precision T5400

Intel Xeon CPU

E5410 @ 2.33GHz

3.25GB ram

Nvidia Quadro FX1800, 768mb ram

 

It didn't help, the system still crashes But the graphic on the screen is much more fluid now, that's nice

 

Next step is to install win7 64bit on the system and 8gb ram, dont know if it have any effect, but I will give it a shot.