Trouble with MCX7 engraving operation

[tylerpoll]

Has anyone had trouble with the engraving operation while using MCX7? It worked fine when I was running MCX6, but now after I select the geometry and click the green checkmark to continue a window that reads "Cannot create operation" pops up. I click "OK" (the only option on that window) and then I'm back to nothing but my geometry and machine in the operations manager.

 

Did I miss downloading an add-on possibly?

[Jayson Kramer]

Are you using the actual path of engraving or using contour for standard engraving?

[tylerpoll]

Jay, my operation is: "Toolpaths -> Engraving -> Select Chain". I am trying to engrave some text and after selecting my geometry and clicking the green check, the "Cannot Creat Operation" window comes up. I've tried selecting other, non-text, closed geometry and the same thing happens.

[Jayson Kramer]

if you are trying to just engraving some letters without trying to make block letters with sharp corners then review this video.

 

[Chris Rizzo]

Engraving toolpath can be a serious hassle. It gives seriously awesome results though. It hasn't been touched since V9? Occasionally you will see error messages in

German. Occasionally you will be so frustrated, you will want to fly to germany and take matters into your own hands.

 

A few tips:

 

If it hangs on regen and totally doesn't respond, open the task manager and look for "K-STAMP". Kill it and Mastercam will come back. You may see some German error messages.

 

Brake text into smaller sections and individual operations. When it fails, select a few words (or even letters at a time). Copy the operation and select the next letters. Sometimes you will get just ONE letter that will have to have it's own operation to work! Makes no sense, but it will work at some point. I've done paragraphs and had about 70 engraving ops to make it work. Identical operations, just different geometry.

 

Set roughing to basic "zig zag". Less math than clean corners.

 

Turn off "rough" and just have finish on. That will at least give you an indication as to if your geometry is good. If it is good, break into many operations. See tip 1

 

Sometimes change the roughing stepover just a little bit to something totally random, like "92%", Sometimes that will jog it's memory.

 

 

Some TTF fonts will have funny little loops where lines converge... when you really really zoom in. The letter "M" is a frequent culprit. Zoom into your letters or geometry and check it out. Fix it via trimming or creating small fillets.

 

 

Last resort (that I know of): Edit > Break Many pieces > Set it to arcs/curves.

 

I've been using the engraving toolpath frequently for maybe 10? years. The above is what I've gotten to work in more than one occasion.

 

hth.