Toolpath Manager / LOCK Operation Feature Question

[Randy Kopf]

Curious if anyone believes the Toolpath Manager LOCK function is great the way it is?

 

The current LOCK function inhibits the inadvertent regeneration of operations.. While it's nice in theory you can change a Tool or a Stepover Value Etcetera and you will have to regenerate ALL while the LOCK State is ON. You must UNLOCK to regenerate the change.

 

I personally feel that an Operation LOCK should keep your from making any change to an Operation unless you intentionally want to do so. And then you must UNLOCK the operation to do so.

 

I've inadvertently dragged the wrong Tool onto the wrong Operation and did not realize the mistake. You can drag Parameters from one Operation to another like Operation, yet in this case Mastercam requires you to accept the change.

 

So I've been programming CNC machines for a minute or two using a few CAM software systems, ANVIL-5000MD, SmartCAM, CAMAX, UGII, Feature CAM, Pro/NC and Mastercam. I've never had the problem in other software of accidently changing an Operation I thought was "golden". I do love the ability to make changes like drag and drop of Parameters, Tools and Geometry. But with Mastercam I feel I am at risk IF I can make changes I did not intend to make.  If the LOCK Operation actually prohibited any change to occur it would protect against inadvertent changes like the current drag and drop allows.

 

I have spoke to Mastercam directly about this and one support tech said it completely locks an operation from being changed. Yet in follow up another tech verified it does not. The later tech concurred the LOCK Feature currently seems limited in scope.

 

The point of this post is to ask the community if the LOCK Operation function is fine "as is" OR should it be improved? 

 

What are your thoughts?  

 

This is my first post on this site so I am not sure what to expect.

 

Thank you,

 

Randy Kopf

www.rmbproducts.com

[crazy^millman]

Welcome to the forum. As long as you don't wander off to OT you should be good to go. :laughing:

 

Great 1st posting and you make good and valid points. This is not the official Mastercam forum so why it is good food for thought. Posting over in www.mastercam.com will garner more official responses than this unofficial forum will. Not they this side lack in any way IMHO just wanted to give you a heads up.  

 

Either way glad to see a what I think is a fellow grey hair. Stick around a while and answer question.

[gcode]

_{Personally, I don't use  Lock and would be happy if it were banished to the wilderness.}

_{If a toolpath has gone dirty for some reason, I want to know NOW.. not three days later}

_{when I discover a locked toolpath is dirty and I have no idea why.}

_{I might feel differently if it worked better, but in my view there is no reason valid reason}

_{to lock toolpaths}

 

 

_{Welcome to the forum}

[gcode]

Here is an earlier thread on this subject

 

http://www.emastercam.com/board/topic/80252-locking-operations/?hl=locking

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

 

I might feel differently if it worked better, but in my view there is no reason valid reason

_{to lock toolpaths}

 

I believe the reasoning is that if you manually edit an operation with the Toolpath Editor, you might later regenerate all operations forgetting that you had a manual edit.  I do think that if an operation is locked its parameters should be read-only; and it would be necessary to unlock before making any changes.

[BenK]

I don't use the lock function very often. Like Matthew said, it should lock the parameters but it doesn't. Yes I would like to see some improvements but to me they have other more important improvements to make before spending time on this one.

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

it should lock the parameters but it doesn't

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~not at all it only prevents from regenration

 

This is an old legacy feature that was used to keep NCI file intact even if you change

something Still you can post your old locked toolpath

(circa 1990?)

In that days when you was not able to change coolings

settings without getting red cross AND LOOSE

ALL YOUR GEOMETRY !!! IT HAD SENSE .

nOWADAYS IT IS IN MOST CASES OBSOLETE .

dO NOT WATE YOUR TIME On it JMHO

[Tim Johnson]

The lock is useful for making manual notes about previous operations that may be useful for changes that need to be done months later.

[BM150]

I believe it should be changed to lock the parameters/geometry etc .

But not stop from Regen, for when you have rest milling setup the old above will dirty the op.

 

My 10 p

Regards

 

Sent from my HTC One M9 using Tapatalk

 

 

[Teh Bear without Brains kinda idiot]

J\c if this silly lock tp is the only thing that all you guys want to change

And than you`ll be happy ?

IMHO this is a matter of Zero importance to compare with some really important things.

You make polls shmols ...who cares ?

Teh bear returnes to the real world to write some tp and make some real stuff

[JoshC]

I dont really care about the lock too much either. I personally have only used it for FBM operations when i dont want them regenerating and losing my changes. But when i do use it, i do like that it lets me make changes to the toolpath but will not regernerate. Ultimatley though i think CNC software has bigger fish to fry then the lock button functionality but thats my $.02.

[Jim at Gentex]

Welcome to the forum, Randy!

 

I've used the lock feature in the manner described here by Matthew H.

There are a few rare occasions where I have edited say a swarf toolpath to remove a few unwanted vector lines, then locked the toolpath.

Months or years later when I revisited it and saw the locked toolpath, I knew I had done some manual tweaking via the toolpath editor.   

So for me it was a great visual cue that jogged my memory.

 

Having said that...

Could the lock feature be improved?

Sure, if the folks at CNC Software decided to look at it and make a few tweaks I wouldn't object.

 

But is it an absolute necessity?

No, not really IMO.

As mentioned here it could go away altogether if the decision was made to scrap it, or to use CNC's finite resources to focus on other areas of improvement. 

 

So I guess what I'm saying is I would be OK either way.

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

Bear,

 

  Sure it's not that important, but why not toss it on the pile?

[Randy Kopf]

Thank you for the feedback... And the link to the earlier thread. :-)

 

Personally I've never needed the ability to lock an operation in other CAM systems. As the only way to change an operation was to edit them. In Mastercam the rules are different as Drag and Drop can alter your tool path inadvertently. But this can be completely avoided by never using Drag and Drop :-)

[Zoffen]

There is a setting in the windows registry that adjust the minimum drag before it starts to drag and drop. I charged mine to 100pixels so i have to really want to dragndrop something. This has helped immensely with inadvertently doing something stupid

 

HTH