MasterCam-Direct

[lynnz]

Has anyone been using this utility? I installed it yesterday (Norton disabled), but can't seem to get it to work . In SolidWorks, I click on mill icon under MC Direct and MasterCam opens, then says mill.exe has generated errors and Mastercam closes. If I go straight to Mastercam and try to run Mastercam Direct c-hook, it will give me same message as above and close Mastercam.

 

I suppose I can try and re-install it, but I was curious if anyone else was having trouble.

 

Lynnz

[pip]

No help I know, but we had the same problem with Inventor files.

I dont know if it has been sorted yet, but I will ask tomorrow when I go to work.

[Toolfab]

Have you messed around with you .CFG file? From SW to MC it will only use the mill9.cfg so If you have created your own and jagged up the original that might have something to do with it.

[MACHINEMASTERG]

ive have tried it and it worked fine but we are saving the files out of sw2004 as .sfb and then in mcam converting them works pretty good we got most of the solids history so far only doing testing have yet to implement it thou

[Toolfab]

Greg, why dont you just keep them as a .sldprt file?

 

That is the SW default, I think. DO you do this for the history tree or for a different reason?

 

[lynnz]

Paul,

I really haven't messed with my cfg file. I am running the latest Solidworks 2004 SP2.1

 

I have contacted my MC dealer and he said it was something to do with SolidWorks. I don't think so as Mastercam crashes when I run the c-hook within MasterCam without SolidWorks even running.

He was going to report it.

 

lynnz

[lynnz]

Paul,

I would like to get it working because of the history tree thing. If I import a sldprt file, it is just a dumb solid. I am by no means dead in the water, but if this would work it may change how we use Mastercam for the better.

 

lynnz

[Rat]

MMG, are you running SW sp2 ?

[Toolfab]

Have you tried what Greg wrote about?

 

That might help.

[Steve Biehl - Cimquest Inc]

definitly make sure you install all the MC patches in order. Nov03Maintenace(if you have maintenance), Dec03Translator, Jan04Solidworks, then Feb04SWTree.

 

that should work.

[Rat]

.Sfb ? I dont have that as a Save as option

on my SW menu?

Do I need SW sp2.1 for that?

[MACHINEMASTERG]

what every one said above...sp2 ..and no solidworks in the shop boxs ..sldprt dumb solid .. sfb..this way we get the tree in the shop i have all currnt updates and pathces

[Rat]

Greg

Thank you, I will Get everything up to date

and try again.

[MACHINEMASTERG]

quote:

---

Sfb ? I dont have that as a Save as option

on my SW menu?

---

swdirect update goes on the sw2004 computer ... then at the top of sw it should say mcdirect ...

[Chris Rizzo]

I hav'nt had good luck importing the feature tree anyway. Hole Wizard features are not supported, the holes come in, but on a totally different plane. Lofts and such also are all wacky. I just have been importing the brick..that way I know it's correct.

Gotta work, chat more later on this maybe.

[lynnz]

Reporting back to say by relaxing system tolerance and chaining tolerance in Screen-Configure under Tolerances seems to allow the MasterCamDirect feature to work without any MasterCam crashes. The settings on my machine were the default settings that I had never touched, But I changed them just a little bit and it works great. On my simpler models, all the features come in as editable. The more complex ones come in as a brick.

Pretty cool on the ones that are recognized.

 

Thanks for the input to all.

lynnz

[John T.]

If you import a "dumb" solidworks file, try converting it to surfaces, then deleting all solids. If you prefer to work with solids, then I guess you'll have to try the various fixes involved.

 

John