Our girls play many different instruments. Something the new teachers have got the girls doing is a basic thing for the instruments is playing scales. If you are not musically inclined then you may not know this is going through different keys and playing notes up and down the music scale is called "scales". The idea is to sharpen your playing by muscle memory of what each note is. Doing advanced 5 Axis and Mill-Turn work is fun, but just got some work that is 2.5 and 3 Axis work. I really like getting back to basics and I related it to what our kids are having to do with playing scales. They really don't want to humble themselves to do it, but we have seen an improvement in the playing doing so. They have had to admit they have as well. I have done this for 30 years and nice to go back to my routes and program some basic parts. Funny taking stuff I would have programmed by hand 30 years ago and do it with a CAM system and feel like I could do it faster by hand than in the CAM, but then I look at the Dynamic stuff and take a part quoted a 4 hours to machine and get it done in 1 hour is not something I could have done with pencil and paper as easy. Had a customer call last week and tell me about the California program running in their shop. Invar part we cut the roughing time in half from dedicated process that had been used for years. Had to tweak the drilling a little, but everything else was run like it was programmed. I think we could cut another 10% to 20% more out of the program if I was onsite to watch it run. Each project should remind us all to play the scales going through and defining our tools correctly, calling up holders, organizing our levels, back plotting the toolpaths and even running it through Verify. Easy to forgot the basics if we don't humble ourselves and be willing to go back to them. Back to programming some nice 2.5 and 3 Axis work. Soon I will hear the scales our girls are playing and I will be diligently programming away going through the scales of programming the parts. Chopsticks is still music and thankful I can still do the basics of programming the chop sticks of Manufacturing. It was just a thought I had this morning and wanted to share. I hope everyone has a great day.

The "Canned Text" mechanism is a Post Function, that ties "options" in the Post, to the Operations in Mastercam. All "Operation" types in Mastercam have "Canned Text" options. Normally, these are output "at the Tool Change event". There is a "Before", "With", and "After" option, which is generally "Before, with, or After", the Tool Change. What you want is a Stop "in the middle of the program". This can be accomplished a couple different ways. The most obvious is -> Make separate Operations (Rough Pocket), followed with a Finish Pocket or Finish Contour OP. With this method, checking the "Force Tool Change" option tells the Post to output an "Actual Tool Change" event. So you get the "T# M06", but you also get the "start up line", Spindle Speed, Spindle On, Tool Length, ect. With this option, you can use "Manual Entry" to output whatever you want, between the Ops, but you can also use "Canned Text > Option #1 or Option #2, Set to "Before", and the M00 or M01 will be output "before" the Tool Change for the Finish Pass. You can use the "Toolpath Editor", to "modify" the toolpath motion. So after the tool "retracts" to re-position for the finish pass, you can use the TP editor to insert Canned Text on that "move" of the individual Tool Path. The issue with using TP Editor, is your changes aren't "associated" back to anything. Using the TP Editor will "Lock" your Operation when you are finished, which reflects the fact that you made a "manual" edit to the path. If you then have to regenerate the Path, your TP Edits will then be lost, and you'll have to use the TP Editor again to make the same changes. I think Option #1 will suit you best, for what you are trying to accomplish. There is a 3rd Option for "chain based" toolpaths. You can use the "Change at Point" function to make "associative" edits to the Chain of Geometry, which allows you to do all kinds of cool things in the middle of a tool path. For example, you can program "Clamp Jumps", where the tool retracts to a safe Z height, moves past the clamp, then plunges back down to the original depth, and continues cutting. You can manipulate Coolant Options, use Canned Text to trigger special functions, or modify Spindle Speed, or Feedrate, all along the path that is being cut. -------- By Default, the Canned Text mechanism is setup to control only 4 options in Mastercam, OOTB. (Out-of-the-box). These options are: M00 - Machine Stop M01 - Optional Stop Block Delete - On (Enables the "Block Delete" function, which puts a "slash" (/) in front of the line, so you can skip it on the control.) Block Delete - Off (Disables the Block Delete function. If used to be you could only add up to 99 Canned Text options. Mastercam X Series added the option to use up to 200 Canned Text commands. NOTE: To "add" a Canned Text option, you need to modify the Text Strings in the Post Text Section of your Post Processor. This is usually done with the Control Definition Manager. But this only edits the "display" of the Canned Text Options in the Tool Path Operation. In order to get the Canned Text to actually "do something" in the Post output, you need to edit the Post (pcant_out), to make those options "work" for you.