without looking at you file, it sounds like you found a good reason to switch to wear comp. I haven't looked back since making the switch. Recently found a Heidenhain control can hold a comp value in memory pulled out of the program for a specific toolpath. TOOL CALL 10 Z S5555 DR-.25 with .2495 in tool register, this will give you -.0005 wear comp trying to get a post writer to wrap their head around it...well that;s different altogether. lol

Most of what I do is big, expensive and one of a kind When I use tooling balls, my first toolpath is a tooling ball check I'll do a point tool path to the center of the ball stopping .010 off the surface If that's not right, either the setup is wrong or I've screwed up

yep, the original programmer COMPLETELY missed the point of using a tooling ball.

That helped me figure it all out. Thank you Bear.....

See if you can do a trunnion Machine, Trunnion machines are very common in industry and just ask the instructor if you can change it to a more common 5-axis machine since there are likely more trunnion machines out there in industry than VTL's (i dont know if that is true or not but maybe itll be a good excuse and maybe the instructor will let you do the same project with a trunnion style mill. There are actually many videos on building a trunnion machine simulation on youtube, or a good video i like that was pretty recently made is this one below that jesse had made, he did an excellent job in my opinion of showing the basics of building a mach sim for mastercam. I hope this helps, good luck with your project and some of us are happy to help with some of your questions as you progress.

THAT's WHAT S......... nevermind

Post your file so I can try it on my computer.