I have a very similar story. I've been bitten by Autosave more than once, so for me it is "Backup", but I set the max copies to '20', and I always set the "Backup Folder Location" to "C:\MCBACKUP". (This gives you a single location to search through, and also a single location for "purging" your old files.) I typically will sort my backup folder by "date" about once every month, and will delete any backups older than 30 days.

Yep, same here, it's habit for me to save after everything I do in Mastercam. Even if it's drawing a circle. I made it easy for myself and put this at the forefront of every tab on my ribbon: New,Save,Open,Print and Fit are on every tab. Makes my life 100x easier.

Get a locked WCS put in the post if you use only one WCS at a time. With the addition of Automatic Planes things with WCS went in the wrong direction in my opinion. There is no logic or thought to that process. Here is the help section on it. Okay so when you come back to the same face why would the system make a new offset number? Why are we still using 0 for 54 in 2021? My rule of thumb assign the workoffset in the planes manager before making any toolpaths. As I make new planes make sure I assign the work offset, but when I miss it trouble is coming.

Every time I post a program, Every time. I search for G55, G56, G57, G58 and G59 in Cimco. That's how I catch my mistakes.

Fully agree with you. I'll still take a little extra idiot-proofing if I can find it, however. This could work really well...thanks for the idea!

Are you going to be running the tool in aluminum? I would try it, but I would be super aggressive on my feedrate and less on my Radial. Maybe I would run a 3 flute at 10k rpms, 15%-25% ROC and .008 to .015 per tooth 150% to 200% DOC with 1000 psi TSP. 1/2 4 Flute endmill at 10k RPMs 25% ROC, 200% DOC with a .015 feed per tooth that is 56.25 in3 16.88 hp with a .0014 deflection. Without TSP. Might try 10% ROC, 100% DOC with .015 to .025 per tooth feed rate at 8k rpms. You biggest concern on Aluminum is sticking to the tool to loading up with a 5 flute, but pushing past the normal is crazy talk, but I like crazy land so I like to see how hard I can push things. You can start very mild and just keep kicking it up till you find the sweet spot for the tool. Problem would be need to feed at 1000 ipm to support such crazy feed rates per tooth. You would be a 50 in3 and have .0015 tool deflection and need only 15 HP to pull off such a cut. I know of a few machines on the Market capable of such work.

Back in ye olden days (I cant remember which version) Something was broken with that auto save and it corrupted a very tricky part I was programming (it was like 200+ megs at the time... early 2000's) and I lost it all. I have never gone back and tried it and I never will, that trust bridge was burned to ash. I use the auto backup keeping a few copies every time I save and I save a lot and its saved me countless times.

I have that. It initially wouldn't let me add Mastercam 18 as an app but now it does. Problem is, once I check the box next to the Mcam18 app in the list, nothing happens. Oh, wait a minute...closed the M & K Center, closed Mcam, then reopened it and now the wheel zooms properly. Thanks again for your replies.

i have seen that many times with Microsoft mice, very common problem with Microsoft brand mice but luckily its typically an easy fix. just download the latest driver or mouse microsoft mouse software and i believe that will fix it. also if your mouse is one of the mice listed on this page https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4034170 then i belive the microsoft keyboard and mouse center application has a setting specifically for mouse wheel issues, i remember helping someone else with this problem and there was like a setting in there for problems with mouse wheels and like a check box or something so if you have one of the microsoft mice that are listed on that page i linked above under the mice drop down then i believe the Microsoft mice and keyboard software has a setting in it that fixes the issue.

Looks like I'll be getting the Quadro RTX4000. Thanks.

To me, that's just part of being a programmer. Better than 75% of what I program is HMC work, generally with hundreds of OP's and a ton of transforms..for me, it's just the habit. I tried setting up something via the post, I found it was more of a problem than the one it was supposed to solve. I do rely on Machsim to help too. M2C. the guy in the seat needs to pay attention to what he's doing, check, double check and triple check if need be..

The save button gets a workout here

with mastercam 2021's new Bounding Box Auto Feature you can build a plane quickly and easily on a part that is orientated incorrectly using this new feature. 1. first use bounding box, select the part, set bounding box to AUTO (this will orientate the bounding box to the shape of the part even if the part is rotated into a funky angle) 2. Go to the advanced tab of the bounding box and choose create plane check out and you have a quick and easy plane, orientated to the part properly unlike the results we sometimes can see with planes from solid face. I do find afterwards i need to rotated the plane 90 Degrees but its still quick and easy

Does auto save work well? I disabled it back in X2 days because I would save at the worse time and seem to lock up MC for a while. Hence the mantra "save and save often".

Yes, I started with our dealer but figured I'd ask here while I wait to hear back from them. I do appreciate the different perspectives and methods presented, and while they may not be a solution to my current project I hope to apply some of these things I've learned in the future. Thanks all!

To those suggesting the template-file idea, I appreciate the idea and it seems like it would work well in many situations. While I suppose this could accomplish what I'm looking for, it makes more sense for my people to be bringing in tools every time rather than parts every time. I truly hope not to sound unappreciative of the solutions that have been offered. The situation at hand combined with our shop work flow is causing me to have a very specific goal in mind, and not changing anything would be better than making the wrong change. The library is the default in control and machine definitions, configuration, automatically load tools when machine is read into group is on in machine def, and the specific tools I want are applied in the control definition operation defaults as Millman suggested. None of this is having the desired result.

On a side note if you go with a template Zaffin recently made an addin that will set the file to read only or remove the read only with the click of a button. If someones going to be making templates often this little tool is pretty handy because you can edit the files read only attributes inside of mastercam, here is where he shared the addin

Josh that was my next suggestion. Make a template file for every machine and material in your shop. Put travel limits on a level. All working holding used on the machine on different levels. Make your Material libraries and speeds and feeds dialed in for all standard tooling. The tool library with all the holders already integrated into it and named for a specific machine and material. DMU80 FD Inconel, DMU80 FD Aluminum, DMU80 FD Stainless Steel and such. In the defaults you can pick your defaults, your tool library and every time it fires up from each of them everything is ready to go without any thinking needed.

this would be my suggestion as well, make a template file that already had the machine loaded, tools loaded, levels or anything else that you want. Then make that file read only so no one can overwrite it and can only save as. And from there just have them use that file as a shortcut, or put the file on the server and make a shortcut to it to have them use. you could pin that file to the top of the recent file list so they can easily open that file when starting new jobs and because the file is set to read only they are unable to save over it and will see permission denied if they try, but they will still be able to save as and as soon as they choose save as and save it under a new file name or a new location that file wont be read only so they will have full control. We can even edit the target line of a mastercam shortcut to launch a specific file or a specific user configuration, but in this case a shortcut to a template would be just as easy.

These .pdf's of yours are always super helpful. Here's another document detailing the G131 functions. 8.1 (a) Basic usage of the IPC .pdf 8.1 (c) Useful information on IPC v2.pdf