These are surfaces I received from my customer (generated from catia) providing me with igs files.

468 trimmed surfaces

2 surfaces

I spent an hour going thru past topics/discussions etc... on this forum.

I want to have all my surface normals to point in same direction, I tried all suggestions

including "set cplane to match cview"....nothing worked.... any other suggestions?

Is this true? (i'll say not) (i read this today)...surface normals only matter if your using flowline tool path.

When I use "check model"....What does this do/mean? self int tol (.005 def) I set to .0005

Then it finds bad surfaces and changes their color. Does this mean surfaces are bad? Do I have to recreate?

Are small surfs necessarily bad surfs?

How can I best use Analyze Surfaces and sub-menus to benefit me the most?

Am I missing any updates? (see below)

My last update was 11-04 transalators.zip

I have 5 more similar parts after this one with more jobs from same customer being quoted. I would

like to become as efficient as possible using these large surface models.

Thank you all in advance.

automate?....do you mean "remote request", this is when you can send a program to the machine from the machine control.

thanks for the responses......

my model was/is all surfaces. (no solid)

not using novell.

i'll try autosave to different name......

i've been working on this job all day....saving constantly....every change i make, i save save save. well, last time i saved...mastercam or my computer locked up on me....i figured no problem,be patient, all will be ok. well after about 20 minutes of nothing (ctrl-alt-del didn't even bring up task manager) i rebooted my system. when i went to get my file it was there but had a big fat goose egg for file size. the whole day shot to hell.

i checked my event viewer event log for errors, but to my surprise there was no errors listed for

applications,security or system.

does anyone have an idea of what could've happened to my file?

my system booted up fine, all is good.

I want to convert stl file to surfaces.

...I have chook in chook directory

...I have stl file opened

I click "alt-c"....select stl2surf chook, then a 2nd folder opens up prompting me to select a "stl datiein" file

What is a "stl datiein" file?

Am i doing something wrong here?

you can also put air thru those coolant holes as well....helps keep holes clean

my default color for show surfaces is "white #15"

unless you changed default settings...you should see "white" surfaces after selecting show surfaces

hth

jayman interesting tool

another option to consider for holding (thin) work-pieces is a vacuum. vacuums can be extemely powerful and provide other options as to hold a part....no side clamps....you can machine 5 sides in one holding. hth

i machine from both solids and surfaces from solids......it depends on the workpiece and what operation i am using.....i haven't noticed any buggy toolpaths from solids.

i never new....

this is a GREAT tip...... to mayday for

clueing me in on this

thanks guys.......i use this method "3.375x25.4" all the time....i was hoping to save some keystrokes

I have a print that has approx. 100 metric dimensions and 15 inch dimensions.

I am in metric and have all metric features drawn up, now I want to add my inch features. I tried the above....create-line-polar---angle/8.18degrees at length/3.375in.....this did not work....it put a 3.375 metric line in. (way to short)

Is it possible to draw a inch line while in metric mode?

thanks...solid & op mgr icons are there!!!

setup sheet worked also...i'll have to do some experimenting with each.

We use Focal Point DNC from CNC Engineering. It has the "remote request" feature also...it's a piece of cake to call programs from the machine control.

We currently have 15 machines hooked up to DNC.

*** CADCAM ***

We are interested in going wireless...is there any info you can give me this subject?

-good/bad?

-ease of install?

-cost compared to standard DNC?

-loss of data due to interference?

Thanks,

travis.....i appreciate your help.....i am very busy at present time....lots of work....lots of programmimg.....i don't have free time as often as others to come to this forum.

mr1 & mr2....my post only contains what you see above.

i will try next suggestion and get back to you.

displayed text??

do you mean what does the post output?

it outputs in absolute mode (G90) even though i changed vaule from 0 to 1 on tool page/menu

or

what does the post (itself) look like?

# --------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Default Miscellaneous Real Values

# --------------------------------------------------------------------------

201. Default miscellaneous real variable 1 (mr1)? 0.0

202. Default miscellaneous real variable 2 (mr2)? 0.0

203. Default miscellaneous real variable 3 (mr3)? 0.0

204. Default miscellaneous real variable 4 (mr4)? 0.0

205. Default miscellaneous real variable 5 (mr5)? 0.0

206. Default miscellaneous real variable 6 (mr6)? 0.0

207. Default miscellaneous real variable 7 (mr7)? 0.0

208. Default miscellaneous real variable 8 (mr8)? 0.0

209. Default miscellaneous real variable 9 (mr9)? 0.0

210. Default miscellaneous real variable 10 (mr10)? 0.0

# --------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Default Miscellaneous Real Values (METRIC)

# --------------------------------------------------------------------------

1601. Default miscellaneous real variable 1 (mr1) (metric)? 0.0

1602. Default miscellaneous real variable 2 (mr2) (metric)? 0.0

1603. Default miscellaneous real variable 3 (mr3) (metric)? 0.0

1604. Default miscellaneous real variable 4 (mr4) (metric)? 0.0

1605. Default miscellaneous real variable 5 (mr5) (metric)? 0.0

1606. Default miscellaneous real variable 6 (mr6) (metric)? 0.0

1607. Default miscellaneous real variable 7 (mr7) (metric)? 0.0

1608. Default miscellaneous real variable 8 (mr8) (metric)? 0.0

1609. Default miscellaneous real variable 9 (mr9) (metric)? 0.0

1610. Default miscellaneous real variable 10 (mr10) (metric)? 0.0

# --------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Enable/Disable Miscellaneous Real Variable switches

# --------------------------------------------------------------------------

1611. Enable miscellaneous real variable 1? y

1612. Enable miscellaneous real variable 2? y

1613. Enable miscellaneous real variable 3? y

1614. Enable miscellaneous real variable 4? y

1615. Enable miscellaneous real variable 5? y

1616. Enable miscellaneous real variable 6? y

1617. Enable miscellaneous real variable 7? y

1618. Enable miscellaneous real variable 8? y

1619. Enable miscellaneous real variable 9? y

1620. Enable miscellaneous real variable 10? y

hopefully one of these answers were what you were asking?

HTH you help me.

anyone....please!.....

This is the way we run our shop also.....employees on the shop floor can edit the program....but those edits must be relayed to the programmer so edits are made to the mcam file and saved for future runs.

most endmill companies websites will have s&f charts.........a good place to start

here is a link to an article on s&f mms

hth

I scoured the forum for the answer…..I changed the “misc values” interger 2 to “1” (was zero).

I want to post incremental/G91 a “surface finish project” program.

Whether this value is 0 or 1 it still post in abs/G90.

I am posting for a cinncinati machine with a acramatic control using a MPA2100E.PST post.

Do I have to change the post also?

thanks for the info....i'm not sure if that answered my question or not..

does v9.1 sp2 include all the updates/patches/apps...etc...etc that were needed for the sp1 release?

....no luck finding answer on site

I have Mastercam mill/solids v9.1 sp2.

I want to bring my seat all up to date with all

mill related patches/apps/fonts/converters...etc...etc.

My question is since I have v9.1 sp2, does this include all updated patches/core/support files for v9.1 sp1 or do I still need to download these files as well.

little steps...little victories.....good luck to you

open in sw...saved and converted back in macam... worked well....thanks for the help every one

I updated with igesconverter.zip (5/28/04)...this did not help my problem....i will try the sw suggestion.....