Yes, I'm a little slow getting with the MR2 program. I've been swamped with learning Solid Edge (very cool, btw) Anyway, I installed MR2 today, stand alone in a nethasp environment. Having learned from the painful loss of all my customizations when I upgraded to MR1 I saved all my config files in a separate directory before this install. As expected MR2 messed up the config, key mapping, and tool bar states . I did a search and found http://www.emastercam.com/cgi-bin/ultimate...ic;f=1;t=020825, however pasting my old config, key mapping, and tool bar states has not returned things to the way I want them. It wouldn't be such a big deal if I hadn't spent sooo much time customizing X to try and get back to the speed I was at in V9. Does anyone have a solution to "seamlessly" upgrade to MR2?

Yes, a slightly modified version of MPMaster. My Mastercam dealer just called and we found the solution to the posting problem. It could be solved two ways, fix the operator (post doesn't support my method of drawing the geometry), or flip a switch in the post.

Right now the program is up and running, finally. I think I'll leave it alone until I get to the last one after the initial order has been filled. One of the big delays has been trying to figure out what I think is a posting issue. I have 3 transform operations in the program to rough mill a conical feature and then this helix feature and then finish the conical feature. The transform is to do the above on 4 places around a cylindrical part. When I post it all as one program the finish operation gets posted out of phase in the C axis to the rest of the program, scraping the part and breaking the cutter. If I post the first 2 transform operations in one program and the finish transform operation in a separate program it all comes out fine. I'd put it on the FTP site, however, its R&D for some oil company and the last thing we need is a visit from their lawyers!

I guess a preliminary question would then be what will keep the 4th axis from twisting with the torque of the end mill on the straight X axis movement? I'm only using a 7/64" ball nose to cut the helix with 0.01" DOC, so there won't be much force trying to twist the 4th axis, but it won't take much to break the end mill either.

Hmm, that's a good question. I wonder if M11 is modal or not? Have to check it out. Thanks for the idea.

Thanks for the info, I was hoping to avoid manually editing all the X moves. But this is quite in keeping with what I've come to expect from a Haas

Is there a button or setting somewhere in Mastercam to do this or just a manual entry?

Hi All, I know this has been covered in here somewhere but my searches are getting me no where. We have a Haas VF-4 with an HRT310BL 4th Axis. I'm trying to cut a partial helix on the outside of a cylinder. The movement is a straight horizontal move in X, then the helix, so simultaneous X & A moves. The problem is that at the end of the straight move, just before the rotary move the feed stops so the A axis can unclamp. Is there any way around this so the tool doesn't pause while in the cut? Thanks.

Thanks Steve, I'll give this a try. Sure would be nice if I could get it to stay out of the way. I would like them to live down on the bottom left corner of the Ops Manager. Maybe in MR2.

Not sure what I did, but while smart dimensioning the following part the geometry disappered. There was not the ususal message about geometry/drafting associativity. Just "poof" no more geo. Anyone else had this happen? More importantly, anyone know how to get the geometry back? Thanks.

Yeah, it is a lot of passes. The part I did was 39" long, OD only 2", so I had to go quite slow to avoid chatter. You could do a short one like you are doing in a 4 axis mill using a bull nose end mill to finish. That will be slow going too. What kind of material? What kind of machines/processes do you have to work with?

Felix, I've done something similar, 1 TPI, 0.5" per side on a 2 axis lathe, no C axis. It had a straight OD, but a straight then tapered minor diamter. The way I ended up doing it was to modify a grooving tool by cutting off the head and re-welding it on the shank at the correct angle to match the lead. Then you have to program multiple threading cycles, each with a different start point (step over). You will also find it works best to only cut the full width of thread at a fairly shallow depth and then do another "set" at the next depth and so on until you get down to minor diameter. I couldn't get Mastercam to do this for me. Had to do it the old fashion way looping the program with variables. HTH

Steve, Yes, the smart dimension is the one most annoying me. I've sent an email to qc.

Glad I could help.

Thanks to all, The reason I wanted them off is that they don't always seem to stay out of the way, they keep coming back to their default location which gets in the way. They are nice to have when learning a funtion, its true, but once you know the prompts for the functions you use everyday, they are redundant and annoyingly in the way.

Tool howling on roughing or finishing? Do you skate across the bottom of the groove to finish it? If so, try increasing the amount left for finishing and turn up the feed a bit to "load" up the tool.

quote: I've tried turning off learning mode and tool tips in Config

Does anyone know how to turn off these ribbon bar hint windows? I've tried turning off learning mode and tool tips in Config, but that wasn't it. Thanks for your help.

We assign MCX to open with a unique config file for each user. Then each one sets his own unique autosave file name. I also use a different config file for lathe, mill, design with each one having its own unique autosave name. (Example latheautosave.mcx)

Rakesh, I used to have lots of problems with crashes as well. Turned out to be graphics card related. Since turning off the hardware acceleration is has been much more stable. Config, Screen, check Disable Hardware Acceleration. HTH.

Thanks for the warning. I'm wondering how much of that has to do with the local reseller? I'll try and make sure to call their tech support line and test that out along with the program.

John, what specifically did you have in mind? What are some of the things SE would be more cumbersome at doing compared to SW? Costs as quoted so far seem about equal or slightly cheaper for SE, of course we haven't seen anything very specific in writing so that could all change.

Thanks all for your input. This forum is a terrific resource. We will be trying out the demo here in our shop so I should be able to get a good feel for it with "real world" projects. Our Mcam reseller will be our SE reseller as well and the support they have been to us in Mcam has been great (Karl Oram, Caledonian CADCAM) so that shouldn't be a problem. SE also says they have a toll free number to call for tech support. Only during office hours though, I work afternoons so that might be a problem at midnight. I'm looking forward to kicking the tires. Should be fun. Thanks again to all of you who have contributed to this decision process. Hope you all have a great weekend.

Apparently its up to V18 now. And from the guys at the demo seminar today who were Inventor users Solid Edge seems to be quite a bit ahead. Haven't personally worked in either one yet so just have to take their word for it.

Good evening all, We are considering Solid Edge from UGS as a compliment to Mastercam and I was wondering if any of you are users...of Solid Edge? How do you like it? What do you hate? How is their support. I realize not as good as this forum, but all things considered how do they rate? We will be getting a demo version to try it out, but I'm kind of busy and don't need to waste my time on junk. Thanks for you input.