quote: I figure great, I'll grab a back up and send them along to CNC, I open ALL 3 backups, they are all dirty as well. exactly. I can't get them a file either. but this is becoming unbearable. Big job in the machine last week. the operator tells me we need to change something and repost. I call up the file--everthing dirty. it took 4 hours to get it regenerated while the block is getting cold and the job is getting hot.

Here we use an evaporator to evaporate the water out and then all we are left with is the oil in the drum. saves disposal money.

Here's a good example of dirty ops. I opened this file this morning, changed a rapid plane, went to regen and got this error. I saved, closed and reopened and now the file looks like the second picture. All I had to do was Regen all. But that took 2 hours. after I saved and reopened it looked like this. Regen all and 2 hours later it's fine.

bump

quote: Do bore paths use points or arcs? I don't know, I never use them. They use both. they have the same dialog as drills and cirlce mill paths. The helical bore method is a lot faster way to cut out a hole than cirle mill.

why can't we copy entities from drill paths to helical bore paths? We can copy geo from drill paths to circle mill paths. Just curious?

John, I've had this problem since I started using mr1 (using mr2 now). The one thing that I have noticed is that I never ever get it when I'm only using 1 session at a time. If i'm using 2 and one of them is a "heavy hitter", I get it pretty often. the problem usually happens before you close it. I will get some bogus error that says something like, "error regenerating operation", when I know the operation is fine. When I get that, if I save, close and reopen all the ops are dirty. Occasionaly, one get's saved without my realizing that happened. once I reopen I can regen the files fine with no problems.

I've used both and liked both. Mulitparts and multiple programs are no problem. but if you are wanting to stick with mastercam you might also mention that Cimatron is about 150% more expensive---at least here in the states it is.

quote: In case you didn't know, there is a speed slider, a quality setting and an invisible tool option that might be able to help I know about the sliders, but I'm not sure what you mean by "invisible tool" do you mean turbo mode? quote: You can also bump up the step/refresh as well I just tried that and that does cut some serious time off. thanx

I always have a lot going on here. So I setup all of my paths to generate at once and go take care of other responsibilities while they process. I also loosen up the tolerances on my roughing paths. If i'm leaving .010 stock then I open up my total tolerances to .005 that really improves time. my biggest time eater is verifying. No vericut. I wish mastercam's verify would work in it's own window and let you keep working. Sometimes our machines cut faster than I'm verifying.

Thad, did they discuss future enhancements or just the enhancements of MR2

quote: Since solid chaining has some limitations when crossing features if the model changes I have to spend a lot of time re-doing 2d geo to suit. In a parametric environment I could just have a sketch constrained to model features. If this is what you were talking about Pete when you mentioned 2d constraints then bring it on!!! +1000

I'd like to see a comparison between OSG, YG, Garr,and several other Carbide endmill and ballmill manufacturers in 50RC steel. I also would like to see how different coolant brands affect cutter life and finish.

+1 Steve

quote: How many teeth on the cutter? Make sure your giving yourself some chip load or you'll rub the thing dull. 14

it is an actuall t-slot. And unfortunately I don't have the tooling on hand to take a smaller cutter first. but I'll give 1200 rpms and 10 ipm a shot and see how it goes. thanks

after you are done selecting the entities just pick the icon of what you are now wanting to do.

quote: For the benefit of others (I've already sent you this information) I will say that X2 will contain almost exactly what you're asking for. Coming soon to a Beta release near you... Wow, Pete, thanks for that heads up. That's pretty exciting news!

I've been using it quite a lot with few problems. What kind of problems are you having?

I don't use a Key slot cutter very often. I'm cutting cold rolled steel using a HSS 1 1/4 keyslot cutter taking a full width of cut on a 40 taper machine. What feeds and speeds should I use

the prompt asks to select a surface or a solid face. I use it all the time on both and never have a problem. I hope this isn't insulting in anyway but on the solid does one face completely encompass the hole? If two faces encompass a single hole it won't work.

I just tried it and got the same thing, although it worked right when I used divide rather than trim

create curves all edges then project curves to plane

would it be possible in future releases to differentiate between arcs and points in the drill point manager? In the circle paths it makes a difference whether you've selected a point or an arc. So it would be nice if it would Identify an arc instead of identifying every thing as points. sounds like an easy thing but I dunno.

quote: The easy way is to manually figure your desired step over and enter the the percentage until you get those values. that's what I've been doing. had to dust off the adding machine