25 minutes ago, Jobnt said:

Now do ActiveReports. (NoLOL)

Just wait for DynamicReports!

25 minutes ago, Jobnt said:

Cameras in cell phones have made every soccer mom a sports photog. Can't make a decent living in photography any more since people give away their xxxx for free just for their 15 minutes of fame. 

Low-skill democratization of everything around us has its pitfalls, even though a lot of very vocal individuals will extoll it's limitless potential, and declare it as only positive. I get the argument for the one prodigy that gets access in spite of his/her modest means, but the millions of others that only contribute noise and clog up our collective cloud/physical storage make it a net-bad idea. And not without a real cost, I might add.

7 hours ago, jpatry said:

not a single surface on that model was flat, parallel, or perpendicular to any other, misaligned faces everywhere

I'm impressed at how bad some designers are. It must take some sack to submit something like that as your work, and I can't even imagine how they make those models in the first place. Just pick a random point in space and start clicking?

Is anyone using a full fledged Product Lifecycle Management solution in manufacturing? Way back our SolidEdge reseller would constantly try and get us to buy the Siemens PLM suite, but we only had 1 seat, and never needed it. A lot of the functions are more for design/engineering, tracking changes to parts in assemblies etc. Seems to me that tracking inspections, uprevs, part files and mastercam files is really along those lines. Found this today:

https://www.odoo.com/app/plm

We're small here, so I never know what the big boys are really up to.

I'd say this is textbook OptiRough. Or 3+2 Roughing if you've got it, great candiate for a 5ax

You'll need to feed it some machining faces, avoidance faces and then containment if you don't get what you're after. And play with your Z depths to not go too deep or too high and waste time.

Learning to leverage that toolpath is a game changer: for this part you should be able to ruff out the top of that steeple and the gallery below with one or two optirough paths. Two only if you don't like what you're getting with 1.

10 hours ago, jpatry said:

the best way of interrogating a solid, for breaks, right on import?

Big fish first:

After it's imported, select the solid and hit F4 for Analyze. You're looking for that second box to say Closed Solid Body. I have not had an issue with a model that is identified as closed.

If it says Open Sheet Body, you'll know you have to check the usual areas around curves, fillets and holes. As stated above, the automatic tools don't always catch the small slivers.

My strategy is to rely on pulling wireframes from the broken areas, and placing them on a new level. They're easier to manipulate than open sheet bodies, since you can't boolean-add to them with new solid patches. Then you don't need move or push-pull.

Otherwise, if you want to go hard to the mats and fix it up: convert all of the holey solid to surfaces, patch it with modified/new surfs, and convert it back to a watertight solid. Lots of my experience with surfs has come from fixing things this way.

Most (98%) of my work is prismatic, so YMMV if you are dealing with 3d curvatures.

Keeping the same planes with a 0 in all fields for offset deltas gives you the ability to do n copies instead of one per physical (virtual?) plane, as per above post. And you can verify all copies of your toolpaths on a single original solid, including 2nd ops.

It can get hairy moving and copying, especially for the next guy who has to open your programs later. Source: am next guy opening old programs.

On 8/25/2023 at 1:18 PM, byte said:

Not just programming, I am much better on the grill now, that barbecue thread did wonders for me!! 

If this is not a joke that wooshed me, can you link to this BBQ thread?

15 hours ago, byte said:

Mastercam definitely has great support not only from the Staff but also from end users and resellers, it's definitely a strong point for the platform!

Whether you are a machinist, programmer, manager or an engineer, Mastercams many forums have the support solutions for you!

This reads a whole lot like a MasterCam lovin', GPT-3 shill bot, fellow forum member!

You're absolutely right though, I would be a xxxx-poor programmer without you bunch of hoodlums. So thanks for that!

https://www.emastercam.com/posts-reseller/

@Alex Dales Hey, what is IKE+?

I mean. They do make a new version EVERY year... That menu is so 2020

Thanks for making this thread, I would never have known that alt+arrow was rotation.

1 hour ago, Jobnt said:

Who does it remind you of?

Say it ain't so... Time for, what, Red Hat? Wouldn't that be nice? I still have Win10 or 7 on all my machines, so I wouldn't know. First release I have resisted, and one HP machine built ~2007 can't upgrade. Actually, none of my machines can upgrade without skirting the TPM requirements.

I'm all for having an advanced product, or the best version of something. Not to crap on anyone's hard work - but this sounds like an Apple-level tech dystopia. I see this software as a deep and varied toolbox that I can use to make, quite literally, anything. And make it the way I need to. Program the machines our shops own, expediently, and make sure the code is posted for how those machines need to ingest the instructions. Removing controls from us removes innovations.

We still have some hardworking machines that are 25 to 30 years old, and I have made sure these old boys can hang, but I needed to modify the post. I don't see the upside for customers in this format, and your everyday programmer will be losing out on a large percentage of what they can learn with regards to how the software communicates with a machine tool.

I hesitate to think this is an industry where "it works, but I don't know why" passes.

I'm sure the change they are referencing is the IKE posts, or maybe Postability. So no new features will be added to MPMaster, but we are told for now the posts will still be able to be used in future versions of MasterCam. There are a TON of people using MPMaster, so I don't think they will suddenly remove our ability to use it.

Learning it will still be a valuable exercise in the way posts work. I learned MPMaster in the last few years, and my knowledge there helped me make sense of the IKE post's structure and variables.

Also, I have not had any issues with In-House Solutions helping me troubleshoot my posts. They are pretty customized with multiple machines per post, extra variables, calculations etc. They are always willing to help, from my experience.

1 hour ago, crazy^millman said:

here are my 5 points.

Millman: manufacturing philosopher/realist. Flourished in the last part of the 20th Century, and beginning of the 21st. Propounded a set of laws the world generally ignores, to its detriment.

Joking aside, another phenomenal set of strategies that we will all learn from. And thanks for articulating them in a way the higher-ups and bean counters will understand.

My experience is somewhat limited - I have only used MPMaster and IKE - but here's my take.

IKE is MPMaster+.

The syntax is similar, the switch based setup area at the top of the post is a way of simplifying all the functions that MPMaster had, and some more that are out of my depth. The variables, functions and structure are an easily traced extension from working with MPMaster. Not to malign the work that has been put it at all! The posts are very good at handling what I consider advanced functions in my daily routine: Rotary motion, transforms, axis sub, extended work offsets, a customizable setup sheet, and a lot, lot more. Not to mention the integration with machine sim, which is the whole point of IKE - inverse kinematics - to do a better job of representing the machine environment and how it moves, digitally. (feel free to correct me on this purpose if I am off-base, or simplifying a broader range of subjects!)

What you will have to put work into or pay for will be getting the posted code to look like what you and your operators are used to seeing. I have zero exposure to Postability, so I don't know how it works with misc. variables and such (the usual way to control certain outputs in MPMaster/IKE). In that case, sticking with what you know will likely pay dividends, especially now that Daddy Sandvik owns Postability and MasterCam. We are all in the dark as to the multi-year endgame there, honestly.

11 minutes ago, Jobnt said:

so moved my mouse to my left hand. Makes it much easier that way.

You just decided to go lefty out of utility? You're a wildman, and I respect the hell out of you for that.

On 8/11/2023 at 12:54 PM, nperry said:

"Trackball don't lie."

I love this. Used to run a 66 key keyboard and an 18" wide Wacom XL tablet as my only inputs, the riff-raff had no chance!

Well. If we're gonna roll with the necro, lol.

I have been a proponent of the CADMouse since it was released. Incredible quality, and nothing beats a true middle mouse button, plus wheel. I have them at home and at work, one got replaced for free at the ~3 year mark with 8+ hours daily use.

Used those trackballs a few times. Never got to like them. Same with the SpacePilot lineup, I tried in 3D modelling, tried in CAD. I don't know that it is faster than camera controls (shift+middle mouse, alt+a, etc.), because you aren't modifying geo or calling commands on the keyboard while you rotate the viewport. Or do you 3D mouse jockeys double-fist and perform actions while you pan around?

18 hours ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

You can often use 5ax Curve if you need to trim, it'll even trim to 3d stock nicely.  Just lock it to a Plane for tool axis control.  For example, if you had this 5x curve toolpath:

I often use Blend Mill to accomplish this kind of path. I find it really eases the cutter into the passes. You do have to cheat it a bit, and define the outer wires to match your desired tool dia to dodge the stock. Gets some really nice results, and the trimming is done implictly from where you set the outer boundary. It's semi-stock aware.

Also, I dont have multiaxis, so 5ax curve isn't on the table!

Dynamic Analyze

Sounds like axis substitution will work? I've only used it on an A axis rotary indexer. This thread might help you out, my guy, even uses the same machine as you are on

16 hours ago, cruzila said:

...close to basic alloy numbers .

All these images have a 50 μm scale bar:

A - additive Ti6al4v - as per the article,

B - additive Ti6al4v with ultrasonic (20kHz) workpiece vibration during manufacture- as per the article

Green Image -  plate material.

Getting down to the grain size of mass produced alloy is going to take some more time and breakthroughs!