Jason,

I had this same problem yesterday with one of my clients. It has been investigated at CNC but because it's been hard for them to replicate they have had trouble fixing it.

In the instances where they were able to duplicate it, MR1 fixed the error. If you are a maintenance customer, you should be recieving this update, scheduled for release toward the end of the year.

If you are not a maintenance customer, you can check with your reseller for updates and service packs possibly fixing the bug.

For right now, the issue seems to be printer specific, as some printers will print and others won't using the exact same McX file. I suggest that if you have another printer you can print to, try that, or perhaps make sure you have the latest drivers for your existing printer.

HTH,

Gradient Background

Looks great when I show it to customers.

Attribute changes are awesome.

#1. EDIT within analyze ROCKS

Key mapping and toolbar customization.

CD/MD I think that once people get the hang of it people will really see the ultimate personal mcam pitch.

I have customizeed Mcam X for myself and I just think it's great.

Official Mcam X System requirements are listed as follows:

Processor: 1.5 Ghz Intel processor

Op Sys: XP or 2000 W/latest patches and updates

.net 1.1 Framework and Direct X V9.0c

Graphics Card: 64mb Open GL-compatible (minimum)

Monitor: 1024x768 MINIMUM

Mouse: Windows compatible

Some things I'd recommend:

Roller optical mouse, Cordless if possible

at least a 17" monitor

Nvidia card mentioned above

2 GB ram for solid works.

Mcam works great on my PC but it also runs great on the PCs I have with only 1 G ram. I can't say how it goes for SW but maybe someone else has input on that for you.

I've been pulling my hair out for two days trying to generate a post for a two headed beast known as the ingersol mastermill. one head is for standard 3-axis milling (fixed) and the other is at a 90 degree angle. I noticed in some topics MayDay had said he had one. I was wondering if he's using X for this machine and how....

I am hoping for some pointers on how to set this machine up in X. I tried using an aggregate tool which won't allow a toolchange on the right angle head, and then I tried adding the c axis as a sibling to the spindle and giving it a HMC spindle as a child, but nothing seems to get the C output. this morning I'm trying it with some of the fanuc posts to see what happens.

what a whopper. Any Ideas are truly appreciated.

Thanks

A customer of mine had the same problem with his fadal post. on his, there were three errors, but I checked the lines and now I know that the sg84.2 probably threw it. in addition, I got an error on one of the format statements, which I cannot see a problem with. here are the lines in the log file

26 - 21 Sep 2005 09:04:31 AM - PST LINE (337) - Unrecognized characters after statement

27 - 21 Sep 2005 09:04:31 AM - PST LINE (480) - Illegal character(s) encountered

28 - 21 Sep 2005 09:04:31 AM - PST LINE (483) - Illegal character(s) encountered

29 - 21 Sep 2005 09:04:31 AM - PST LINE (1239) - The formula/boolean does not terminate properly

and here are the referenced lines:

Line 337: fs2 27 0 2 0 2lt #Integer, force leading & trailing (min)

Line 480: fstrsel sg84.2 tap_dir sgtap_prep

Line 483:sg90 G90 #Absolute code

Line 1239: pdrill #Canned Drill Cycle - G81/G82

If anybody has any ideas on what I need to change on these lines please let me know.

Thanks,

Jeff,

Got your e-mail yesterday, tried to call this morning but no answer... I was wondering if you could send me a screenshot.

Thanks,

I've found that in paralell lines, if you select a line, indicate direction and just type in the distance (and hit enter) the line moves to the correct offset distance. no shortcut req'd.

HTH

I'm now using gradient 4 to 0 and it's awesome. I like it a lot. I also made my origin white and the area behind the ribbon bar black. It looks a lot more "me" I have it set to horizontal as well. I tried setting it to diagonal, but the red is so overpowering It looks like 3/4 red and not half.

Cheers!

Had to teach a class with a white background. Drove me nuts. I like the blue and the black though.

Everyone loves a challenge.

on the other hand...

I've known people overseas who have cracked versions of catia, mcam, pro E, you name it. Teaching at a university using all pirated software. it's sad. I actually felt bad for those guys. a school in a third world country can't afford to buy the software, even at a discounted price. Their government is too busy stuffing their own pockets to know that their schools need help.

I have never understood why companies wouldn't buy legit copies of their software. it's a good investment. Oh well.

I turned off the simulation in Backplot and everything worked fine. I guess it's something in the simulation of the control's compensation.

Thanks Again Guys...

I don't know if it makes a difference, but I would think I would get the same error with computer comp on, were it a problem with cutter size vs. radius. The arc is a great deal larger than the cutter. I thought it might be a problem withthe lead in/out, but no problems there. I haven't tried wear comp.

I will try turning the simulation off, as I've been using the simulation this whole time, however, I don't see why this shouldn't work with simulation, I mean toolpaths don't get much simpler than this. Who knows.... Will update.

Has anyone seen this before?

Simple 2-D part with one contour toolpath. Computer compensation... No Problem. Switch to Control for compensation... Big problem. When backplotting, toolpath looks "choppy" and "jumpy". It looks as though I chained different entities all over the part one at a time. Eventually, I get an error telling me "illegal arc move: Location X(value) Y(Value) Z(Value)"

Any Ideas? If I'm doing something wrong let me know.

Is backplot not supported with compensation in control?

Thanks in advance. I messed with this all yesterday afternoon and finally gave up.

Thanks for the info guys,

Solved the problem by changing to a six digit output regardless of the Value of cc_pos.

Thanks again,

Thanks for the info guys,

Solved the problem by changing to a six digit outpot regardless of the calue of cc_pos.

Thanks again,

HTH?

current actual post output looks like this:

T000101 M06

I'm sure somebody's talked about this before but after 4 different searches I gave up and started a new topic.

If anyone knows where this has already been discussed, please let me know.

Thanks,

Hey Guys and Gals

I'm sure this is a duh, but I'm having trouble changing the tool output format to 6 digit a.o.t.

4 digit. The post is MPLOKUMA

I have changed the format statement to go 6 places instead of 4, and they are curently setup as leading.

What more can I do?

I have looked at the toolcommon section and it looks as though an if/then/else statement changes the output based on the value of CC_pos

How do I change this to output T010101 instead of t0101?

Thanks In advance

[ 07-15-2005, 02:46 PM: Message edited by: Eastech 1 ]

Jeff, Here are the changes I made.

First, I added these lines to the format statements.

# These formats used only for 'Date' & 'Time'

fs2 25 2.2 2.2lt #Decimal, force two leading & two trailing (time2)

fs2 26 2 0 2 0t #Integer, force trailing (hour)

fs2 27 0 2 0 2lt #Integer, force leading & trailing (min)

Then, I added these variable formats to the FMT statement list, commenting the date modifier

leaving the hour conversion operational:

# -------------------- Date & Time Formatting ------------------------------

fmt 25 time2 # Capture 24-hour time value into 'time2' variable

fmt 26 hour # Hour

fmt 27 min # Minutes

# Uncomment the 'fmt' for 'day' and/or 'month' if you only want 1-digit format

#fmt 26 day # Day (2 digit format)

#fmt 26 month # Month (2 digit format)

Finally, I changed the line in the post outputting the variable "time" to run a subroutine

instead called "ptime" which you could copy and paste below the subroutine that prints the

comment lines at the beginning of the NC file. When the post hits the line calling this

subroutine, it jumps down, runs this sub and prints the new time plus am or pm:

ptime #Turn 24-hour time format into AM/PM format

!spaces

spaces = zero

if time >= 13, time2 = (time - 12)

else, time2 = time

hour = int(time2)

min = frac(time2)

*hour, ":", *min,

if time > 12, " PM"

else, " AM"

spaces = prv_spaces

Sorry, I missed a 1...

1/2 inch tool .125 radius.

I appreciate the correction.

Jeff,

E-mail me the post you're using and I'll annotate the modificaton for you. I'd tell you how I change it on here, but I have only seen it done so I'll have to play. Basically you have to modify the format statements to give new variables and then write in a subroutine to calculate the conversion.

[email protected]

I can probably make the change quickly for you.

Thanks

Welcome Skyline.

Here at Eastech, I use the tutorials offered by IN-house to teach with. If you are good at independent learning, I'm sure you'd find them helpful. Inhouse also supports this forum, you might ask about them here. I'm not sure how you could get them. Your reseller prolly offers them.

I am working on a demo for a possible customer and need to find a bull mill for use on a CNC router. I have contacted onsrud and whiteside and belin, but I can't seem to find a place to get one. I would like to find a flat 1/2" total diameter with a .25 corner radius. If any of you router guys out there know where I can find this, I'd appreciate some advice.

Thanks,

I usually draw out 2-D so that I can have some visual reference to the part. It also helps in cases where I might have to do different tool paths onthe part later. It's hard for me to go back to a file later and know what I'm looking at when it's onmly a few drill points and a toolpath.

Thanks

Do you by any chance know which format statement it is and what the value should be changed to?

Thanks.