Does anyone remember oneyankfan1?

I have a soft spot for people who get frustrated with the software because I've been there. I'm not defending the attitude, but I do get the frustration. Having to rely on mounds of construction wireframe was one (not the only) of my biggest peeves although it's not needed nearly as much as it was when I started using the software. 2d area is an excellent suggestion. Unless you need to use cutter comp for some reason. You definitely get more bees with honey than vinegar.

Mine isn't turned on by default. I'm pretty sure that it never was but I can't tell you why or how.

Not necessarily. There *is* modern software out there that doesn't require you to create a bunch of wireframe to get it to do what you want. You have to re-calibrate your expectations of Mastercam. You can get it to do what you want, it just takes a little more work and/or a little more tinkering. I assume that this is the software that you're stuck with? If that's the case, you'll just have to suck it up and learn to work with what you have. This is a great place to get information but as you're probably noticing, an abrasive attitude probably isn't the best approach.

I know this is a dumb question but I have to ask. Are the z depths the same on both ends of the line? I just tried this and the line length works as I would expect it to.

Maybe not in those exact words? I do remember a lot of excuse making for software shortcomings back in the day. This is one area I'm surprised that in this amount of time, hasn't been addressed. Cimatron was able to do this back in the 90's without having to draw a bunch of extra geometry or rely on roughing operations. It's a simple 2d contour and you shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get it to not cut a bunch of air. How much air cutting to you see TopSolid doing when using 2d contour? /putting on the flame suit and waiting for the ole adage "a programmer never blames his tools".

I think that you have to do this through the operation defaults in the control definition file now. It's a little convoluted but I "believe" it will stay checked if you set it there.

It looks like they might be using spiral as the cutting method? If so, it doesn't filter very well.

Is this the link posted in the sticky threads?

If we ever get stock recognition for 2d contours we'll be unstoppable.

Lets just say, I've used a lot better. Cimatron's transform toolpath back in the 90's worked better and was more functional. It doesn't look like much has been added to MC's transform since the early days of X and I've had major issues with it in the past. Issues that have caused near crashes on mirrored tool paths. It was quite a few years back but I seem to remember it removing all of the clearance moves on the mirrored path.

The transform in MC is worse than most other software I've used. While I have used it for convenience on rare occasion, I don't use it very often. I've had more issues with it than not and it's just not very robust. If it were better, I would use it more often. It would be nice if they would add 'transform by point pattern' so you could remove transform points when needed.

It feels like they've changed the way that works. I've always used TOP for creating sock models and then moved everything around as needed. I've noticed a difference between 2023 and 2024 but couldn't put my finger on it because of the way I use it. they've broken some of these things so many times that I try to find something that will work long term and stick with it.

The software is really good. I couldn't in good faith recommend it to smaller shops like ours. If you're in a position that you can absorb the added costs the software is pretty amazing.

When we purchased it, they told us that any posts that had already been developed would be free to us. A few years in they yanked all of our posts except for one and told us that we would have to pay a fortune for the machine definitions and posts to support our machines. I've hacked all of the post we use in MC so we get that for free. It just didn't make sense financially to support them under those circumstances when we had everything we needed with MC. As far as the two systems go, I'd much rather be using TS. If our shop didn't have so many different machines this may not have been an issue. We would have had to purchase 5 lathe posts and 4 mill at around 2k each. I tried to work with the US reseller on this since they sold us the software under the assumption that we would always have access to those posts but they wouldn't work with us on it. I don't want to xxxx on TS too much. They made a flawless post for our KME tombstone although that post broke with a software update and was never the same after.

I'm a little worried that in the future, when TS become a pain to run (discontinued maintenance) we're going to pick SW back up for our modeling. I don't know if I'll remember how to use it. lol.

I do but I'd rather be able to do everything inside of MC. I wouldn't want to see the current tools inside of MC disappear obviously. There are times that I import things in to MC and need to move them around. That's where the assembly functionality would be nice. Using TopSolid (or some other true full cad/cam systems) kinda spoils you. We dropped maintenance on TopSolid last year. I would imagine that eventually we won't be able to continue running it as operating systems get updated.

I wouldn't mind if it had those things as well. Or at least solid assembly functionality. It would sure make my job easier. Dynamic transform is great but constraints sure would be nice.

I started cleaning a shop. I was taught to clean the machines to the point that you could eat off of them. My work ethic reflected that through my career. I taught myself to program on my own time. I spent my own time asking people how to get better at what I do. This just isn't common anymore. Everyone feels like they're owed something

I have. lol. I use TopSolid to do all of my modeling. It's not quite as robust as SolidWorks but it's really nice. I'd rather do all of my programming and modeling in the same system. If I had it my way, we'd just use TopSolid for everything.

Wouldn't it be nice if MC had a decent sketcher for solid modeling?

I can tell you're old. Most of our setup sheets contained just that. Tools with pertinent tool info. Part origin, Any special needed notes. Pretty basic stuff. Over the last 5 years I keep getting complaints that they don't know how to hold the parts. What size parallels to use. I have to specify the exact end mill brand and part number. Insert grades. Exact tool holder. Which vise we need to use. I can't leave a single detail out or I get blamed by the operator for their incompetence. When I started in the trade, I think it was around my 3rd machinist job, I went to work for a guy who had his son doing the programming. They didn't even use setup sheets. We had to look at the programs (which were horrible) and figure everything out ourselves. Some of the programs has multiple height and diameter offsets on a single tool. They were terrible. If you crashed, the shop owner always said "who pushed the button". Man are those days gone. lol.

That's probably a good point, but from my experience, the arrogance makes it difficult to be objective. lol.

most of our work instruction/setup sheets over the years have been pretty simple. Now days I'm finding that you have to write a step by step manual on how to set a job up and run the parts. I think that I spend more time on setup sheets attempting to write instructions and snap shots of parts than I do anything else. Back when I started in the trade, everything was text and you had just enough info to set the job up. It's almost to the point now where you need a video of someone setting up and running the job. I guess that's what happens when you have a generation of "machinists" who watched a few titan video's and think they're ready to go pro.