What version of Mastercam are you using?

Try these settings for your translations Method: Tool Plane -> Include origin I'd post the file but your MC version is older than what I'm using.

I don't think that you're going to be able to get it to do what you're looking for that way. You're other planes are just a visual aid at this point and not used for anything. When you mirror your path, it's using that original tool path plane which is why you're getting the wonky Y values. If you're doing something this simple I would just program each part individually using the planes. If you were doing something more complicated you could translate the toolpath up to the opposite side of the G55 part, then mirror that, and it should give you the correct numbers. I could be out in left field here but my head tells me that this isn't going to work.

I don't know what's out there anymore having been stuck on MC for the last 15 years. How many CAM systems have a 1 click easy setup sheet button that doesn't require paying for or learning how to tailor it to your liking? TS has a pretty nice setup sheet but required a LOT of work to get it to look how you wanted. Even then, it wasn't one click. You still had some work to do.

I actually don't mind it. Does it do everything that I'd like it to, no, it's definitely not perfect. But it's free and you can design a pretty nice setup sheet with it if you spend some time learning how to use it. I've never reached out to anyone but I would guess that you could pay to have one made that looks pretty professional? Yes, that's very annoying,

Which is why I said "it doesn't look like it". It's just a coincidence that was where my mouse was hovering when I hit print screen.

Doesn't look like it

I've been asking for this for years. Seemed like the reason they haven't done anything about it has been explained but it's been so long ago I can't remember what that was.

I learned that lesson years and years ago. Make a backup, and then back up the backup. I'll usually have 3 versions of MC installed at the same time. Some times that feels like a waste of space. But some times it doesn't.

You don't really need a hole axis. Just use wireframe and create a line normal to a point, select the surface (solid face) and a point. You can put the point anywhere and still figure everything out. I believe that you're right but I haven't tested that in mastercam. I do that occasionally in TopSolid if I want to save some time. Before we had T/S I had to figure out how to do this in MC without the math. We were doing this a LOT and my math skills leave a lot to be desired.

I don't know if this is what you're looking for Read through that and see if it is. It's certainly not an easy button but it works to get the rotation if you're trying to mill (or drill) a compound angle and you're stuck on a vertical machine with only a one axis tilt table.

You can create the plane that you want to use for the section view and then 'edit' the plane while still in the section view and move it in a single direction dynamically. That might give you close to what you're looking for. When you move the plane it will move the section view along with the plane.

In the arc filter I clicked 'output 3d arc entry motion' and it added the helix without doing anything else. I don't remember having to do that in the past (pre 2023). I'm on 2024 now but 2023 seems to do the same.

They probably are. Well, 25 year old skateboard stoners.

Not too old. I've been programming since I was 18 years old. I got kinda lucky. The shop I worked for at the time just fired their programmer who just happened to be the owners son. I told the owner that i was willing to come in after work and learn the programming system on my own time. After a couple of months I was programming parts for them and have been programming ever since. I had no official training on Cimatron. That was a difficult system to learn. I had to figure that one out with no training and no help.

Cimatron had just started their attempt at adding solids to Cimatron iT. Their sketcher was so horrible that it wasn't even worth trying to use them. I'd been surface modeling everything using Cimatron up to that point but even with the horrid sketcher, you could see the advantages to using Solids. When we purchased Gibbs, someone talked to us about Solidworks. We'd never heard of it. We got a demo and purchased it almost immediately. When I talk about people using Mastercam the way they did back in the old versions, I do the same with Solidworks. I learned how to use it in it's early days and now, having not had any updated training, suck with it. Or at least compared to someone who's been properly trained. Lots has changed, added, etc. since those early days Prior to that, it was all Smartcam for me. I'd been using Smartcam since 1988 or so. Man have we derailed this topic or what?

We purchased Gibbs the year that they moved to PC. I can't even remember what year that was. We purchased Solidworks around that same year so I assume that it was around 1996.

They'd been using the software since the very early days. I've talked to people during the V9 era who learned how to use the software that way and still did. One of the guys was doing some contract work for us and training a kid who no longer works for us to use Mastercam. That was the way that he used it. I think that he'd also been using it since Mastercams early days. We purchased MC about a year before X came out. For the record, we were also an early adopter of Gibbs. Back when we were using Cimatron it had no lathe module to speak of.

If I thought that there was enough people still participating on the forum to matter I'd make a poll to see who does and doesn't create multiple job operations under a single machine group and who doesn't. I'd be curious to know how others are using the software.

I've only had a few minor sit-ins. No official training. When I sat in with the local resellers we were trying to get to the bottom of some bugs I was encountering. I was doing fairly large assemblies back in those days as well and by the time I would get about 4 parts and 20 operations (machine operations, not tool path operations) deep, you couldn't open the part file without it crashing.

I know that you "can". I'm asking because if that is the way the software is intended to be used, it makes sense at least as to why they are steering the software in that direction and we're probably not going to have a choice but to just get used to it.

Is this the way the software is intended to be used? When you go in for official training, is this how they train you to use it? I've never used the software that way. The only time I use separate machine definitions is if I'm working on either different material, needing to use a different library of tools, an operation is on a different machine (vertical vs horizontal). I've spent a little time with the local reps but it was way back in the X6 era and they told me that in the old days, every operation was a different part file. ugh. Messing with X, at least on the parts we were working on at the time, they had me create the different operations under the same machine definition. Back then, the software would crash if you had too many things going on so..

It's total b/s. They've been leading the software in a direction that made sense for having multiple operations under one machine definition and then ripped the carpet out. lol Hopefully they plan on adding toggles to the fixture area so you can add the levels and then toggle them on and off. That would be a lot better than what they have now.

I have other minor complaints as well, but this is exactly what I've been complaining about for the last several days.

I've already started to find some annoying bugs but nothing has been bad enough that I wouldn't want to use the software. Other than the new annoyance discussed in the other thread, I don't mind 2024. For an initial release that was pushed out as fast as it was, it seems pretty solid so far. There are a xxxx ton of bugs in 2023 even after the updates. I'd say that 2024 is no worse so far.