Here is a video of what is going on. It is 2.1 megs or about. My problem is, there is an unbelievable amount of air cutting going on. This seems like it should be a very basic pocketing routing with an island. There must be a more efficient way to do this? Video

quote: James... set up the backup ultilty in Setting/Config/Files and you won't have this problem... It works very well.. This has saved my A$$ more times that I can tell you. I have several minor crashes a week in Mastercam but I seem to have one major crash a month and this utility has saved my butt.

Can you still get the X2 version?

quote: Occasionally the question of how to control a toolpath that is cutting ares where stock does not exist any longer arises. I placed on the FTP a file TRIMMING SAMPLE.MCX This shows a rough pocket path and then the same rough pocket path trimmed to a boundary. As you can see the inefficient path with many watsed moves, now becomes and effective and efficient toolpath. Hope this helps someone. I find myself using this more and more lately.

quote: I have the same dilemna regularly. High Speed Core is what I have been ending with most. Sometimes I need to play with the containment bounderies. I agree that the toolpath is not as efficient as I would like but I can usually tweak setting to get it 'good enough'. Beats laying out roughing paths by hand. Also seems to work better when the roughing tool is relatively small in comparison to the part. Your method of backplotting a surface contour toolpath, offsetting and redriving is what I usually do when the cutter is relatively large compared to the part.That is exactly what the deal is. Our rougher is a 2" diameter Ingersol rougher and there are places that its hard to contain it while roughing the areas that need it. Its the only tool we own that has the length we need and it is very rigid. A smaller tool would give me a fraction of the problems. Ive been settling for the HSS core roughing when it doesnt get too out of control but on the configurations of this part that I get allot of wasted moves or large lead in's ive been saving the tool path to geometry and just using 2d contour which gives me 100% control of the path. That works very good but is allot of work for what should be a simple roughing routine. quote: Dave, Give Steve at Cimtech a call. There is a new toolpath Chook available for 2D roughing that is incredible for material removal. I think it is exactly what you are looking for. I could come and give you a demonstration of it if you want... Thanks for the info Colin. I may just give him a call. Im guessing that this isnt a free chook? 2-D meaning that it wont use surfaces?

I guess your signature says it all. Thanks again for the help.

quote: Check it out Mastercrash. That's easy money! I'd rough out most of the Matl. 2d. If the surface has an angle. surface it. You want to make one toopath to finish the job for you. You asked for advise from a .jpeg. I'd have that in the machine roughing and I'd be writting my surface toopaths.... You want me to program it for you? Thanks for the sarcasm. Im not wanting one tool path to finish the job for me. Im wanting a tool path that is efficient and that doesnt require a ton of extra work. There is nothing on this part that needs to be surfaced. Thats a waste of time. I have fixtures built at compound angles to take care of all of the finishing operations. What I want is an efficient solution to rough these out. As I said, weve made these before. I already have very good and efficient programs that came out of a different system. Im trying to get the same out of this one and at the same time learn something so "no" I dont want you to program them for me but thanks for the offer. I cant upload the file for advise so how would you expect me to get the file to you for programming? Thanks for pointing out that I asked for advise from a jpeg. I hadnt realized that . Thats why I explained that the ears are at compound angles. I truly wish that I could put the files on the ftp site as it would make it allot easier to get advise but I cant. Thanks for all the great responses though, I really appreciate it. [ 10-01-2008, 02:32 PM: Message edited by: Neurosis ]

I dont know that you can see in these pictures, but the ears and posts are at compound angles. Kicking it up @ 90 deg and milling it 2d still doesnt get the job done. quote: Well I would then HST core rough them using the part as the STL and life should be good. I pretty much got the best usable tool path using HST core rough but it was still very inefficient. Does it help to add an STL? I played with the settings for a long time to get the tools to rough the entire post but it always would leave material where I didnt want it. If I use the stock as a containment boundry, it leaves tons of stock where I dont want, but if I offset that containment boundry it adds several air cuts. I guess this has been my dilemma.

We have a 4th axis but its not available to be used right now. They will be roughed out sitting with the base down and the ears up. We have fixturing for the posts and holes already. We've made these parts before but they were programmed in a different system. Im in the process of moving our old part files over to mastercam as the jobs come up but I would like the tool path to be at least as efficient as before if not better. So far it hasnt come close "im sure its my lack of experience with mastercam". There have been allot of wasted moves and problems with the stock. I will eventually move this job to a 4th axis but for now its just not an option. I would love to share the part files if I could but they are for a customer that doesnt allow it. [ 10-01-2008, 11:14 AM: Message edited by: Neurosis ]

Ive been playing with these for a while. I can get the material off of these with no problems, but all of the tool paths that ive tried have made either very inefficient toolpath or dont give very good results in some way. The base of these have been machined already so just the material around the posts need to be removed. They are being roughed on a vertical mill with no rotation and this operation is just to remove as much material as fast as possible. Ive tried surface rough pocket and surface high speed core which actually gave me the best results but at the same time created very inefficient tool path. My final best result was to create a surface rough contour, save the geometry, and use that geometry to create 2d profiles. That gave me the best control, the most efficient tool path, but was far too much work for the 20 different dash numbers of these parts that I have to make. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Flikr imageshack

Did you ever get any help on this? Ive read some back posts on indexes with M-codes but havent had much luck getting it to work correctly myself. It already sounds like you are doing better than I did. Ive been trying to keep my eye on these posts to see if I could learn anything.

quote: This thread is pretty embarassing - Im embarrassed just for reading it. Although I had to give this credit for most humorous.

Can you get the helix bore to "not" helix down for the finish pass? Ive already played with the helix bore but havent been able to get it to work properly.

quote: Or leave stock with your current path and copy it. then go to depth and remove the extra five or ten on the walls. Thats what ive been doing now but when you have several holes to do that are the same size it gets monotonous. If there were any real pattern to the holes I would just transform the operation but there isnt.

Ive been playing with different ways to ramp a hole and run a finish pass around. I love the way the circle mill tool path works but wish that there was a way to change the feed rate for the finish pass around the hole diameter. Is there a way to do this using the tool path editor without having to change the feed rate at every point? Or can someone suggest a different path that will accomplish the same thing with a slower feed rate for the finish pass?

Has X+ ever been fixed to be able to use the Open Office spread sheet?

quote: in your transform op....select type: *transform -tool plane only method: *tool plane group NCI...: *operation type *copy source op *disable posting *subprogram *absolute work offset # *assign new start -1 increment 1 this should get your toolpaths to post out grouped together by tool change. if not you may need to dig into your post processor I just ran in to this same situation and remembered reading this post a while back. I figured that it came in handy so I would shoot a thank you as well. Thanks.

Im going to install the most current download and see if this helps then I'll repost if I still have a problem. [ 08-11-2008, 10:00 AM: Message edited by: Neurosis ]

quote: Hi Dave, Roger hit the nail on the head. Backplot will be the easiest way to find the toolpath/depth you are hunting for. There is also the option to use the "restrict drawing" button to clear away the preceding toolpaths from the backplot screen so you can work with just a portion of the backplot being displayed. For another trick, once you've found the toolpath you are looking for, you can quickly save the toolpath 'as geometry' to a temporary level. This will allow you to be able to go into another toolpath and use the selection functions on the right click menu to quickly grab depths from this temporary geometry. If you are interested we could do another short Saturday session and I could help you figure out the tricks and features that will make your programming life a lot easier. Thanks, Hey Colin. As usual your input is helpful and appreciated. Allot of the tricks to get what I need I understand and have either been shown or have figured out but as always people always want an easier solution. That being said....... One of these days I do plan on getting together with you again. Im still waiting for a job to come in that is worthy of having a sit in with you. Once again I dont plan on you doing my job for me but your input is helpful and worth the time.

quote: I don't believe anyone will get flamed for this. This initial question certainly "sounded" like something a bit different than what you guys are talking about. Im sorry for that. Im not very good at communicating . They know exactly what I am talking about.

Still no word on an official X3 release date I take it? At the Tech Expo they said the middle of July. I havent heard anything since.

It would be nice to be able to set "slow down in corner's" in single operations rather than only the whole Machine Group.

quote: When your programmin just add comments to your ops so you can Identify them. Ill label Dims or DATUMS so I can find them. There is no doubt that if I were more organized in creating my construction geometry and spent more time labeling levels and keeping geometry seperated no only by machine and tool path groups, but by even operations, this wouldnt be an issue in the first place but some times there just isnt enough time to spare labeling every single thing that I do to make things easier to find in the end although once everything is done and I need to go back and make changes I regret not being more organized. quote: You can right click in op manager, choose "select" a window pops up click the arrow button by "geometry" it returns you to the screen, select the geometry you want,click the green "end selection button, the window comes back up with the number of ops using that geometry,click the green check mark and all ops in the op manager using that geometry are highlighted This still requires more steps than I would like at times especially if I have levels hidden or geometry blanked out to clear the clutter but Im glad that you mentioned this. That is a tool that I often forget is there. That select tool sure is handy.

quote: He means (opposite) click on one of your displyed toolpath lines and it tells you which op it is. so you don't have to turn them all off and open 1 at a time just to find it in your group Right Nuerosis? Rick Exactly! Even when you click the "only display associative geometry" button, you still have to open the operation to either check your depths, steps, etc (keep in mind im talking roughing operations only). Some times when I am 20 operations deep and in the middle of a new operation that I want to match a z depth to an old one, I have to close the operation and open a past operation to see my existing parameters (maybe there is a better way?) but if you were able to select the path in the graphics area to set z depths, angles of cuts, etc it would save a step. Even better, if you could have all tool path displayed at once and were able to just select the path itself and have it highlight the operation in the operation manager it would save some steps in figuring out which operation uses that geometry. Like I said.. wishing.