Had exactly the same problem but just gave up X and placed it in the too hard basket until the New release full version comes out chris f QLD

I have engraving as part of the ART add on. What I want to do is use a flat end cutter to remove large amounts of "flat floor" sections of the part I wish to engrave, to speed the process. The help file says quote " If you use a flat bit to rough out a cavity and plan to remachine the corners, enter an angle that matches the V-groove tip. This will offset the flat bit to match the position of the engraving bit so that the roughing pass does not gouge the engraved edge." unquote. What does this mean IE: I want to use a 10mm strait cutter which does not have a tip radius, and is flat on the bottom, so what would the " angle to add " be ? thanks in advance chris f of the

Yogesh, it was during an Art session when I was trying to "machine up to boundary" I am still not able to use this function on any of my computers as soon as I alter the machining from anything IE parrallel spiral to "up to boundary" I get spectacular crashes and no CNC do not know what the trouble is I am constantly trying to find ways around thie, because it would save a lot of wasted machine time. regards chris f

Just thought I would update my drama. I tried to reload the Ver9 Hasp utility to get the "new update" to work, this of course was after going to the MC site and downloading the hasp utility mentioned above and doing what was requested which was to double click the .bat file. Now nothing works and when I click on Ver9 it tells me I hav'nt paid for maintenance so contact my MC reseller.( yeah right) Fortunately I have been able to restore my windows complete platform to about an hour ago which took me right back to where I was before I tried to "Update MCX" well the update is definitly not going to get installed as I do not have the time or the patience to fix MC disasters, I am really beginning to wish I had not bought this cadcam program. A quick message to CNC systems, get the staff responsible for this ongoing fiasco and either get them to pick up their game or fire the losers, there are enough unhappy users of your product in this forum already, and I am sure the opposition are laughing all the way to the bank with the huge amount of new customers they are getting without any effort on their part.

No Yogesh, brand new HP pentium 4 with WIN XP 2 Gigs of ram definitly a MC error

I downloaded the update, and ran it, and at the same time it was installing I closed an email, I then got the error, about the installation being "disturbed" try again, so I did and it seemed to load OK, now X works great BUT VER9 wont work and cannot find the hasp. My 2 cents say's if I release an update that is about to cause this unnessacery problem ( bearing in mind that I cannot use X because MCART is not able to run on X yet?? I hear december 15)I would DEBUG the UPDATE first ""BEFORE"" I sent it out, I think it sucks bigtime to say in the udate email: ** PLEASE NOTE: Due to an issue with the SP1 installation, you may lose your HASP connection after running this update. Removing your HASP while running this update will make it much less likely this issue will occur. If this happens, download, extract, and run drivers.bat from this location: http://www.mastercam.com/Support/Downloads...s/drivers_x.zip I did remove the hasp, and yeah great for X but who forgot to tell the UPDATE GENERAL that there are still a bunch of us using 9. I have fixed this before on SP1, (and will fix it again) but it frankly is tiresome and irrisponsible when the "worlds Number 1" can't get it right in an update. chris f

I got the following error today "Allocation of a new chunk of memory (1132 bytes)has failed. Please free up memory or increase your swap memory" What the hell does it all mean??? yes the programme crashed remarkable with heaps of screens being generated till eventually I pressed the reset button on the PC CHris f

I use Coral suit 12 and I have not had any dramas converting to vectors and the "save as DXF" and MC reads it perfectly, maybe send my your file and I will have a go for you chris f

Bernie, I tried that it did not work CIMCO said the same use a whole lot of zero's

RobertF no it is the same problem as my first post in this thread, I have had numerous other issues with drip feeding this controller but found the solution in that 2 integrated circuits had burnt out, this is a continuation as I try to get the complete drip feed working and it seems as if I am to get a new problem as soon as I get to find the solution to the last one. chris f

No Thad, and thanks chrism, it is a second hand machine 11 years old I bought and it would seem as if no one knows what the situation is. I spoke to NUM USA today ( for the 1 millionth time) and they said just use M2 I tried M2 and removed the whole of the end of the program and many other ideas including the %, nothing works. It is as if the buffer is full, and the NC gets a signal from the PC to say "OK, you have all the program" and it shuts down the DNC link ( as you would expect) and this shutdown is resulting in the CNC stalling and generating 30 error code , which according to the esteemed documents means "DNC fault". Also, I have not mentioned that if I take the exact same program and load it into memory and run it from the CNC ( not drip feed DNC) it runs perfectly well and everything is good. The problem is the NC can only hold about 280K bytes of program and my programs are around 1 to 2 megabytes each. IT is currently running a drip feed as we speak and the PC says that it has sent 22289 lines to the NC and that there are 9674 lines remaining. It will crash when there are around 1000 lines left, at which stage I will cut and paste the last 1500 lines ( to be sure) into a new NC file and run that in the NC's memory to complete the job. It is a right P in the A. thanks chrisf

I am having some drama in DNC in that my machine when drip feeding as the PC finishes feeding the information the CNC crashes and stops. I think I need to tell the CNC that the feed is over and according o the program manual I need to program M2 and then XOFF in the last line. How the heck do you program XOFF, I tried entering a manual program on the controller but when I enter XOFF ( I have a key that says XOFF) it cancells all that I have been doing. I tried typing XOFF in the last line of ASCII does not work either. For info NUM 750 control SCM Record router, any ideas???

My 2 cents. Pay the maintenance and stick with MC they have been damn good to me with anything I have had issues with and very helpful and NO they did not insist I go to my reseller first. Yes, I was tempted to throw in the towell in the beginning and go to an opposition product, but if you want to do that, do what I did and first have a good read of their forum (if they have one?)and you will find there are as many complaints about the same stuff that you find complaints about here. I say stay with MC. chris f

Bob, would you machine say a 3/8 inch tool to start with and then go to a 1/4 to finish, obviously leaving say 1/16 to final, last question one pass for the 3/8 and 1/4 or multiple depths? board is high density fibreboard ( read chip board). thanks chris f

I ( thought this would be a simple search but it seems the site search engine is very poor ( maybe they should contract Google to set it up properly), I typed in "size of tabs for router", nothing found, so I typed in "tabs for router", nothing, then " tab for router", nothing, then "tabs" nothing and then "tab" and a bit of post queries and other miscellaneous info was profered, hopeless. Anyway, I would like some advice as to the best method to use for tabs on 16mm particle board and 16mm plywood smallest part is 30mm by 235mm I normally pitch then 12 mm apart and use a 6mm up spiral cutter and leave a 10mm X 2.5mm tab at 4 points. The router runs at 18000 and the feed 6000mm per minute I take 3 cuts before full depth is reached and then after all routines are completed I remove tabs. thanks chris f

I have been using CIMCO max 5 for the last couple of weeks and almost run out of demo time. It is truly a great addition, and I want it, but anyone know what is the normal retail price?

Phil, your logo looks interesting do you guy's make reels, and incidently if you are interested I can do a few file for you in art and then you can see if it may suit your purpose, feel free to send me some details. You would not believe it I had the thermal relay for the inverter crap out today but I have just fittes a new Siemans so maybe we work tomorrow. regards chris f

Thaks for the kind words Phil, Mastercam ART is basically really easy to use and I have had a "private" training session with Iven from MC over the net using SKYPE (phenomenal program check it out www.skype.com). The biggest hassle is getting the geometry from JPEG to Entities as there are so many things that influence the outcome, which results im hundreds of open chains even though they white up when selected they do not have to be complete? If I had a wish it would be for me to be able to get MC to JOIN an entity to form a complete chain when I select it, in other words I know what I want to select and I highlight it. but if for some odd reason it is not in perfect 2D flat and on importing it somehow decides to create a "half level" seperated into a different layers the chain turns white but then trying to toolpath it is impossible and you have to anylise chain/endpoints and it can take many hours to fix some broken chains. I do not know why there is not an easier way, it seems darn hard, particularly if you use the pictures/geometry that I am trying to use which is very complex. I fooled with a new software program on download free and it has no difficulty when selecting the chains, MC seems to be too picky. BOBART was also easy Anyway, no sense moaning, no one gives a damn and I have paid for the program ( and maintenance which got me X but ART does not work on ART so it too is non functional at this time). My current drama ( boy am I having them) was the inverter on the CNC decided to pop a few capacitors because of inferior quality and they leaked onto the circuit board causing a short. Well believe me when the NC control says "Inverter not OK" that in itself was a mission from hell to troubleshoot. Well I got the inverter repaired this morning, it worked great for about 1/2 hour and now it is generating a different error, so here we go again. I am beginning to think that GOD does not want me to make this $200K project work and go get a real job, tha tis of course if I can get out of debtors jail first. Repair man just fixed it, another thermal relay playing up, no even on the inverter, but it is fixed so maybe we can try to machine some artwork. have a great day. kind regards chris f

Hi All, I got a bit of an interesting job today, ( first time) to machine a large sign out of 5mm FOAMALUX produced by Brett Martin company. I followed the feeds and speeds on their website to the letter and after a few tools had broken and I had melted the cut material back into the groove, slowed down the feed.VIS: 3/16 upcut 2 flute solid carbide, 18000 rpm feed reduced to 1000mm per minute, and used compressed air to blow on the tool the whole time, eventually got the job done. Here are the questions: 1. What tools should I have used. 2. Do I need air for cooling or was this just an incorrect tool choice. 3. I have an opportunity to do a lot of this including machining ABS what should I be doing to get, a) a faster cut, the above took ages, and a clean finish. thanks in advance. chris f

And the final tale in the saga. Just today I decided I had, had enough, so I rang around the country and finally got a recomendation to "CNC Man" in Brisbane ( my home town). He came over and after a lengthly explanation of what has transpired, he said, " I think your problemn is in the card, although I have never worked on a NUM before, do you think you can remove the communication card do we can have a look". He is a man of many years on FANUC. Once I had removed the card, he took a look and said " this card is almost the same as the FANUC unit and these two little IC's which are the recieve and transmit IC's give a lot of problems , and I happen to have a few of them in my car, lets replace them and see what happens." We replaced the 2 IC's, replaced the card and BINGO, all is working well, drip feeding with all the software programs. So it is a big thanks to CNC man and to everyone that tried to assist. Incidently the IC's cost $0.65 cents each. regards to all chris f

Ilearne a few new things bringing in Autocad DWG: XFORM, Squash, gets rid of crappy geometry where on importing some of the files I have imported have not all been pn the same level, this takes care of it. Secondly when chaining go to options and select IGNORE DEPTHS this effectivly filters level issues. THird when generating a toolpath, make sure you reduce the default linearisation tolerance on the parameters page to 0.025 ( more than adequate for a router) this reduces the tool path size. Hope these helped chris f

And the latest episode in the ever, unfolding drama of DNC. I have finally got a computer which has the following specification. Pentium 11 MMX, WIN98, and I have loaded the NUMCOM software. I have spent the whole day running test programs to try to get the CNC to run a DNC drip feed,NO SUCCESS and here is why. The tests I did were firstly to ensure that communications with the CNC could firstly be established, so I set up the communications software exactly as the documentation said, COMM 1, Baud rate to Receive 9600, rate to transmit 9600, handshake Yes, exit to dos shell NO. I checked the input to the NC control and placed the 25pin serial plug directly into the PER port as you had said, I also checked the baud rate on TX and RX to 9600, the cable I used from the PC to the CNC is 1 and a half metes long ( very short ) and is a fully shielded cable, all pin outs are as per the NUM sheets. I then set the PC COMM port to 7, Even, 1, and Hardware and disabled the FIFO buffer. I then went to the CNC and transmitted a program from the CNC to the PC which was received, no problem. I checked the layout of the program which was one of the machine origin setting programs to ensure that I did not have syntax issues. I then generated a small program 6000 bytes and sent this to the CNC without any problems. I then generated large program 1.5megabytes and then went through the following. 1. On the CNC pressed Load, 0 from tape, LF, Cyc start, the program appeared on the CNC screen and loaded well until the Buffer overran and the machine generated an error which I expected to happen as I had not set the DNC mode, this was a test to see whether the program would load or if there may be any other issues, there were none. 2. I then set the CNC to Load, 3, PPR, LF, CyC start, the CYC light came on and I then went to the PC and selected 4 send ASCII program, selected the large program and pressed enter, the CNC started and continued to " machine"( I had set the board height above the table to allow for air machining so as not to have to concentrate on this part of the events. The machine ran well for around 2600 lines of code and then stopped and generated the Error 30 code, ( DNC fault) the PC in the mean time continued to send data without stopping. 3. To cut a whole day of disappointment to a few lines, I repeated the same procedure over and over and still only got about 2600 lines of feed before the CNC stopped, I tried altering the Baud rate to 4800, as well as altering the rest of the settings on both the PC and the CNC and only was able at best to gain about a 10% improvement, But the fact remains that the PC continues to send irrespective of whether the CNC tells it to or not, In other words there is NO HANDSHAKE coming from the CNC. The above procedure was also repeated using CIMCO 4, CIMCO 5 DNC max, CADEM NT 1 DNC. I have probably run this test over 100 times with all the possibilities I could use. The facts are that the PC sends the Data and the NC can read it but the PC sends too much data and is not being told to wait. ALL of the software packages appear to have a similar outcome, in that all of them, stopped at some stage and I am absolutely convinced that the fault is in the NUM NC controller on the machine not sending a handshake I have tried Xon X off, hardware, software, none and even both without any success . Where do I go from here,? Chris F

This is for Ron, check out the drama I am getting with all DNC programs DNC CIMCO MC9 posted by Vamvany elswhere on this forum. I am about to try WIN 98 hopefully tomorrow. What I will say is that CIMCO have been fantastic in trying to help, and DNC max would be awesome if I could get it to work, as it has a very good backplot feature which works almost instantaneously, so if in doubt when calling up an old program, you can run the backplot screen ( about 100 times faster than the MC backplot) and hve a good look at the result before sending it to the CNC. It also has a heap of other great features and I would buy it no matter what the price, if I could get it to work for me. good luck chris f

I just received an update from MC re patch for X SP1, I loaded as requested and then my V9 version could not find the hasp and would not run, X was OK, so after a lot of screwing around and the computer crashing ( WIN XP) it generates an error report to send to Microsoft. So I send it and I get routed to the Microsoft page which informs me I have a problem with a Device driver (MC update, probably updated the HAsp driver), and I should re load the driver to an earlier driver that works. So I try to "Hasp Setup " in V9, then nothing worked not even X. I then went into X and " Hasp Setup " and it tells me that it is replacing driver 3.4 with 3.25 ( basically a rollback) I continue and it re-establishes the "old " device driver and now everything is working again. Is there a glitch/bug int he new patch.? Any comments appreciated. chris f

I downloaded CIMCO 5 DNCMAX today and gave it a run. I tested the serial "cable" using a loop back ( there is no way to test the CNC connection, or I could not find it) and it went through all the tests perfectly saying I had a BAUD rate of 115K and all tests were OK. I then connected the CNC and ran a long program, the CTS RTS ETC.lights on the send panel all light up and ocasionally the CTS would go off ( to me indicating a stop flow) and then relight up. The CNC crashed at around 1200 lines. I checked everything and re ran over and over, same problem. Took the same program, unaltered, and ran it to the CNC using CADEM and I got 30,000 lines before it too overflowed the buffer. Bought a new hard drive today and unfortunately have lost my copy of WIN 98,( try buying that these days) thank god for EBAY, so I hope to have the software and the NUM com for next week. Level of sanity is about zero. Thanks to all who have tried to assist. chris f