Do you mean you want the machine to be stationary and you would like to drill holes so that just the table rotates? . First of all I think it would be the C-axis as C rotates around Z. In the drill cycle there is a tab Axis Control / Rorary axis control. In Rotation type click 3-axis (rotate about Z-axis) Gracjan

Well this brings around a new topic. The last version of Mastercam with a bible attached (Mastercam Reference Guide)is what ?. Yes I am talking about that 831 paged thing last seen in X5. That is where you would think to find info like this. But it seems we do not need one anymore , otherwise we'd have one. A teacher from a local college (newbie) asked how can he learn to use Mcam. I directed him towards the X5 doc . it's like sex, you have to learn it on the streets )). Right now learning Mcam requires one to look in Youtube, Googling, etc. You'll find a tidbit here, tidbit there. Gracjan

A few versions back Mr.Apro did a reshuffle of the five-axis suff we had in Mcam. before that you had the Mastercam stuff and then you had the Moduleworks stuff . All this is has been rehashed and put into a blender. X4 was the last seperate version. Now with the moduleworks stuff everything relative to the coordinate system like retracts will not be based on your WCS ,but on a WCS whose Z direction is the same as the one when you open a fresh Mcam. everything will work but you'll have to do readjust your thinking. So my strategy is if have a small job (an hour or so ) I won't move/rotate my stuff, but on the biggies ( expensive, big stuff, many days of programming ) I save the part to a seperate new file reorient it so the original Top is my Top and concentrate on the job itself. Gracjan

Somebody on the beta forum told this neat trick ( once we are on the plane topic.) If you are creating a new plane with , say "Planes by geometry" and you are picking a flat surfcae , 2 lines or an arc , Mastercam will want to move the origin of this new plane to a new point. If you want this point to coincide with the origin of your WCS , when picking the origin of the new plane : 1. choose the "select new origin button" 2. NOW FROM THE PLANES MENU choose "Top". Now from the Auto cursor ribbon choose "Origin" and the origin of the new plane will always coincide with your WCS without even having to have it in your field of vision. Gracjan

Mastercam X8 , I reset the tolerances to 0.0001 , used the inch version, turned off display surface /plane intresections and used the ramdrive as suggested on the first pages. (the ramdrive did nothing special for me ) Self made PC , 16 GB memory , 64 bit windows 7 , Intel i7 - 2600K cpu 3.4 GHZ According to the event log 54.522s and the second time around 4.24 sec. The graphic card was definitely around 70Euro (100 USD) The processor was 220 E (300 USD) The memory was 172 E (USD 220) The mainboard was 80E (100USD) , the rest was old stuff , all in all a PC for 700 USD and X8 and a response time of 54 secs and people on processors I only see on American processor films ( ) and ancient X2 are reporting times as good as 30 min. Summary : I am very happy with my life . Gracjan