All, Upon Mastercam crashing this Crash report dialog should appear. When you send these in, they are sent direct to a FTP site (no e-mail) where they will be logged and looked at. If you can duplicate the crash repeatedly, then please e-mail [email protected] with instructions and files so we can reproduce the problem as well.

Mike, Send the files to [email protected]. HArd to say what is causing the problem without debugging the whole post. Use the Zip2Go utility so we get the MD/CD as well.

I'm going to assuem you have set the T/C pane and Work offset correctly. check you misc integer settings for the operartion. Most posts use MI1 to control output of G54 or G92. There is a ug in X where the Misc Values are not being set from the post correctly.

For those experiencing high volume of crashes, I know one is to many but stay with me here, what functions are you performing when crashing??? What are your hardware stats, specifically your graphics card and RAM?? I've had people experiencing high volumes of crashes actually replace their graphics cards (many times they did not meet minimum specs) and the crashes go away. For SP1, when Mastercam crashes a crash report dialog will be displayed allowing you to send a report to CNC Software. Please do so as we will be suing these reports to track down some of these non reproduceable crashes. These reports will contain some debug information that we can use to track down the problems and in some cases actually recreate the crash.

Ron, You should be able to do the same thing without editing the MTB and just use the tools in customize. For example. Open customize, go to the Drop down tab and add a new drop down. Now add all the surface functions/icons to the Drop down. Once compelte you just drag the newly created drop down to the toolbar area createing a new toolbar. This new toolbar now has one icon which is a drop down icon containing all the surface functions you add. If I read your first post correctly, this should do the exact same thing as you did without editing the MTB and possibly making a mistake in the editing of the MTB. If I misuderstood something let me know and I'll see if I can scome up with another answer.

SLJ, In X if you enter or change the program number after the operations are created, you must regen the operations for this to take affect. The Zero you are getting is caused by the default being zero in the Machin Group. Either set this prior to creating operations or you will have to regen the operations everyime you enter or change a program number. Sorry!!!

When you enter the trim/break function make sure you depress the Trim to Point button (5 th button on the ribbon bar.) or you can just hit P on your keyboard to activate timr to point. Now select your entity and select a sketch position. The trim/break function allows you to timr/break to 1 entity, 2 entities, 3 entities, divide or to a point all from one function. A neat little tip about this funtion, is that upon entering the function you are already in generic timr which allows one or 2 entity trim without depressing one of the buttons on the ribbon bar. With this function trim 2 entities without depressing the 2 entity button select the first entity and double click the second entity and you will trim both.

There have been some parameter number changes for X and these are documented in the Post Parameter Refernce PDF which can be found in the documenation folder. There is a section on V9 to X parameter map which anyone with a V9 post that uses parameters should check through. The updatePost utility does NOT update these automatically so you must make the changes yourself. Also make sure that your Control definition has the "Write NC operaiton information" check box active so the Parameter OPS file will be created and used. This is under the Files topic. Here are the parameter changes that you need. code: # Parameter information lookup tables, see pparameter # -------------------------------------------------------------------------- fprmtbl 1 5 #Rough cut parameters 13343 depthcc #was 10200 10407 clearcc #was 10201 10202 xstckcc 10203 zstckcc 10214 directcc fprmtbl 2 4 #Finish cut parameters 13341 ncutscc #was 10100 10101 depthcc 10102 xstckcc 10103 zstckcc fprmtbl 3 5 #Groove cut parameters 13358 stepcc #was 10301 13138 directcc #was 10306 13352 dopeckcc #was 10312 10316 depthcc 13364 clearcc #was 10320 fprmtbl 104 4 #Thread cut parameters 10811 xmaj_thd #was 10411 10813 zstrt_thd #was 10413 10814 zend_thd #was 10414 10819 face_thd #was 10419

Psychomill is on the right track. post the pdrill and pdrill2 postblocks and we can fix this one as well.

Please exaplin locked up??? Is it the same error as stated in the first post???

I don't have a copy of this post, but the problem is simply the variables that control the output of the G88 and G99 are not being forced out and are remaining modal. Post the PTAP postblock here so I can look at it. It should be as simple as forcing out the variables (using a *) responsible for G88 and G99 (possibly sgdrill and sgdrlref respectively]

Now that is funny!!!

We are working on addressing this issue right now. Sorry for the headache.

If you go to the CDM do you then open an exising definition or create a new one. If you are creating a new one and then obviosuly there is no post selected. If you are loading a Control then make sure that you are editing the correct definition inside the control. To make a long story short, you can have many defintions inside of one control file. The product and post are the identifiers of each definition. So when you open a Control file for editing you need to check to see what is displayed in the post field. This should be your post and none or default. You can use the existing definitions button to select the right definition as well. As far as editing the operations setting from the CDM if you are in the operations defaults and then select another control topic without first saving the operation defaults file then you get the focus lost warning. The default operations ARE NOT stored in the CD, the CDM just allows editing these external files and selecting which one to assign to the CD so it will NOT automatically save changes when changing focus. Hope this helps.

There is a tech tip on Masteercam.com showing this process. Tech Tips

I'm not sure I understand what you are really asking for, but.... If you are using the tool manager to select a tool the tool will then be displayed in the toolpath parameters tool window and it is highlited blue which makes you think it is selected but it really isn't. If you continune editing the toolpath parameters without clicking on the highlited tool and save the toperation you will end up with the default tool which is a 1/2 inch endmill. So when importing a tool or tools from the tool manager, you still have to select a tool to be used in the operation. If this isn't the problem you are having, please try to explain the issue in more detail.

I know of a work around, but it's ugly. You can change the program number in the tool settings tab of the MGP and then regen the operations you want to have this new number. OR When creating operations, it will take the program number and write it to the oepration, so change the number as bove and create the new operation and it will have the correct program number. Now change the number and create a new operaiton and it will have that number and so on... I told you it was ugly. This is something that they are already working on fixing. I know it doesn't help you now... Sorry.

Mark, I'm only throwing out ideas seeing no one can reproduce this in house yet. Can you try another version of the graphics driver? Do you have an special effects on in the graphics properties? Things like fading dialogs, transparency, etc.. Are you using multiple monitors? If so does this happen on both? Did it ever work??? Can you click in the chain manager as if you were tyring to select a chain and see any highliting??? Could it be some other windows setting? Is your toolpath chain manager working??? What has me baffled is that the cahin manager dialog is all the same color (looking at your image) and not even a little white area where the chain list should be.. it's even missing the damn accept and help buttons. Can you right click anywhere in the dialog??? Have you unistalled and re-installed??? Was there a beta version on this system at some time?? Sorry for onslaught of ideas, I'm just throwing out some thoughts. We could try cleaning out your registry as well. If you want we can try a web meeting to see if something catches our eye. E-mail me direct to set something up [email protected]

James, Lou is correct with the setting in the CD. You are probably getting this because the post needs to read the parameters and the enable check box must be on for parameters to be written so the PST can read them. The spaces value is in the NC OOUTPUT topic.

John, Post yout ptkchg1002 and pretract postblock. Part of the N162 line had to come from another postblock because it couldn't have come from ptclhg. It looks like there is probably a e$ missing from a line or some line didn't get updated properly in the process.

---Edit--- Sorry I had a brain spasm. The reason you have the first click "to wake up" is this first click actually activates the mask type at the top of the dialog. The second click actually selects the mask property and then the third would be to green check out. There is a cool featuer that allows you to quickly select a mask property by double clicking it. This will actuall activate the dialog, select the property and green check out all at once. Try it. Select All and double click ARC and it will close the dialog and select the entities... Pretty cool.

Wire is targeted for release with the first Maintenance release in which is scheduled for November..... Let's hope it's not in 2006!!

Mike, Paul is correct. The reason we continue to process on an error is if there is multiple errors and we stop only on the first one it may take you numerours runs through the post to cathc them all, so we continue to process when possible, even when errors are found and report them all.. I'm sure your issue is the dislike of "Successful Completion of Post Processing". I'll se what we can do about that.

Chuck, Looks like a bug on the Xform From/To. I'll check into it and log if necessary. As far picking a point relative to a projected intersection, you should be able to select relative from the auto cursor override. While relative is active (the icon is grayed out) select the little down arrow next to the relative override icon and select intersect. Now select the 2 entities for the projected instersection and then enter the relative coords. The auto cursor itself does not pick up projected instersections, only physical intersections.

Matt, In some cases the warnings produced by updatepst may have been fixed automatically during the update process. Normally the errors are related to some syntax errors and could be fixed easily. You should contact your reseller and provide the error log and post or post the error log and post here and I'm sure soemone could help out. As far as continuing to use the old post, we suggest using a new post and going forward, but this could be done after you have your current post working correctly and as time permits. Your reseller should be able to help out with this as well.