Mastercam X MR1/SP2 should have been the first release of Mastercam. It has fixed a lot of problems from the public beta release of X in July. However, I have to agree with most of the comments in this thread. I've spent many hours with X and learned the interface, but find it takes a whole lot more mouse clicks to get the job done now than before. Some tasks, that would benefit from preselection, same me time, but those tasks are about 1% of my work. With X, many of the features of V-9, I no longer have. No reverse post, custom C-Hooks no longer work, can't open a V-9 file with dirty operations (it will crash X when you try to regen the ops), no keystroke autocursor override, functions like Create Line Tangent at Endpoint are broken (if you can get the line created through some effort, it's not really tangent), the deletion of the mask column in the levels manager that changes column settings when switching between V-9 and X, etc. There's a whole lot of good changes in X, but I don't consider it a production tool at this point. Maybe next year with X2 and some careful listening to the users by CNC Software, we'll have something that we can use like we use V-9 today. Meanwhile back at the V-9 farm...

beel said... And I asked my reseller about opening up multiple windows in X before it came out and he said nobody has ever asked for that, that he knew of. I asked for this feature many years ago and a representative from CNC Software who was out here giving a demo in Gig Harbor, Washington told me they were reluctant to move to a Windows interface because of the large DOS base they had as customers. Yet, even then, the writing was on the wall, but CNC Software couldn't read it. Now, today these many years later, who is running DOS? And while competitors have ramped up very quickly with programs that use the full Windows interface and features, CNC Software is way behind the power curve. When I knew X was on the distant horizon about a year and a half ago, I pressed my Distributor to jump up and down on the desk of CNC Software to incorporate multiple Windows under X, but for some reason it didn't happen. You can open two instances of X and copy and paste geometry between the two instances which is certainly better than the 9.1 way of save some geometry to a temporary file, make sure the geometry in the temp file is on the right level, and then merge the temp file.

You might check the chaining options and make sure their isn't a color mask on or something. I've had the color mask stick on me and can't get it to turn off. Very frustrating when chaining and the chaining won't close because the color mask is on.

No, you are not wrong. What you are saying will work. However, I am posting for only one machine, hundreds of operations each operation requiring a separate program number. Can you imagine the mess in the Operations Manager of having to add hundreds of Machine Groups each describing the same machine and post with one operation under each?!

I ran a little experiment to verify this and it's true. However, you should be able to run a 175MB file with your machine, no problem. You might want to try and run RAM Saver under the Settings menu and say no to delete duplicates. Then save the file and reopen it. If that doesn't help, it's a bug report to Mastercam QC.

The program number used to be part of the parameters page for each operation in v9.1. Now, in X, it is a property of the Machine Group and all my operations post with the same program number. Anybody know of a way to work around this so each operation will post with its own unique program number? Thanks.

It is better to use the Fanuc Macro B language to array your part rather than have a guzillion lines of part code that you get with the transform function. Just post the single part out and then use a main program to call out the part for different G52 XY coordinates. Using the macro language, you can increment G52 in a while loop, and very easily have maintainable and understandable code.

John -- Let me know what macro language your machine understands and send me a detailed explanation of what your code should do. I'd be happy to provide you with a sample program.

Did not find the SURF-RUF ERR.MC9 folder. Did you mean file? If so, what folder is it in. You might also try chaining the geometry and sending it to a clean level. Then do a file, next menu, RAM saver. Do not delete duplicates unless you really know that that is what you want to do. Save the file. Then open the file afresh. See if that works.

Everybody's singin' the same song. May I add my two cents - yes, use incremental depth on the parameters page. Geometry selected for drill depth for all depths need to be at the proper z depth. I use points at the z depth and select them in the optimal order manually. Mastercam can select, sort with window and sometimes it works ok.

You may have some overlapping entities. Try analyze chain and delete duplicates. Screen statistics may help find the problem as well.

John, sounds like what you really want is a dumbed down program, operator fool proof. You can easily accomplish this with parametric programming. Hopefully your machine supports this type of programming. With the Fanuc, it's called Macro-B. Anyway, if you would like some help with this, I can probably help you. I've been parametrically programming my machines for many years and all my operator does is push the green and red buttons.

You will have to understand how exactly your machine uses work offsets. I have five different machines and they all read G54 thru G59 differently. Once understood, all you really have to do is call out the appropriate work offset in your main program and then call your subprogram routine (your plate part). You can step around your work offsets in any order you choose. Sounds like you don't have to use the transform function in Mastercam. I use the transform function in Mastercam a lot so I can mill parts in different orientations on the machine, but keep the part oriented in geometry the way I'm used to looking at it.

Thanks for all the replies. Once again, I am amazed at how much I can still learn about Mastercam after using it for 14 years. I've never used the Trim Divide function before, but I checked it out. Great tool. Doesn't work for the fret application that I describe, but glad I learned about it. Thanks for the Modify Trim 3 entities. I will be using that all the time now. The Grouping idea was good, but adds an extra step. The select Window intersect is what I use now, but then have to repeat for the other side of the neck. Having the result or last option would be optimum. By the way, when I used divide, I noticed that there was no way to select multiple entities to divide except one at a time. Window would be good to have as well as other selection agents.

Once you've completed the Modify Trim Many function in Mastercam, you have to reselect the Many entities all over again if you want to perform a subsequent trim with them as I do with frets on a guitar neck, trimming to one side of the fingerboard and then the other. There is no Result or Last option. I mentioned this to CNC Software over a year ago and Ken Erman acknowledged this shortcoming. Thinking this would be an easy fix for a maintenance update, I was hoping to see it before version 10 came out, but it hasn't made it yet. Does anybody know if this will be addressed in version 10? Thanks.