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.

JSP Mold, Winnie Teh Pooh, Excellent! Thank you for this great tip. This is awesome. Proves that there is more than one way to accomplish a task in Mastercam. And who cares, Winnie? I care and I thank you.

Rob, buddy. Thanks for the insight here about netHasp. However, Design costs way more than Rhino. And you still have to buy the netHasp on top of the other two seats of Design. Arg!

CAMmando, do not understand, "do" What do you do?

Winnie Teh Pooh, yes netHasp. It is priced for those who have (I believe) five or more seats. For myself, I only need two. It is nice to be able to work CAD/CAM in the same program, but outsourcing work using Rhino has proven to be more cost effective for us. Unfortunately, cost is always a factor in these economic trying times.

Hey, Mr. Eeyore-nonhuman, you are correct, but don't blow our cover. You know we just might be building the next generation trans-universal spacecraft here and using guitars as a cover. However, you have guessed correctly and I have changed my tolerance settings to infinity and beyond. Any clue as how to reset them to the default values is appreciated.

Indeed the consensus is that Mastercam is #1 and I wouldn't trade it for any other milling program out there. However, I think one seat is enough. I'm a small shop, but always need help with the workload. Sharing a SIMM is a pain. So, I bought two seats of Rhino, one for me and one for my programmer. I can use Rhino anywhere, on any machine. My programmer works a project up in Rhino (CAD only) and then I use the Rhino to Mastercam interface (plugin) to import the Rhino model into Mastercam. Then I do all the milling in Mastercam or when my programmer needs to, I give him the MILL SIMM. This may not work for everybody, but my point is that you don't need a MILL seat for everybody, just enough seats to cover the milling workload.

Create a line tangent using an angle of 90 degrees to any arc in the top construction plane. Length doesn't matter. I used one inch. When I analyze the line with configuration set for eight places after the decimal point for analyze, I usually find that the angle of 90 degrees is off in the last four digits, ie: 89.99991243 or 90.00002115 or something on that order. Sometimes it creates the line at exactly 90.00000000 degrees. It seems to be random. I sent a sample file to CNC software. They could not duplicate the problem. Creating a line vertical never gives me this result. This bug is in the noise, but it bugs me. Just wondering if anybody else has experienced this same problem or cares.

Forum Member BerTau wins my applause. Thanks for the ALT-E hide/unhide insight. From the other responses it is apparent that users manage their geometry in different ways and that is certainly ok. The geometry of my guitar parts occupies several levels and consists of several colors to keep things straight. Most of my blanked entities consist of construction geometry that I use as helps to get to the final part. When finished, they only serve to remind me how I got from point A to point B, so to speak, so I blank them on their respective levels. Thanks to all for the responses. It is great to see how others are using Mastercam.

Have you ever needed to change everything on one level to another level, but had numerous blanked entities on the source level? Mastercam won't move blanked entities. Here is how I solved the problem. If anybody has a better solution, I'd like to hear about it. Move all the unblanked entities to an unused level, but not your target level. Then make the target level main, hide (uncheck visable) the unused level you moved the unblanked entities to, and then unblank the blanked entities on the source level. Once they are unblanked, make the target level main and move the entities on the source level to the target level. With the target level still main, blank all entities. Once blanked, make visable the unused level where you moved the original unblanked entities and move those entities to the target level (Screen, Chg Level, Move, OK). Sounds a little convoluted, but it's not that bad.

Writing the post is not the problem I am having, but understanding how the xxxxor 8025M control works. After much experimentation, I was able to get my program in the G18 plane to run, but not with tool length compensation instated in the G17 plane. It appears that the TLC is alway orthogonal to the defined plane and when using TLC in the G17 plane to start out, then switching to G18, the coordinates no longer are the same and I get an error code 40, arc doesn't pass through the defined points. If I take the G43 T.4 line out of my main program, the subroutine containing the G18 works fine, albeit at a higher Z elevation. This is not the way I've seen other controls work. Now I'm searching for a parameter that might control this behavior. If I find none, then my only recource seems to be to shift the coordinate system in Z only for each tool via user defined parameters - quite a pain. Thanks for everybody responses. If anybody knows something more, I'd be glad to hear it.