Thanks for all your input. I don't believe we are pushing our router any harder than what it was designed for, with reasonable decel times, etc. The only strange thing that I've found so far is the grounding of the main, shielded cable to the electrical cabinet. About 8-in up, behind the drive, the outer insulation of the cable is cut away to expose the metal shield. This is clamped to the back of the cabinet. The original clamp was too large and I replaced it with a smaller, tighter clamp. Would this cause the drive to go bad over time? Thanks for your help?

We usually have a number of power outages during the spring storm season. But this past season was mild. About 6 months after replacing the original drive, we installed a 480V tvss (transient voltage surge suppressor) on the main power.

Thanks Matt, I was beginning to think it was just us. George and Tommy: Yes we are using the inverter to brake and have an external brake resistor set at 60ohm. The decel time is set at 1.8sec/100Hz. In other words it takes anywhere from 9 to 12 seconds to stop the spindle depending on rpm. Cycle times range from 2 to 9 minutes. We have a tool change once every 2 to 5.5 minutes depending on parts. I appreciate the comments so far, keep 'em coming.

How many have had to replace the vfd for the spindle? I understand these are normally reliable, but we've replaced 2 in the last 3yrs. This is a 15hp drive with an HSD spindle on a 5ax twin table router. We mostly trim plastic parts, one on each table, and have anywhere from 100 to 300 tool changes in a 9 hr shift. We run only 1 shift ~9 to ~12 hrs. Any comments appreciated. Thanks for your help.

chip - Ooops, I don't recall seeing that when installing. I've had v9 installed for about a year though.

BerTau - Not a big deal, that's what I've been doing, but would like to convert everything to v9 to keep it consistent. V9 makes it easier when modifying operations, implementing revisions, etc. Also our v9 post is more bulletproof (less editing and manual entries). I am just cleaning up a little, so when X arrives I won't have to run 3 different versions of Mcam and 3 different post processors.

I would like to convert approx 40 programs from MC8 to MC9. In v9.1 I can open and save each MC8 file, but then have to go through each operation and tweak a few things to make sure it posts out the same. Very time consuming to tweak, post and file compare 40 programs with an average of 15 operations each. One example is a swarf 5axis, 2 wall passes with stock left on the walls and no retract between passes in v8. After converting to v9, I have to: 1. Change the Retract and Clearance values 2. Enter the stock to leave on walls value 3. Check the "Keep Tool Down" box, etc Is there a quicker, fail-safe way to do this conversion? I did a search on this and read a little about a VB Script, but I don't know if that's the answer. Any ideas? Thanks for your help.

Glad to see you found the culprit and it sounds like an easy fix too. It's always a relief to find the cause, especially on something intermittent like that.

You could have a broken or kinked wire somewhere since it seems to be random, but occurs in about the same position everytime. On our HSD spindle there is a junction box with 2 wire connectors on top. The smaller one I believe has the connections for the thermal overload sensor. These are a pain and the pins have to be seated just right. If these are loose, we get a "false" overload error, but it also e-stops the machine. I'm sure Thermwood can point you in the right direction now that we're through the Holidays. Let us know what you find out. Good Luck

What kind of systems/settings are you guys running? I opened up ghuns' file, but when I go to Main Menu Toolpaths I never could get the Operations Manager to open. I'm running Windows2000 SP2, Pentium4 1.70Ghz and 512K RAM. Allocations are 130K database and 120K toolpaths with a Matrox Millenium G450 card. Any ideas? Thanks.

Tis the season. About this time last year there was a rash of locked threads. This year hasn't been so bad except for Dragonqueen's passing through. The Holidays, work slowdown and the long wait for X can make for a stressful environment. Once we make it to the new year and X is here we won't have time to worry about any of this.

Oops, it wasn't a chook and it wasn't bryan314 either. Here is the thread I was thinking of though automatic button pusher It's a shareware program that automatically opens menus, pushes buttons, etc. I haven't used the program so I don't know much about it. Another option to consider.

I vaguely remember reading about a Chook that would let you do this as well as change other settings that aren't accessible through Screen/Configure. Someone posted here about it, maybe bryan314??, but it was a loooong time ago and I can't find it again. It was probably written for V8, but one of our chook gurus could probably make it work for V9 if it still exists.

Also in the TipComp box make sure the breakthrough amount is set to 0.00

Salah: What will you use next year?

100001 100002 100003 . . . for trimming programs that we use over and over again. I use the 20000x range for the same parts with partial cuts or special trims. 70000x range for molds, patterns and other one-off parts, usually.

Solidworks I haven't done a lot of manipulating surfaces with Mastercam, but I bet someone here can help you out.

Thanks Hardmill, I learned something new today. I also found E, L and P toggles that will save keystrokes.

I have this line: pbld, n, *t, e or this line: pbld, n, "T0", e before every M6 call in my post. I don't know if this helps or not. Someone more familiar with Mpfan should be able to solve this problem in no time.

+1 to Onsrud, they can help you out with cutters. There are a lot of factors that could be causing your cutters to break. Keep tool stickout to a minimum and make sure collets are not worn. Toolholders, tapers and collets should be as clean as possible. I would check backlash on all axes, which should be at zero or close to it. Also someone here once said to increase feedrate until the cutter breaks then back off 10%. HTH

chris: Look closer and you'll see that TimHollis post was from 1yr ago, the same amount of time chip has been waiting to say "I told you so"!

quote: I think I am going to bump all the post values up 10 deg. That's what I would try first. Adding a little overlap took care of a lot of unwinding problems for me. I've never really used the axis limits much, but I do use the Misc Values a lot, mostly the "B-axis Pref." setting of positive or negative to keep C from unwinding. HTH

+1 Owl That's what I do. I have drawn one regular holder and one with an extension. You can also define your spindle housing here if you want, to help see interference with the spindle. It won't be exact though, unless your spindle housing is cylindrical. When defining tools, I set the holder length to 0.0 and just need to define the tool (stickout, diameter, etc).

We haven't had a problem with B or C unless we bump the head. But, we do a quick XYZ check after homing. XY is checked with the automatic toolsetter. We do a quick visual to make sure the tool is centered in the touch pad during a toolset. For Z we place a square on one toolchanger rail and see how it lines up with a scribe line we put on the back of the pitch axis housing. We check this after every Home and it's obvious when it is off. You could probably do something like this with a square to check C, by placing an edge on the pitch axis housing and checking an end of the square with a line or point on a fixed part of the machine. You might have to use the long end of the square to pick up 1 or 2 deg. The wooden block idea sounds good, if you can keep from sacrificing the block everytime the machine is off. You might drill a 1/2-in hole, but do the check with a 1/4-in cutter and see if it looks centered each time. Just my 2 cents. Let us know what you come up with.

Also, when you open up the HOLDER.MC9 file, hit F9 to see the origin. There should be a vertical centerline going up from the origin. The holder geometry should only be in the upper right quadrant. This is a slice of the holder to be revolved around the centerline. If this is all good, then I don't have a clue.