Hi, I have found that almost all surface faceting issues are related to the model and the tolerance (or lack of it) that it was created under. The use of filters can help the problem by smoothing some of the high points but As the saying goes Crap In equals Crap out. Firstly have the designer check his/her surface tolerance, then look into the more expensive variables such as machines etc. PS What is a class "A" Surface finish?

Hi all, I have seen this problem and in my case it was coming from the modeling tolerance used by the customer. The only fix is to get them to tighten up there modeling specs. [ 10-05-2002, 03:39 AM: Message edited by: Budgie ]

Bruce, This smells of a video card problem what are your system specs. Very nice to see the Brisbane Lions run the cleaners through good old collingwood. MMM Love it.

Thanks Alan, I have read the document you mention, however I was more interested in the hardware side of things. Welcome to the forum. Whooo!!! 100 posts I'm half way to a pretty picture, Hmmm what to use. [ 10-02-2002, 04:03 PM: Message edited by: Budgie ]

Jay, The SCSI drives are stand alones, The idea is to have all software on one and save the work to the second.

Lots of testing here,

Guys, Thanks for the replys. I will let you know how it goes. James, Nice article on twin processors I will investigate further.

Bullines, Jay & James, Thanks for the replys, That is the sort of info that I was after. My new system only arrived a few days ago (After being in our finance dept for a few months) so I have not had a chance to test it properly yet. We are machining 3D parts to <3um tolerance, so hence the programming tolerance is extremly tight and this is what really slows the PC down. Going off what you guys have posted my IT fellow looks to have got it right, Compaq EVO 8000 workstation P4 Xeon 2Ghz/512kb cache 1026mb ECC RDRAM PC800,800Mhz Twin SCSI 10000RPM hard drives Win 2k pro It will be interesting to see how this machine handels the processing. One thing that is a little unclear is can Mastercam utilize both processors when running only one application so hence offering both processors to tackle the same toolpath? [ 09-29-2002, 12:42 AM: Message edited by: Budgie ]

Hi, Here is a question for all the software gurus. Which hardware has the greatest affect on the speed that mastercam processes its toolpaths. Is it the processor speed, The processor cache, The amount of RAM or the speed of that ram, Does the speed of the hard drive have any affect, Would a twin processor machine make any difference, Do the fundamentels of the mother board have any effect, Is it the operating system? I have recently upgraded my PC and all is well I am just interested on the forums thoughts on this matter.

Hi all, I agree we got used. Perhaps all off topic posts need a little more scurtiny.

Hi Quickmike, We use another cam software package to program our CMM, We have the holos software but it is so good damn complicated we opt for the cam package.

Hi all, Sorry ball tearer is a slang term. Yes you should seek this item out.

Hi, Yes I have such a beast, And yes it does backplot. It has no trouble with large programs (50meg is the largest I have used) plus this editor has a few other handy little features, The best 400AU bucks I ever spent on software. Its a ball tearer.

Hey Chris, I am sad to here that, There are a few jobs in the land down under if you feel like a move.

Trevor, Nice looking mouse pad! It might be a bit hard to work with all those distractions!

Whoops, Jay is right, I got my wires a little crossed.

Hi, Is anybody using trackballs? are they any better for you?

Hi Mold 100, I have got a girl and unfortuatly she deosn't like train sets or tonka trucks. Oh well. Conga rats man. Bring on the Brio.

Hi Kart 97, I use the Cimco editor with Backplot, This does all I need, And very quickly too!

Hi all, In Surfcam, ICD is the operations file and Verify (NCI) Ncc Is the G code (NC) DSN is the file name (as in MC9) If you wish you can send it to me and I will backplot it for you.

Hi All, As programmers we spent most of our day in front of a PC using a mouse, This makes us very prone to these type of problems Has anyone here had any RSI injuries? Do you guys and gals have any tips on how to stop this happening?

Hi Mold100, I have seen this error, For me it comes when you have a toolpath where the drive surfaces are not in the containment boundry or vice versa. Check that you boundrys are containing the right surfaces. As for the verify crashes I have not had any of those with 50+meg files. I am using Windows NT and a steam driven P3.

Hey GCODE, Thats why we call it the lucky country

Hi all, I have dealt a bit with PRO-E files and I have found that STEP format works well if you dont have the PRO-E converter

Thanks Glenn