Guys, Thanks for your replys, I will try to keep a log of my problems and let my local dealer know so that he can pass on any info, I cannot sent any files directly to Mastercam as my company policy on sercurity is very tight and in depth, I do believe that V9 will be a very good system when the current bugs are fixed and yes I have checked out the new functions in V9 and I have read the what's new doc however at this time a feel that 8.1.1 is a better option for me. I will try turning off the open GL function and if this solves any problems I shall let you all know, To James, Are you a Mastercam seller?

Hi folks, I have been using version 9 for about two months now and I believe that 8.1.1 is a better system than the over hyped V9. With 8.1.1 I never had any problems, no PC crashes, no bugs and no stange happenings all for me worked fine. V9 has a handy addition in the containment boundries and it seems to work a little faster over some 3d surfaces but at the end of the day it falls over more than me after 10 beers, it deos stange things, the new toolplane systems is not as friendly as the old one and the fanuc work offset system (G54 and so on) still needs some refining, I think that I will be sticking to 8.1.1 until the next upgrade arrives.

Mold 100 If I have 4 electrodes all the same I remove the G54 from the program replace the M30 with M99, Making the program a subprogram, then I write a simple main program like G90G80G40G17 G91G28Z0 G28X0Y0 G54 M198P1 G55 M198P1 G56 M198P1 G57 M198P1 G91G28Z0 M30. M198 will call the program from the hard drive of a Makino professional 3 controller(Not sure about a Pro A). If you don't have the Hard drive option use M98

Heavy Metal, Is Z axis or Y axis into the workpiece? We have a Makino A77 which is a Horizoltal machine but Z axis is into the workpiece. So as far as my post is concerned its a vertical machine with a B axis rotating about the Y axis. I do lots of 4 axis programming and so far no problems with my post (MPFAN from V8.1.1) I have had the error that you speak of, but it only comes if my toolplane is set about the wrong axis.

Greg, When you say that you have a rotation at the start of the program, Do you mean the Canned cycle rotation that is found in all Heidenhain's (The cycle number I Can't remember) or the 3D rotation that is found on the 426 controller

Thanks Dave, I will have a go at editing my post, If I have no luck I will be in contact.

Hi Guys, We have a Sachman RP3 machine with a Heidenhian 422 controller, This machine has a universal head (the same deal as Huron, Correa and pacfic to name a few) With this machine like most bed mills the Z travel is greater that the Y travel so hence we do most of our machining on angle plates with the head rotated so that the Y axis is into the job (as in a horizoltal machine), Now to achieve the correct G code I have always done the following 1, drawn the job in the top veiw 2, do my toolpaths as normal 3, create a NCI file and rotate it 90 degress 4, Post that rotated NCI file I do it this way because I first started using Mastercam with version 5 and that is how I did it back then. Now with this being the year 2002 there must be a better way, How do you folks do it? PS I have V9 Level 3

Hermann, You can never have too much memory, If you intent on doing any high speed milling you will need to have a Hard drive data server on the machine, this comes with an ethernet connection. so file transfer will never be a problem again. you wont be sorry.

Quickmike, It really depends on what Diameter your talking about and how rigid your machine tool, Collet chuck and setup are. 10% is the rule of thumb for depth. As for stepover it depends on the required surface finish, I have used anything from 1mm to 0.002mm. Hope this helps a little.

Hi All, I have recently installed V9, I have Updated all of my posts using the CHOOK all with no problems, However every time I post a program I get 2 files, The first file is the Nc code which works fine, The second is a .err file, when I open this file it tells me that it has run the post (thanks for that). no problems with any of this other than I have to go along later and delete all of these .err files. Deos anyone know how to stop these error files?

Not here, If I knew what it did I might use It.

Thanks Maestro and Millturn, that is the info I was after. Johns I do agree tooling balls are a very usfull thing however not for this application. Charles, 1 file deos seem an easier option but this part is an R&D item so it constantly has revisions so breaking the file into setups makes keeping track of this a little easier. [ 03-10-2002, 04:12 PM: Message edited by: Greg W ]

I have a part that gets machined over 4 setups on a 4 axis Machine so as you can imagine it is quite complex. Is it possible to verify the first setup and save the result as a ___? file, then use this ___? file as the stock file for the verify in the Second setup. and then again for the 3rd setup. Maybe an STL file can do this but I cant seem to work it out. If this is possible it would make my job a lot easier.

Andreas, Please help me, How do I rename my files with the rename *MC8*.MC9 method in windows NT 4. Have you found any problems by doing this. Thanks in advance.

I have contacted the people from CIMCO and they have informed me that I will need to upgrade to DNC-MAX to send files to a 151 control. For me this is a good idea as I really need to send files to 5 machines from this one PC and the editor in Mastercam is not capable of sending multible files. Thanks all for your help

SMO I've had another thought, Your problem may come from the toolplane. If your toolplane is not rotated about the same axis as the machine deos you will get this error. EG: I rotate my toolplane from the top veiw using the x up or x down method in the geo file this gives me the correct rotation in the Nc code My machine is vertical with B axis rotating about Y Hope this helps

SMO We have a Makino A77 It is a Horizontal machine with the Z axis into the job (same as a vertical) The B axis rotates around the Y axis, so as far as the post is concerned this is actually a vertical machine. So post my settings are for a vertical machine with rotation about the Y axis.

I am having problems getting the CIMCO editer to download to my 151 Heidenhain machine. The problem is that nothing happens. I know that the CIMCO editer is working ok as it tranfers data to 3 FANUC machines no problem. Is there any tricks involed here or am I missing the obvious? The baud rate, Data bits and stop bits seem ok. Any help would be greatly appreciated. [ 02-26-2002, 09:04 PM: Message edited by: Greg Williams ]

Ah yes Queensland Great one day Perfect The Next?

Ken, I have a metric post for a V33 Pro 3 controller, If you are interested Email me We use the T1 H1D2 M56 G00G90G54X0Y0S2000M03 G43Z150.H1 Format where every tool is H1D2 Regards Greg

I have found that if you require a 0.05 spark gap, option 1 is to use -ve stock, option 2 is to tell mastercam that you have a diamater 9.9 cutter, I have found that using a corner rad of 0.01mm gives a better toolpath than saying the corner rad is 0, thats where the 0.01 figure comes from.

Hi Guys, What this thread shows is that there is no absolutely correct way to manufacture electrodes.I have always done it by using -ve stock to leave. If by some chance I cant use this method I apply the spark gap to the tool (use a 10mm Bull endmill and tell mastercam that I have a 9.9mm with a radius of 0.01). At the end of the day it only really matters if you are trying to hold a very tight tollerance. Hopefully someone from mastercam is reading this thread.

That sounds remarkably like a song I heard on the Radio this Morning

Hi guys thanks for your comments, The postman is right it is a hard question to answer without enough info, however I think that I have solved my problem, The post that I am using is a MPFAN and the lock and unlock codes can be added to ppos_cax_lin this gives me exactly the format that I wanted Cheers Greg

I have a problem with my MPFAN 4 axis post,My Machine requires an M11 code to unclamp the B axis before it can be rotated and an M10 code after to clamp it again. All is fine when there is a tool change involved as I have added these commands to the post, My problem comes when there is a null tool change, I cant seem to work out where the post finds the rotation command (I have used the t/plane for the rotation). I have tried forcing the command in but it allways is in the wrong spot. I can always edit the program but this gets a little painfull after a while Thanks in advance Greg