quote: Tell Paul I said hello When we purchased our first 5 axis Anderson CNC Paul Roza was the one of the sales representatives. He was a pleasure to work with. I think if you ever have spent time with Paul Roza you remember him.

Craig - I just downloaded and installed Greenshot. I think I will like to use it. Thanks for the link

The same answer applies to architects and engineers. The really good ones are the guys that have started somewhere doing the basic stuff over a broader range. They absorbed knowledge, experience, and than moved on into "driving". The difficult ones to deal with only know what was learned from a classroom with little hands on experience.

I still use Mill 9.1 SP2 5 axis here. I missed a couple opportunities to get in for a good price from my reseller. I know that X would probably be a better world to be in. I almost never have the same job twice and I have not found one thing that was required that I could not program with what I have. Some of the projects are very simple and others are quite complex. Today I am cutting out some beams and corbels for T Boone Pickens to go in a conference room up in the pan handle in Texas. Last week I made custom volutes and handrails for several stair company's. Next week I will be making custom moldings for some of our jobs in Dallas. If I had X I might be able to go a little faster or I might like some tool paths that I don't know anything about, but for now I can get a long just fine.

I have a 5 axis Anderson with a Fanuc 16m controller. A lot of the work we do is in 3 axis. If I don't have a G08 (advanced preview control enable) in the program I get some of those same issues. What brand cnc are you doing this with?

XL here - I had to do some work.... so I missed out on the first 5

I decided to get a new Dell and just placed a order. The new one is not the fastest and baddest out there but it should be better than what I have been fighting with. Thanks for the help.

I defragged yesterday and when I ran analyze it said it did not need defragging but I did it anyway. I had this slow issue for a while and I thought that it was because of the large files that I was working in. It still has the same problem in small files. Thanks for the input.

Here lately my computer has become a pain to try to work in MC. Every step in the operation manager (open & close, select toolpath, backplot, etc) there is a long delay 10 seconds or more from one thing to the next.When I just open MC the task manager shows 100% usage. I notice that if I go to screen configure or the operation manager it drops down to 2 or 3%. I don't seem to have any problems in Auto Cad. This computer came with a 40G hard drive. I added a 200G several years ago when the 40G started to get full and it was working good for a long time. About a month ago I removed the 40G because it was locking up and installed the operating system on the 200G. It worked good for a while until this problem came into play. With Hyper-threading on the usage is around 48-53%. With it off it is around 100%. The long pauses are the same either way. Mill 9.1 Sp2 Solids & 5 axis Dell Dimension 4700 4G SD ram 3.0 processor dual core Nvidia Quadro Fx 1400 I have been trying to avoid getting a new computer and have been fighting this one for a long time. Anybody have any suggestions of what I might need to do to fix this? Thanks

Surface, I called General Plastics and they are sending me some samples of 10 lb. foam to try out. Thank you for the tip

I use 1 & 2 lb. foam to test programs on occasionally but it is too porous. I will make a few calls and see if I can find some high density foam. Thanks Mike

I have a project that we need to do that I am looking for a material that we can use to machine and install in a painted ceiling in a clients dining room. It will be 6 panels about 4' x 7' shaped like a clam shell. We considered using mdf but the panels will be as thick as 10" in some areas which means it will be very heavy. Does anybody know of a light weight material that can be machined, retain good detail, and have the ability to be painted. Thanks for any help

I'm heading that way tonight will be there Friday and Saturday. Hope to see you there Trevor.

Welcome to the forum Walt. We have a 5 axis Anderson Router. We do a lot of different custom stuff on our 5 axis. About half of the time it is used as a 3 axis and the rest we cut out handrails and fittings for stairs. What kind of stuff do you plan to run on your Flexcam?

That explanes it. In the areas where you are seeing the tear out you are rotating the cutter into the grain and it is pulling chuncks out (for lack of a better term). The way aroind this is to have a cutter that rotates in a direction that is favorable to the grain direction in the problem area.