Thanks for replying Colin. Below is my comment section. The thing I don't understand is why a numeric value is treated differently than a alphanumeric. I know I added the pcomment4 section, but I don't remember modify any other section. At least not significantly. It was a while ago we added this engraving macro stuff. here is the sengrave_comment format - sengrave_comment : "" #Target for string pcomment$ #Comment from manual entry (must call pcomment2 if booleans) if (modheader = 0), pcomment3 #RB 7-02-03 else, pcomment2 pcomment2 #Comment from manual entry scomm$ = ucase(scomm$) pcomment4 if gcode$ = 1006, scomm$, e$ else, "(", scomm$, ")", e$ pcomment3 scomm$ = ucase(scomm$) if gcode$ = 1006, scomm$, e$ # added by RD if gcode$ = 1005, "(", scomm$, ")", e$ # added by RD if gcode$ = 1007, "(", scomm$, ")" if gcode$ = 1008, string1008 = scomm$ pcomment4 pcomment4 sengrave_comment = scomm$

So I'm hoping someone has an idea where I can at least start tracking this down. I'll keep this as simple as possible. I can provide more info if needed. We use an engraving macro here, so we built into our post to utilize the MasterCam Operation comment to translate into our macro. For example, if I put 'PN 12345' in the comment, the engraving macro should post; ( ENGRAVE = PN 12345 ) G65 P9970 A0. B.125 I116. J114. K127. I1. J2. K3. I4. J5. And that all works great, the issue is, that if the comment has ONLY NUMBER in it, no letter, then it will grab the previous operations comment. In the following example the operational comment is '12345' with no letter at all. N1 T1 M6 (FTN 22250000 - 0.25 ENGRAVING BIT ) ( PRIOR OP COMMENT ) S3500 M3 G0 G90 G54 G65 P9998 E1 C-90. A-90. X-1.544 Y5.1078 G43 H1 D2 Z15. M8 Z3.826 G1 Z3.526 F8. G2 X.5818 Y2.982 J-2.1258 X-1.544 Y.8562 I-2.1258 X-3.6698 Y2.982 J2.1258 X-1.544 Y5.1078 I2.1258 G1 Z3.726 G0 Z15. G65 P9998 E1 C-90. A0. X.08 Y3.626 Z6. X.08 Y3.626 Z-3.745 G01 Z-3.7535 F8. ( ENGRAVE = PRIOR OP COMMENT ) G65 P9970 A0. B.125 I116. J118. K109. I115. J118. K127. I115. J116. K127. I103. J115. K113. I113. J105. K114. I120. Z6. M98 P8888 Does anybody know what would cause this? I can provide info on the post as needed, but this engraving routine uses a bunch of code and I was hoping to be able to pin point it to a certain section. Any help at all would be great, Thanks Ray

Wow, I've been messing with posts for years. If fact, Colin, you have helped me with some particular difficult issues. But I never knew the MCE editor has auto-complete fuction for the posts. I've always used other editors. I'll have to give that a whirl. Thanks.

I think maybe you're talking about sequentially numbering?

I don't know if it does or doesn't, but this did fix our issue. Our error message was: "Cannot find Parasolid data in SOLIDEDGE file" And I know it's weird because our file wasn't even a solidworks file. All I can say is it worked and it is still working.

I don't know if this helps, I found this a while ago in another thread when I was having a similar issue. Apparently you have to re-register your swdocumentmgr. There is a method to manually registering the swdocumentmgr, Ryan on the Mastercam forum posted this in the industrial forum. Select "Start" In the search line type CMD but do not click enter Instead right click on CMD.exe and select "Run as administrator" This will open a command prompt that says Administrator on the title bar Next type the following string, don't forget the " " around the path: C:\Windows\syswow64\regsvr32.exe "C:\program Files\mcamx8\common\sworksdata\swdocumentmgr.dll" <<<<<< change to your X9 directory as needed. Press enter and verify you get a succeeded message

I'd have to get permission for the engineering director to send a file. Maybe I can make a mock-up. And I'd agree with you about a parameter, except I can pull my X8 file in that works great, and just try and regens and it hangs. Let me see if I can strip out all customer related data, and I guess I can send a ZIP2GO. Would that work?

I should add that we are up to the latest version of X9.

Tried doing some surface high speed roughing in X9 yesterday. It calculates up to 10% then hangs. This only happens when trying to use rest roughing style. So I went to X8 and did the same thing, of course it's is done a bit different in X8. They actually have a rest roughing cycle where-as X9 combined them all into two cycles. After creating my X8 path I pulled the X8 program into X9, changed the step down from .300 to .290, regenerated, and it HANGS again. So my question, has anyone had this problem? Any work-arounds? I've already done a restart on the computer. I also had another program try on his box with the same results. I did a quick search here, and didn't find a similar topic. Any help would be appreciated.

Update: I just talked with our sales rep and he seems to think it may be a Driver issue. So I went to MasterCam site and downloaded the drivers he suggested. Trying it now.

So we have a network floating license here. A co-worker just installed X8, and now he get the message "no sim found" when he tries to run either version. But the weird thing is, if he run the nhaspX utility, it finds the license just fine. He is trying a uninstall, right now. He's what we done so far with no luck. Copied the nethasp.ini from X7 directory to X8 Made sure the Nhasp utility was set to sim type "nethasp" Restated computer Anybody have any suggestions? Thanks Ray

Turned F9 off and on, no change. Backplot still does not show rapid clearance plane

Sorry everyone I was being dumb. I created a new plane when I should have moved the part.

Has anyone else had any issues with X8 right angle head work, not posting out arcs? I had a program in X7, posts just great. Pulled it into X8, updated the post, but I'm not getting arcs now. The isn't even changing to G18, just stays G17

Yes you can, M198 will work. You'll probably have to change your communication channel. I think we had to change it to 5 here.

Sounds like it might be a pain to try and keep up with updates. The whole point was to try and give a little more detail to our custom macros. And your right, there just isn't enough restate to give a proper description. I'll have to give this some thought. I really don't want to create a maintenance nightmare.

Awesome. I will give it a try, thanks. Now that is attached to the users .EXE mastercam right? So others on our network won't see the same pictures?

I'll have to check that out from home. Our system here won't let me go there to check it out. Thanks a bunch for the replies.

We use a bunch of custom Fanuc macros here, in order to program these we use the custom drill cycles. I was hoping that someone knew of a way to modify the pictures that are shown on the drill cycle page to better represent what the macro is doing.

Understanding of Dynamic Fixture offsets (DFO), Tool center point control (TCPC), or both.

I set my stepovers to 50% the width of my mower. Then when I get to the edge of the fence and I can't take another 50% cut because only 33% is left, I just leave it. Maybe next week I'll change my stepovers to 42% and see if I can get closer to the edge.

I've been messing with it a bit this morning. With Esprit, it works pretty slick. You can export features, and the app will give you tooling recommendations based on the feature, material, tolerances, etc. I just don't know anything about it and wondered if anyone was using it.

I just noticed a cool app that came with another Cam package we have here called "Machining Cloud Intelligent Manufacturing" It looks pretty cool. They are partnered with other Cam packages, and tooling manufacturers. You can do a Google search and check it out. But I was wondering if anyone uses this, how well does it work, and does anyone know if this maybe something that MasterCam might add in the future.

Just and FYI, I just got word from my reseller that this has been confirmed as a bug and will be corrected. Not really sure when.

+100000 And never, ever violate my check surfaces.