bump

wow...RAMDisc Pro...haven't heard that talked about for a while. I actually bought a copy a few years back to use with v9 trying to get faster toolpath generation times. Didn't seem to really help all that much for me, in fact, I think I remember it causing me problems with large toolpath file generating. If the temp files for the toolpath being generated get larger then the amount of ram you have set aside with ramdisc pro to write to, the toolpath would fail and you'd need to start over again. Still have a legit license but don't even use it at all anymore... When you say "it's" still not very fast, what are you referring to? Toolpath generation time? I think a lot of people are mistaking the lag issue being discussed here, which is MC lagging with everything, mouse movement, dialog windows taking a few seconds to pop up, the color dialog taking a long time to fully open...etc. quote: My system here gets left on permanentlypersonally, I think this is the best practice for any system. Just defrag regularly and try to keep your system spyware/virus free. I think turning you rcomputer on/off is one of the more damaging things you can do with your system IMO [ 04-10-2007, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: Zero ]

OK... I'm now using X2 SP1, and this is still happening to me. I'm using the same post that's been updated from 9 to X to X2. For the life of me I just can't figure this one out. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I'm pretty sure this is a post issue because I've posted the same programs with some of the default posts that install with MC and it doesn't happen with them, and I don't see anyone else here on the forum posting about having this problem, but.... Looking back at this old forum post of mine I see I wasn't having this problem until late v8 or early v9(?..at least I think thats what we were using in '05), and it is happening to me much more since version X and X2. At least 1 out of every 10-15 toolpaths will do this to me now. I thought it was something in my post where it would drop the feed rate only on certain types of moves, but it doesn't matter what type of move it is, this happens to all arc and line moves, whether they be 1 2 or 3 axis moves. The only constant is that it's always after a plunge from the feed plane. I must have missed Terry's last post here in this thread about staggering the feed plane and Z clearance, but my clearance and feed plane heights aren't the same... my feed plane is usually .1 incremental and clearance is usually set at somewhere between 1 to 5 inches absolute. Is anyone else seeing this problem or have any ideas on how to fix it??

quadro fx 1300 driver 7.7.5.6

lol Matt.... must be something in the water here in CT....

been reading this thread (and others like it complaining of lag) and just gotta chime in to say, I haven't experienced any of these lag issues at all...ever. I deal with files of all sorts and sizes, built natively in MC or imported igs/step/x_t/solidworks/rhino/etc. from all sorts of CAD programs. Mostly 3d surfacing stuff with 2d sprinkled in here and there, and file sizes ranging from 100kb to 100+mb. I do have a solids license, but don't usually program directly off the solids (still weary of whole features getting ignored or rough pocket programs deciding to clear out whole z levels regardless of what the part looks like like MC has done in the past) and usually convert all solids to surfaces and then move the solids to different levels and turn them off. XP pro sp2 (with full "eye candy" and unified z buffer or whatever turned on) still using x2sp1 Running Mcaffee AV 128m Quadro 1300 PCI express x16 once I start MC in the morning, it usually doesn't get shut down till I leave at night. I can have 10 or more programs running at the same time (not counting background services and whatnot..) and I barely ever even get MC to crash, let alone lag.....

Ive been trying to convince the boss to get one of these. looks and sounds almost too good to be true...

to do that in less steps in MC, you could create the geometry for the hole you want and instead of using revolve cut, create a revolved solid, x-form rotate that solid as many times as you need and do a boolean remove operation to create holes with the revolved solids. unfortunately there is no way in MC to rotate the actual cut solid operation around the part like in solidworks.

X+

when your backplotting, there are 2 buttons to the right of the play/fast forward buttons, make sure have run mode active and not trace mode

i right click and drag all the time...never had any problems with it

too bad you guys are in IL, or Id jump on it in a heartbeat

quote: I haven't tried it but it sounds like Winblows functionality. [Roll Eyes] ...actually, I berlieve it's a mastercam functionality problem. quote: but upper or lower case it will not let youYou can do this to files/folders/pretty much everything in windows or almost every other windows based program I've ever used. I think its a throwback to older MC days where everything in MC was created/viewd as upper case...MC will still convert to all caps automaticly when creating all its own files and within the View/Operation Managers (for the most part)... there are some things slowly being converted to case sensitive... still waiting for the day when all things withing MC are case sensitive...

Sounds like yet another request for select only visible. something I (and many others) have been dreaming about for years now

quote: If anyone has critical data on their computer I would highly recommend one of these units. I wouldn't count on that maxtor drive for anything important, data-wise. Ive had sooo many maxtor drives fail on me it's not even close to funny. As a matter of fact, the only drives I've ever had fail on me are all Maxtor drives, both internal and external. I would go return that maxtor and get a decent brand-name drive like WD or Seagate

when i had this problem it was due to small arc length moves...try changing the ltol in your post to something higher

quote: Yes this is a bummer. +1000

theres no real way (that I know of anyway) to get any kind of stock recognition in MC, so you're gonna get lots of air cuts (of course depending on the size and shape of your part/cutter). A couple of things you can try though, to eliminate wasted air moves, are: 1) create>curve>slice at each level of stepdown on your sphere, and then use these to generate 2d pocketing routines (a lot of work, I know...) or 2) you could try using the trim toolpath function to get rid of all the wasted air cutting. This will give you varied results, but might get you closer to what youre looking for.

quote: but they took out the ability to make a new folder from the machine properties box.I noticed this as well...anyone know a way to switch this back to the way it used to work?

Thats how my backplot used to look in MR1 (the white lines whith keep tool down enabled). MR2 has my backplot back to normal. disable front buffer doesnt make a difference here. installed over my MR1 so cant check there.... Ive got a quadro fx 1300

check out R-30229-EZRA.MCX on the FTP site. I just added the surrounding faces around the ones you are trying to machine as check surfaces and left .0005 on them to get rid of the pesky warning about check and drive surfaces having the same amount of stock to leave. that more what youre looking for? the above suggestions about tool containment boundries will also work, but is a little more work in certain situations, although it will give you more predictable results most of the time

I cant get MC to drag any entities on level 256 or higher at all...when I try to drag with copy toggled off, my entity totally disappears from existance after click the point to drag to , and if I have copy toggled on, it just exits the function when clicking the point to drag to without doing anything at all....

you use the same toolpaths as you would with surfaces, you just need to hit the activate solids selection icon on the general selection toolbar (looks like a little blue cube with a green check mark in front of it) you should browse thru the MC help file for the basics in creating/editing soilds and solid toolpathing. it explains things well enough to get you started

Funny, I just had the same thing happen to me, but Im not doing any solids work on this file, just surfaces imported from an igs......

using absolute or incremental cut depths?