Hi Kieth going good. trying to keep up with my 11 year old were are riding the hills of whistler, took a hugh dump near the bottom of the gondola. the people in the beer garden gave me a ten for the landing. I heard you went back to Inovative. hows the comute? Best regards Gord

I reported this Bug a while back. Got a call from cnc software and was able to reproduce over and over again. lessons learned : 1)only mak config changes at start up. 2) do not use Alt -d for dimension changes X will blow up 3) make a couple of config file backups under differant names. just incase things blow up along the way 4) still waiting for the fix Gord

Hi Guys thanks for all the replys. this is what the service guy did to our Fadal. 1) "With our $99 card in place we have not had a similar problem." He will investigate this further 2) He found that our 3 phase was not balanced coming in from the breaker box this will be resolved soon 3) He found that the air pressure for the oil pump was set at 60 psi. needed to be set between 80 and 90. possibly the ball screws were not getting the proper amount of oil 4) He wipped clean the 88HS control and removed the cpu from the control box and let it sit. then put it all back together. machine is running fine , no problems so far keeping my fingers crossed and hoping this was a minor problem. again appreciate all the trouble shooting ideas. best regards Gord

Hello has this happened to you. our machine is a Fadal 30/16 with the 88HS control on Friday the machine just took off to a new position and stoped. Z axis fault error #18 motor overload we checked the code and did not see anything we re-ran the code and the machine did not error out. the Fadal people said it could be a glitch ? so today everything was going fine. and the machine shot up and over and faulted out. we are haveing the service guy come tommorow. so my question again. has anyone experianced this with a Fadal control 88HS ? thanks Gord

Yup thats the problem, so simple some times. I just spoke with my local mastercam rep. Item 1 will be resolved in mr-2 Thanks using level 3 mr-1

hello 1) when I create a new toolpath group and give it a name. Is there a way to have the nc file that is posted, have the same name ? I have been using re-name nc file up to now. 2) after using alt-e for a period of time. the function just stops working. I have to ram-save or re-start X to get the function working again. some times if I use un-hide all entites , It starts to work again. any Ideas

using filters we started using metacut finish several years ago. http://www.nwdesigns.com/Products/MCFinishNutshell.htm I would recommend this product for anyone using a Hass or fadal . the program uses the machine dynamics to filter the toolpath to achive maximum feed rates with out loosing accuracy and finish. eg: surface finish contour with a cut tolarance of .0002 in mastercam. mastercam posts out at six decimal places. when runing the program through metacut finish. the file is then reduces to 4 decimal places. the file is processed at a tolarance of .0003 allowing arcs to be fitted. g17 , g18 or g19 plane arcs are added accell and decell are also added G8 and G9. we cut alot of bottle molds and do hard milling. we have found using swiss cutting tools for finishing benaficial ( DIXI or Fraza ) we try to rough down cavitys to have a constant finish depth, usally .010 to .015 , stepover and cutter diameter all factor into the finish results for minimal polishing. you may also have to look at you maching approach. possbly you may have to blend a couple differant tool paths to get the results you need. as far as your iges data. crank up the shader in mastercam and look for anomolies in the surface. rotated it around, we find alot of bad data this way before machinng. try differant translators. we have alot of success with parasolid. step never seams to work -- from my understanding of class A surface is that you cannot feel the transition (Blend) from one surface to another. -- class B surface you cannot fell the transition but you can feel the radius -- class C -- normal fillet , where you can see and feel the transition. surface finish is a hole differant ball game. ie: number 1 finish is optical class. and on down from there. Good Luck Ernie Gord

Hi Richard I had a look at the machine group settings. buried kinda deep in sub menus. That does work, but does not solve the problem. Thanks for the help Gord

Hello with regards to the "Use project directory" when I post a file , the NC file still goes to the mastercam X root directory. Is there another switch I can turn on to force all data to one directory ( like the c-hook used to ) Thanks Gord

Hello I can program the outside of a cyliner no problem with y axis substition using wrap . Is there a trick to programing the inside of a cylinder ? ie: a cavity of a bottle mold. using wrap ? Thanks

Hello A few years ago , we farmed out a job. the toolpath was done in Ontario and the Machining done in British Columbia. we did the design work. we now have the capablities to machine these ourselves. I have a copy of the mc7 file. and have imported into version 8 , level 3. the job is a two start auger with a smooth transition I have done a bit of four axis programing. but mostly wraped and transform rotate. we bought the mastercam book on 4 axis.but But the book does not go into this type of programing. I cannot figure out how the toolpath was done. I have put the file (longhelix.zip) under the mc7 on cadcams ftp sight. I would be greatly apprecative if some one could look at this file and give me a clue as to how it was programed.

thanks Dave. I want to come in from the side though. should have clarified. the form tool would be on a arbour.. would it be a transform rotate toolplanes ? thanks

Hello A client approched me to cut metric gears on his rotary axis.as he has to get them from Europe. we have been doing rotary milling but to set a gang of diskes and use a profile cutter we have not done. I would assume a simple 2d contour tool path ( using a form tool) and then have the rotary index to the next postion and repear the tool path. would this be a misallanous integer to the post and input the degrees ? or is this a special type of toolplane, or subpost work ? thanks Gord

Hi Ying Jiang QUOTE: "1. To send file to Fadal memory: Under CIMCO Edit DNC Setup --> click the "Transmit" tab --> in the filed of "Send at start of feed:" type in TA,110 This way, if you leave Fadal in the command prompt mode then you can just send file from CIMCO Edit whenever you are ready. 2. For drip feeding, just change the TA,110 to DNC10" this is what works TA,11310 or DNC1310 very cool

Yup the card # PC/2e ISA Rev - H -- 2 ports the card is about 6 " long we would have stayed with predator if the upgrade would have been 1/2 the quoted cost. regards Gord

sorry about the missleading card expire. our PC - pent 133 -- on the shop floor was the real problem . the card that was installed for that mother board was obsolite . in order to upgrade to a new card . I was quoted over $1000 US from our local dealer . predator did exacly what we needed when it was first installed . we had to deal with this problem before the PC died ( there were several times it would not boot up -- win 95 ) I cannot remmeber all the details on the quote -- but it also included a software upgrade , maintance contract and a visit from the local rep . hard to turn down a the cimco for $250 US and installation took less than 20 min .

hello Ying Jiang one of the tools with cimco edit is back plotting. the 3d is great . but the 2d is dog slow . we occasionaly need to back plot old 2d lathe files. and tryed the reverse posting , but that failed. used the predator edit , but that was clumbys (personal view ) the cimco is simple , but why so slow . the 3d has a slider bar to accelerate the process. is there something we can do to speed this up ? also we tried to imbed the standard cimco into mastercam . keep coming up with errors. have to navigate from desktop to use the full version. any suggestions.

Hi Allen I guess I could have just called you. thanks for the info. PS. please let the girls who anwser the phone at inhouse, sorry about the weather jokes. I did not relize it was -30 degrees in Toronto. Not sure if you know. the golfing in Vancouver is great this time of year .

we are evaluating the cimco editor. our predator card is about to expire and buying a new one , the cost is huge . last week our mastercam rep help install the program . worked first try . very easy and cheap. my question is about the baud rate's and dnc . with predator we easly sent 57500 using xmodem protcol to our fadal. we went with this high rate because some of our toolpaths had alot of incremental moves and the buffer would overflow. I cannot see any information on the helps on cimco and this baud rate. has anyone experianced problems with cimco and this baud rate? thanks

On Occasion I need to merge or export then re-import ( iges ) surface files . in doing so, allot of the times the level names are forworded : the surface comes through , but all the level names from the previous mc8 file come through. but no entities on thoughs levels. is there a way to filter out level names or do a mass delete of the names. thanks gord

you might suggest them to use there arc filter setting's in mastercam . if your cut tolarance is .001" heve them set it for .0012 . if you are going for a higher tolarance .0001" then have them set it for .0003" , this will fit arcs where the geometry will allow . but unless there control can handle arcs ( mabey a cheap router ) then it will always be incremental moves. Good luck if you can upload the cadkey file . we used to use cadkey allot or upload the iges file . [ 08-17-2002, 11:46 PM: Message edited by: gmenzies ]

we have a microscibe arm and a seat of rev-works for solidworks. the microscrib comes with software for mastercam . but is very basic. our software allows creation of planes,lines,arcs,splines and surfaces. the package cost about 10,000 US , I think microscibe is between 3000 to 5000 US ,depending on acuracy. plus/minus .009" is about as good as it gets . major investment.

this code works fine on our fadal - I believe it format 2 control % O1234(TAP) G90G80G40G17G0 (DRILL) (NWDTOOL NAME ".25 inch drill" T12 D.25 L3. A180. F2. CD2. CL1. SD2. C0 ) T12M6( 1/4-20 TAPRH FOR STEEL - TAP) S500.2M5M90 G84.2 G0G90X0.Y0.E1 H12Z1.M8.1L0.0 G84.1G98X0.Y0.Z-.5R.025F25.S500.2 G80 G0M5M9 G53Z0 X0Y0Z0E0H0 M30 % %

use a sharp tool, but program as if it were a corner round tool with a .001 or .002 rad. surface toolpaths don't like sharp tools. we usally have a selection of tools with .020 " corner rads on tools from 1/16 to 5/8 Ø for cutting our copper electrodes . mabey isolate the area and cut with wire frames and cutter comp. then the sharp will give you exact results. Gord

you might want to check out meta-cut filter. we had some problems using mastercam filter back in version 7. so we bought this package. the file reduction is usally between 80 to 90 percent of the posted g-code. a good investment if you use machines like fadal or hass . it improved the overal performance of your machine.