stork ya beat me to it

bnci_convert_section() unknown gcode(-1)! Temporary file created C:Mcamso onand so on. I regenerated the file didn;t change a thing and the file posts fine

Has anyone ever seen this or know what caused it I was just posting a basic parrallel finish program. Program looks fine but do I trust it % O0000 (4097 DET13A) G00G17G20G40G49G80G90 T3M06( 3/4 BALL ENDMILL) (MAX - Z5.) (MIN - Z1.0571) (TOOLPATH - FINISHPARL) (STOCK LEFT ON DRIVE SURFS = -.001) G00G90G54X7.967Y-1.6599S6500M03 G43H3Z5.M08 Z3.05 G94G01Z2.8F50. (blah, blah blah) M05 G91G00G30Z0.M09 G90 G53X20.Y20. G90 M30 % Some X user must have put a vex on me for my rants in the other thread

I love auto cursor use it all the time but is something gonna be done about the size of the font so we don;t have to mask certain options all the time when you have a tangent near a quadrant and you are looking for the intersection when its close you have to zoom in so much to make sure you have the right entity. Just lil things that make ya shake your head that eren;t a issue earlier. I am not trying to come across a whining I just piped in like this cause I am sick as you X guys are at hearing "X sucks" mentality. I just don't think ridicule is a good technique to use in a debate. It closes ears. quote: New customers were turned off by the old interface, and I hate to say this but CNC is not really making any money off us old timers even with maintenance. I may have some old time values like don't bite the hand that feds you and if it ain't broke don't fix it but come on james I am not even 30 yet I just started at this at a young age (17). Which is where my frustration is I started early to get ahead of the pack to exceed above others and X just levelled the playing field on me. quote: An advanced user? Sometimes I sure don't feel like it John give yorself some credit I read your answers to people posts and integer questions and that comes across as chinese to me. Do I know everything about V9? No but I can get whatever job my boss throws at me done. I know I just need to bite the bullet grab X by the horns and just do it but until I get that time away from my workload I can't justify the downtime. My boss bought X on day one have had maintenace ever since and I may have made 2 parts with it. Does he care which I use No all he cares is the work is done on time and he turns a profit. Do I care if I learn X Yes cause even though this company is secure and my position is secure here who knows where the future will lead me and last thing I want to do is go from ahead of the pack to far behind. I look forward to learning X knowledge is power and I know just about enough to be somewhat dangerous Its just a matter of freeing up sometime. Everything I do is one off I am a tool maker my files get to me 20 mins before I am exspected to press start and half of them have to be redone before I can even think of starting to write a cutterpath a good engineer who understands what is needed with a surface file to be programmed to cut is like a unicorn in these parts of the woods. Ya have heard the myths but how many have ever seen one.

There is a learning curve with anything. Its exspected but a total overhaul is a whole lot wider curve then improving the foundation of a good product and adding extra options. Has the menu on the left gotten deeper and deeper in mcam up to V9? of course it has to with new options. Right now the first menu is 10 options all assigned a letter of the alphabet for a hot key up that to 15 options and you still won;t have to press any more keys you just have to learn the new ones. And John you are a very advanced mcam user, with factoring all the things I said earlier how much time do you think you have lost? Then consider a lowr level user and the time they must have lost its going to be greater the farther down the experience line you go.

You could change your tool diameter and lie to mcam but why do that and not use G41 like you said. His way is trial and error and your way is cut stock safe compensate the difference.

I am definitely goin to go to X just waiting for my boss to pony up to get some training. Just this is all new and sure being familiar with mcam from previous versions you know how the X should work for the most part its just a matter of finding whre it has been moved to. But what do ya do when it is a bug (I know questions here get answered in a mater of minutes but with that a side) How much time has been lost by people because of these bugs. So not only are ya gettin whammied that way you are also having to look for everything all over again and if its not there how do you know its not just somewhere else. And that is beore we get into the time everyone has spent customizing the interface setting up ribbon bars key strokes and so on. People here know how to remove steel they know how to create 3D models but with thing being overhauled so severly learning X would be no diferent then changing to a whole different software package if ya think about it. Just think its a bold and risky move to go this route for a upgrade would have preffered the time spent (in my opinion better) on improving areas that mcam is known for weaknesses in plotting, editing cutterpaths and so on. And on buying the preditor software or any other verify or editing software why should one have to pay twice to do what I can already do in V9. once for McamX and again for the second application. And not only pay twice for the seats but pay twice to run the second application to double check the first application. So if you think about what money is being put into mcamX so far The cost of the seat The cost from the learning curve of learning where everything is The cost of maintenance to eliminate bugs The cost of customizing ribbon bars menus and so on This software is set up to excel with a spaceball so money once again The cost of training for something I have been using for 8 years with out a problem And the cost of downtime while leaning and setting this all up. and yo figure that against what your employer is charging per hour not necessarily to you but at a shop rate charged either against the job or added into the final price of what the customer is gonna pay for his tool. The new GUI was supposed to speed up productivity after factoring in all the above costs then weighing it in against the time it took you to key stroke 3 menus deep to for example create fillet radius. When do you exspect to recoup the loses and actually post a profit above what you already would have done in V9? This new GUI better be worth it cause it is costing us a fortune on something a lot of people will consider not much more then a new paint job. I look forward to the new toolpaths, I have seen what higher end cam softwares can do in 3D. But the rest I don;t understand who is actually getting ahead. My .02 may seem like nonsense but lets really look at this and ask yourself these questions. And look at it from a owners prespective in dollars and cents. Sure its great to learn something new but the market is tough enough right now how can we justify the above exspenses?

Thanks I was wondering about processing time for the actual cutterpath I should have been more specific

Another reason why I have stayed away from X is because of bugs I am not aware of if its a new interface how does one know if this the problem you are having could be a software issue or lie somewhre between the keyboard and the chair? I know they have had the update out for a week or 2 but are they still finding more bugs I am sure its not perfect yet but how long till the next update to fix the bugs they are finding in this update?

Thanks John ya I have done that too just wondering if there was a way it can be broken. I just try to stay away from blanking entities to keep file sizes down. I am sure it doesn't make much difference in the least but if it doesn't have to be there would like it not to be. Also when you blank entities and process a 3D cutterpath using select surfaces all does it also count and try to calculate the blanked ones?

Some times when I create a offset surface or import a iges I will get a surface above the other (the ofset distance) and when I try to delete the one I don;t want it asks me if I want to delete associated entities I click now and it deletes it anyways. Right now what I do is create a curve around the surface I want let mcam delete both surfaces and recreate the one I want from the curves. Is this the only way or is there a way to break association. Mcam V9.1 level 3

Marty go into screen >configure >nc settings > Operation defaults this will open a window click open then a operation manager will open on the right click job setup follow the other steps you do each time press okay you will see your default settings saving. Next xlose all instances of mcam you have open re open a new one then check to see if it is updated and still checked

Also is your cutter snapping burning out or fretting addressing this issue should point ya in the direction of what steps to take to correct this. If you are worried about cycle time with a smaller cutter

I agree with using the smaller cutter too and running your slot as a closed countour and splitting the width of the cut you are taking in half and if thats still not enough using multipass until ya get it in there.

just be careful I can;t remember the exact 2 keys I know one was P though I think the other was reset and when those 2 were held pushed in when we started the machine it wiped out all our parameters

I totally agree with the help on this forum is second to none. Mastercam as a whole blows any other system I have worked with out of the water I like mcam am no where was I bshing X in any of my posts. Sure a learning curve is exspected ands when you are use to doing somethin one way for so long it should be exspected to be frustrating. I am not trying to be closed minded in my opinion in X. I know the mastercam developers use this forum as a tool as insite into what there consumers want out of there cadcam package. So with that in mind I am exspressing things I have found I like and dislike. I have done very lil with X but after having a a lot of trouble with trying to patch a complex hole in a surface file I opened it up in X clciked my chain and used the net surface and it came out perfect I was very impressed with the feature I am also looking forward to getting into the constant scallop toolpath and can see everyone elses posts on this forum about how they are impressed with the new cutterpaths. I am goin to accept the changes in X and move forward and continue to use this software. I just wanted to give my opinion on the things that have stuck out for me and post my opinion ina way that hopefully didn;t come across as "X sucks" like so many others is all. Will the developers change things that I have said probably a slim to nil chance but if everyone took this approach to exspressing there likes and dislikes instead of the "X sucks" approach maybe they will be even more willing to listen to what we have to say. On this site it states it has 85,577 seats world wide and the number of forum members is 13767. That is a pretty large pecentage of users using this forum the developers know this and do use this as a tool like we do. And I would like the tell the developers they have been doing a great job for a long time now a lot of whihc probably wouldn;t have been accomplished so fast with out the very knowledgeable members of this forum.

The software I am refering to is worknc when you edit your toolpaths its basically like using scissors cut out what you don't want also when windowing you have the option to create a reference diameter to make your boundaries so you can reference your cuter to maximize the time your cutter spends cutting inside the boundary. Also the processing time is a lot faster as it only looks inside your boundary and contains where it is processing. and with the remachining cuterpaths it allows you to cross cut at 90 degrees to the previous cut in one program no need to process a second. the option to force your cut high low and vice versa and many other options

ty Pete for your reply i didn't realise that I am currently looking into training from my reseller as we speak just got the quote this afternoon. My frustration with this new interface is that it seems like I am forfeiting a good part of my previous exsperience with mcam now with this new interface. personally I would have liked to see the changes more as add on changes. cut a lil of the fat from v9 upgrade this that and so on. I work on bigger one off custom tools if I do something wrong because of a lack of exsperience with mcamX it can cost my employer a lot. SO really its a familiarity issue and a confidence and comfort level with the old interface that when i create or program something I can load it on a machine and just let her go. We are only one shift here and with contract deadlines being tightened do to the changes in our economy and more companies quoting on fewer jobs I run my machine unmanned over night as often as possible to cut costs. I need to have the comfort just so I don;t have to walk into work in the morning to a disaster.

I wil be the first to admit I am not comfortable with X and need some training. By no means am I bashing it because i don't know enough about it. But is anyone happy with "live entity" that needs a stroke of the enter key so it knows what I just put I want. It doesn't matter what level you are at with mastercam we all will create more right geometry then wrong. Why use live entities and not just undo when we make something we don't want? To take away most of the key strokes to make it faster but then force us to hit enter after every operation seems like a oxymoron to me. I know I am a creature of habit and like left hand on keyboard right on mouse, I am not looking forward to having to get use to a spaceball. I have used a few of the more CAM orientated software packages out there and while any version of mcam blows them out of the water for 2D the 3D cuterpaths are very restrictive and limitive especialy with editing, boundary creations, remachining and so on. Just think if a lil of the attention put into changing the interface was used on things like the editing of cutterpaths, mcam could have really closed the gaps with some other packages. Another thing I keep seeing on here is mcamX has been changed to a windows environment and if this is the case why can't a skin be created to make the interface resemble older versions of mcam. and allow users the option which they want to use. I have been using mcam since v7 I think it is a great software. I just worry that some people will be turned off by the new interface and change cam packages. and for every company who switches to a different package that is one more company that my mcam skills will be useless to. Which will either cause me to take a step back to learn there new package or not even get my foot in the door. Just my .02

Why not try reinstalling Cimco5 in the same folder as all your other editors

I have played with mine and now it always stays pegged around 50% now matter if I am processing a program or just letting it sit idle. But when I open 2 instances I can get in trouble at times

Go to Screeen configure then on your allocations page it will tell you ho much of your system resources you have dedicated to V9. Play with your allocations to see if yo can tweak it for your CPU

I would try turning off your hardware aceleration could and updating your video driver could be a graphic issue

Have ya tied rebooting?

sorry analyze only level # (on level is a typo)