Bryan: This is as good a place as any to look at the probing functionality with regard to the post processors in Mastercam. Starting with a simple drill cycle. This cycle could be looking for one of two things (just to start with). The routine could look to see if the hole is there (tool break detection) and stop the machine, or if the tool is a size controlling tool, such as a burnishing roller, if the hole is big enough and re-run the tool a pre-determined number of times. The desired function could be switched on and off and otherwise controlled with miscellaneous variables. Would something like this interest you, Bryan, or anyone else out there? If enough people are interested, we could get quite a detailed and flexible routine worked out here. Also, its funny that you mentioned reverse-engineering. Although I have many years of experience at RE (enough to stay away from it), including the original Big Bertha and the original Starship Voyager, I attempt to work exclusively with inspection. However, there are people that use inspection software for RE. One person puts blank paper on the part, scrubs with a pencil, scans right into Mastercam, and programs an inspection routine for the desired features. After the inspection routine is completed, the original scanned geometry can be discarded, leaving the actual results! Pretty cool, huh? Wish I had thought of it. Dave

Well Bryan, it sounds like you have a pretty good handle on the macros. I am still wondering though, do you access the macros through Mastercam? Is the macro executed for each part or do you only use the setup function once, at the beginning of a job? Tony, good luck with your new capabilities. You might want to talk to Bryan some more about it.

Hello: I do not intend to use the Mastercam Forum for direct sales purposes. It is true that my company produces software for programming these things, but my interest here is to gain exposure to a wider variety of applications. I have always assumed that most probe users bought their probes on the premise that it will produce better and faster setups. I have come to find that a great majority (over 90%) of the probes that have been sold are still in the box, on a shelf somewhere. I have also been unable to find many people that use the macros efficiently. How many other probe users have taken the time to customize their post processors to output probing cycles for automated setup and in-process verification? Do you call the mill-bore cycle, and then verify with the probe and call the mill-bore cycle again based on probing results? This is basic functionality for the probe and I just don't see it being used anywhere in a CAM environment. Should be a fairly simple post change, depending on how it is to be used. The mill-bore or drilling cycles, for example, would be "simple". Verifying the distance between two milled walls would require a "little" more post tweaking. These things would be worth doing if there were enough people using them. The benefits that are realized now by writing one-off routines for long-running jobs (has to be long-running, the custom routines are very expensive to create), which is essentially lights-out operation, can also be realized for short-run jobs if it can be successfully integrated into the CAM world. Sorry for the tirade. Just background on why I ask. As for programming by "calling macros", are these calls added manually? Is troubleshooting a problem? Am I way off-base and these things are actually widely used and simple to understand? Dave

Salah: What do you use the probe for? Setup? In-Process adjustments? How do you program it? Dave

Hello: Does anyone use a touch probe on your machine?