The extractor is pulling out oil mist from the air. It's a vegetable based oil (airoil mister) from Unist. From what I found for cleaning stations for these things is some sort of higher pressure air blast that more or less forces the waste out of it. I'll look into making something for cleaning them for the next time. Until then, the air sprayer with some towels underneath seem to get most of the waste out. Andrew

Yeah, I let it soak overnight, but seems as though it didn't do to much. I'm looking up to see if the companies web-site say anything, but it all appears to be in German. Andrew

Hey guys, Kind of off topic of mastercam, but anyone here that has mist extractors on their CNC's, what do you do to clean the steel wool looking filter sections? Am I supposed to buy new ones of these each time, or whats the scoop. The grease cutter doesnt seem to be cutting it. Thanks for the help Andrew

Make sure everything is selected in one continuous line or there aren't any little tiny lines that cause any sort of funkiness. We've had models from customers that have some major screwiness going on with the parting line. The other option would be to go and create the surfaces manually, and more or less do the mold split tool manually with just creating 2 other disjoint solid bodies. Kind of the long way, but sometimes the mold split tool does some quirky things. Hope that helps. Andrew

Looks like it has to do with what is the mainactive level. If I label the mainactive level and hit "ok" or exit out of level manager, it doesn't stay. If I make sure the level isn't the main level, it will stay in there. That's what I've found so far Andrew

It's a shame you can't do a lofted solidsurface with a guide curve. That would do the trick right there. Andrew

Create your square or whatever the shape at the bottom (top plane z0) create your arcshapecontour whatever that would be the main defining contour.(front plane z0) create your final shape at the top of your contour (top plane Zn) Make sure that where your along feature startsstops is the same on both topbottom squares otherwise you get screwy results. Possibly also design from front view, create your shape, extrude the distance and add draft to the sides after that? Might be easier in solidworks. lol hope that helps a little bit Andrew Edit....the first description up there, you would create a surface and then turn it into a solid. I'll see what I can do as far as just using solids.

Just tested it as well (never really used it before). It saved a couple, but not all that I inputed. NOt sure what the deal is. Andrew

Come on, who doesn't get that excited when they get to download that 500mb Mastercam file at 12ks? Andrew

Did a quick run-through on the manual (gotta love trying to read the foreign languages), but didn't see too much. It's working rather well right now. The times when I do have errors with the HST's is when the minmax arc settings are set at 0.005100.00 This is just too big a window I believe, so I put it at usually 0.0755.00 and it hasn't errored out in awhile. We are still considering though a retrofit on this machine so more than me can use it. Andrew

edmbosto, That's how its set. I don't think I gave my reseller enough of the Mikron documentation to get the post perfect for arcs in all planes. It still acted up. I rarely use 2d toolpaths on the mikron, so it's not too big a deal. Odd though that the helix entries in the HST's would work fine though, whereas they wouldn't in the 2d toolpaths. Andrew

DanR, I run into a similar problem with my Mikron HSM700 with the Heidenhain Atek HS Plus control. The problem is usually my cut tolerance. The machine has filters on its end and if it sees something "out of wack", it will error out. It's taken me forever to get to this point since there is only 1 person in the US and 1 person in Europe that can provide a small bit of useful information. Could be running into the same thing? I did find the other day though that I was going to helix in with just a normal pocketing operation and for some reason the machine would error out in the same way. I thought I had all my ducks in order, but for some reason on the 2d pocketing operation it went crazy on me. I switched my post back to linessplines and it worked fine. Something with circular interpolation causes issues between Mastercam and the Mikron. Not sure if that helps, but it more or less sounds like a similar situation. Andrew

Maybe if we could verify at a speed quicker than snails pace, and if the verify would be a true representation of what our toolpath would look like, these crashes may not be quite so frequent? Verify has been and probably always will be my biggest issue with Mastercam. When I can cut a part faster than verify can run, there is a serious issue. Andrew

I should note, I just turned off "add cuts" and it went away, and looped as it should. Andrew

Went to rough out an aluminum part. I was .25" down (luckily not the full .600" down), tool helixed to depth all fine, and then instead of doing trochoidal cuts for first "lane" to cut out, it went 100% cutter width at full speed. Any ideas on this. Here is a picture to show what I'm talking about. Anyone else experienced this? Andrew

Very quick response from QC. The error has been noted, and will be addressed. Here is the current workaround as suggested by QC at Mastercam: "A work around would be instead of hitting the green check. Hit the X in the upper right corner. It closes out the manager and you can then reopen it with no problems and your new levels will be in there." Well that clears things up a little bit. Andrew

I figured it was simple like that. lol ok. Back to work Andrew

Can't find the qc email on the mastercam site. LInk? andrew

Not sure if it's been covered, but I found a Level Manager error. I have toolpath managerlevel manager on my right monitor, keep them both open. Have entities on the screen F4 to analyze an entity input a different level # for that entity in the analyze dialog box *note that this level should not exist* hit the Check mark in Level manager to close it out (because your new number will not appear) OPMAN "An invalid argument was encountered" should show up. I have to restart mastercam to get my Level manager back up. Anyone else see this? Andrew

Henk, cool, I just toyed with that a little bit. Nice you found a work around for it, but seems like more work than is neccessary, but thats how a lot of mastercam is Anyways, I ended up earlier just making draft surfaces and created a flowline operation. SImplest solution since it was just 1 surface type of thing. Hey, how do you like Moldplus? We were thinking of looking into it for all the electrodes we do here. I always figured it would be simpler for things like that to be done in solidworks, but then again I find Mastercam's modeling to be absolute crap. What's your take on it? Thanks Andrew

Yeah, I haven't done any of the swept toolpaths, so it's kind of a learning curve with that. Im going down .205" deep with a .8mm bull nose in 54rc S-7 The ramp operation (slotted out center) worked great, but since the slot is .9mm or so in width, lead inout aren't exactly possible, so when the tool plunges down, we have problems. I'll see if I can get it to ramp as the lead inlead out. My typing is kinda crappy right now. Got in a fight with a 34" end mill last night......it won. I'll try toying with the swept paths more here. Andrew

Whats the max RPM you can go? 1" deep isn't bad really. What kind of end mills are you using? That has been huge for me. Seco's tools for aluminum have been working phenomenally for me with aluminum and work great up to 42k rpm. I personally think that with a .0002" stepover, you're going to kill your endmill and end up with a worse finish imo. For finishing I would go with these parameters: RPM = 7000rpm Feedrate (IPM) = 35 (for 2 flute....70ipm for 4 flute) max stepdown =0.002" max stepover =0.0037" Using those parameters with some stuff I just did this week gave incredible results. Andrew

I see what you're saying, I guess in reality that would be the same as me making a swept surface and then using surface flowline. I was hoping that maybe it would be considered to just add the Draft option to the 2d contour ramp toolpath. Andrew

Curious if anyone knows a way to use the 2d ramp contour and add draft to the contour (like a normal 2d contour). I understand that I could use a waterline or contour surface operation, but I don't like the stepdown marks it leaves. I could also try and get surface flowline to work, but I have to be honest. In all the times I've tried to get flowline to work properly, I had to basically create all new surfaces for a part, and still then nothing was guranteed. Any ideas? I want a constant stepdown with the ramp setup. Would it be hard to add this to the 2d ramp option menu? Seems like it could be useful to many people. Thoughts, Suggestions? Andrew

I haven't had that much of a computer problem, but then again I have a few things going for me....1. It's my dads shop, and 2. my dad and I both understand the need for a powerful machine. What amazes me at why people buy a computer from somewhere. We build machines that are far superior to most on the market, and they are far more powerful, and have the hardwaresoftware that we need. Heck even with 21" flat panels, its still less than half the price of what I see most people spending on a machine. Then again, I understand most don't have this luxury. Can't we go back to the Mastercam problems though? I know i know the computer tends to be the "source" of the problem, but let's get serious here, when all our other programs work fine, but one......I think that is pointing the finger in the right direction Andrew