I keep crashing MasterCam

How did you do that Ron? I'm not getting it.

I use it almost daily. It works really well, yet there is definitely room for improvement in the algorithm. At times it will bounce between 2 separate features in a very inefficient way. Retracts are not efficient at times and it will leave random amounts of stock on the floors. All three of these issues should be resolved with the next release. I'm currently having an issue where I can't regenerate a toolpath once it's created. Joe at Volumill has been working very hard to resolve this issue. It appears to be a issue with my dual monitor setup but there still working on the solution. Great bunch of guys, great product but its still a work in progress. The nice thing is they listen to the customer and make improvements. The only real issue I have is not tying the VoluMill license to a Hasp. Its locked to a single computer.

I hear ya, I learned everything I know about MasterCam by trial and error. The reason I said go to the class is you can learn-test drive the software and make an informed decision if it works for you before purchasing. I think I'll do that on any future investments... I did the 30day Eval and after 30days I just ended up confused, as Esprit is soooo much different then MasterCam I couldn't get a good assesment. After 5 days of training it was painfully obvious that it wasn't right for us. Josh-

One more thing to look at.. When selecting depths from features of a solid you must "smash" the solid to geometry. There is no way to pick edges or end points on a solid without first creating geometry. Also no "Dynamic Analyze" to check faces of a model. Just some more food for thought. Josh-

Dave, I would suggest going to the week long training session before issuing a P.O. at least get some sort of agreement that payment is pending until you receive proper training, we had to fight to get our money back and ended up paying for my trip to Chicago and the cost of the training sessions. I guess we paid to do a REAL evaluation of the software.

One other thing, organization of the Op manager, breaking up ops into groups, assigning different group names along with different NC File names/program numbers. Multiple machines in one file and simulating the whole process in one session. I know MasterCam is not perfect but if they got there sh-t together with Mill/Turn (Which I have a feeling they will) and got serious about stock automation and stock state transfers between machines they could blow the competition out of the water.

Thanks Hardmill. Dave, They do handle it well if your actually using the 4th axis, the problem is when your not and you just want to simply reset your WCS and machine the backside of a model without flipping the part and losing your stock recognition. It HAS TO initiate a rotation both in the toolpath and simulation to get to the back of a part. It's so absolute in it's multiaxis capability that flexibility is lost. Like I told the instructor, my operator will walk over, take the part out of the vise, flip it and machine the back, do you see any a-axis rotation? His solution... make a separate post for the machine without an a-axis, same thing that Gibbs has to do... I'm not bashing the product, I just value the members here and want to pass on my experiences so they can take the information and make a wiser decision for themselves. Josh-

I heard some Mori Distributor are not so happy with Esprit, seems Esprit is leaving it to the dealers to figure out how to train people on the software. There answer...send them to Chicago... We purchased Esprit over MasterCam since we have a swiss lathe. The owners and myself were assured after one week in Chicago I would be ready to roll right into production the following Monday. Now were not talking multi spindle/ multi axis, 5 axis or anything crazy, just 3axis lathe and 4 axis mill. By day 3 I already had a huge list of enhancement requests (Like a redo button.....) and had found a major bug that somehow nobody else noticed.. So on the 4th day I had to call my boss and tell him there is no way in hell I can machine the parts we do daily on Esprit. Just peel mill alone can make or break a job for us. Slot cutting tungsten without it is ridiculous, let alone the lathe retracts take forever to figure out what will not cause a crash. I even had to turn off stock update on a lathe ID groove toolpath because it kept cutting the face of my part off. So in the end I'm left with ZERO training on surface toolpaths and I spent every spare minute during the week trying to get a specific surface roughing toolpath and nobody could produce what would be a simple core roughing toolpath in MasterCam. It wasn't until Wednesday the following week that a tech support guy with his kid screaming in the background got me an acceptable toolpath, how he did it I'm unsure. In the end we asked for a refund, ate about $6,000 and purchased MasterCam..... One more thing....try machining the Bottom of a part in Esprit Mill without specifying a 4th axis in your machine config and a huge retract height..You can't machine the bottom of a part on a 3axis machine, it will error out.... Anyways, I'm sure it works great for some people, not for us.

Nope, in the works....

Since MU3 whenever I try to replace a machine (Lathe) it won't actually change machines? Anyone else have this problem?

Not here.

One is the tools to extract to your Mill tool library, the other is all the Ops and tools to produce the ports. Credit goes to ?????

ftp://mastercam:[email protected] ftp://mastercam:[email protected]/SAE-PORTS.zip

Seems like there was one on the FTP

Only problem is the view is now different. You can either have it clear the WCS after saving a file and keep your views correct or change your view every time you click on a different view sheet yet keep the WCS when saved. Hope this gets fixed in X5.

I do all the time. 350SFM - 0.025" Step - 75IPM - up to .125 Rounding Depnding on the machine and how rigid it is, you'll have to play with the rounding radius and backfeed.

"We are currently working on a different issue of a higher priority." Like MTM?

In theory I would be better off using the top end Duo core? It just seems like a huuuuuge waste of my money to have this beast of a computer that I can't fully utilize.

I've got dual Quad Cores Xeons. Here's an explanation. "The Xeon is multi-threaded. With the proper version of the operating system, a quad-core Xeon looks like 8 processors. Running both threads of a Xeon full out gains you about another 50% compute speed, varying as a function of just what you're trying to do. If he's already interested in multi-core for solving his problem, it means he's using software that will take advantage of multiple processors. Usually such software can use as many processors as are available, and in that case it will run substantially faster on the Xeon than on the Core2, all other things being equal." See I have 2 Xeon Quad cores for and effective 8 Cores, with multi-threading turned on in my Bios I can split that and have 16 cores. The problem is when processing one large toolpath only one core (6%) is being utilized.

I 100% agree with all suggestions here.

It's at 99% It's not a memory problem, it's a processing problem. I'm just curious why we can't use 50% of ALL CORES on a single toll path generation?

Yes, that only works when generating multiple ops at the same time, each op would then use 6%

Can someone please explain to me why I have this super computer yet MasterCam is only using 6% of my processor to generate tool paths while I sit here staring at the screen watching money go to waste? I know there's a reason so please explain as it seems absolutely absurd to have a drag car with 1200HP and 6" wide street tires.....

I've used a Belkin USB Network Hub to access a Hasp on our internal network, I see no reason why you couldn't do the same remotely. Josh.