I don't know if it was the same error but we've seen similar when we've had and R plane above the current tool position or similar situation. Sorry I can't remember exactly what it was but you might look for a bad R plane or Q value.

Yes. Easier, faster and better all around. After using wireframes and surfaces for years I tried the solids and within a few days goofing with it on my own I was making complete geometry MUCH faster than I was able to make the partial wireframe geometry I had been using for my toolpaths. Until you do it, you won't believe how much easier and faster you can draw what you need and your boss will be happy to see you using the features he paid for. Somebody else chime in on this please. I'm starting to look like some sort of fanboy here.

Absolutely go for the solids. I also began using Mastercam at V7and I've had the solids option just to work with some of the files sent to me for a few years. When things began to slow down at our shop I decided I had some time to play with using solids and what an eye-opener that was. Within a day or two I was able to do more with solids in less time than I ever imagined. I'm still smacking myself for not trying it sooner. I don't use the FBM, but I still get a large toolpath advantage from using solids due to the fact that I can edit the wireframe geometry used for the solid creation, regenerate the solid, then regenerate the toolpath based on the solid very quickly if needed. Also if you aren't doing it already, work with your WCS. Combined with solids, the WCS kicks major tail. Instead of drawing three or more wireframe views, you'll be creating a single solid that includes all features for any view you might possibly want, then you just pick or create your viewpoint and origin and knock out the paths. Also also handy with this method is that you can verify multiple setups and come out with a complete part on your verify screen. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Welcome to the forum Reko Here's a little project I worked on last night. Took me maybe three hours to draw in soilds and toolpath completely. Too bad I don't know anything about gear design or it would have been faster I'm sure! Suitable for my model helicopter anyway.

New name for me. 67Y was my military occupational specialty(MOS). Pronounced "six-seven yankee" when I was doing the job and it's a lot better fit, not to mention a heck of a lot easier to spell! Thanks for the help on the file guys

quote: Looks like a AH-1F Cobra. Thad I'm not really sure anymore! After I started messing with RC heli's I started searching around and most of the pics I find of the S models have the bubble shaped canopies. The more pics I found the less sure I became of what was supposed to be what, haha. What I do know is it looks a WHOLE lot like the AH-1S model I used to work on when I was a young helicopter mechanic. I think maybe at one point the army retrofitted various models with the flat pane windows and didn't rename them just to make things confusing. They love to make things confusing! Suits my purpose whatever it is

faucet? Ron, are you calling me a drip? Yeap, it's completely faceted. I even tried creating curves on all edges and screen>statistics came up with 59789 lines and 17257 untrimed surfaces. Not a single arc or spline in the place! I was hoping it was all in my settings but sounds like maybe that all this model has to offer, huh?

I have an IGES file that I think is probably OK but when I open it all the surfaces come in as planes ( so funny! since it's a helicopter )... I've tried playing around with the tolerances in MC but seems like I can't make the model come in any better or worse. Are there some IGES filter or version settings I can change that might give me a smooth model? I'm hoping I can get it close to the one shown here: http://www.3dcadbrowser.com/preview.aspx?ModelCode=22926 Right now it looks like this:

Yeah for the guitars! I didn't know so many here were doing that stuff. Here's one I did a couple years ago before I knew much about solids. At the time, I couldn't figure out how to draw the neck like I wanted it so I ended up carving it by hand. I can't begin to explain how much better solid modeling is for designing stuff like this. By all means jump in to the solids as soon as you are able!

I don't know if the platter height is consistent from machine to machine but I can tell you what we have. Would be interesting to hear from other Haas trunnion users to see how much these number vary. Our VF5 with the 210mm platter has the platter surface .1192" below the A axis centerline. Our VF6 with the 310mm platter has the platter surface .1354" below the A axis center.

I used to have those kind of troubles with my old computer on X3. Seems like there was a conflict or something that would cause it to glitch out or freeze up or whatever several times per hour. Since I built a new computer I've only had to restart Mastercam (X3 or X4) maybe a couple times a week because of problems or errors. I usually close Mastercam between finishing one job and starting another, but I also will sometimes run 3 or 4 sessions at once if I'm looking for something or comparing something between files.

I use 3-4 lines of text within the program to describe the orientation and origin of the part along with the X+ tool list. I'll rotate the part around on screen to best show what the operator should expect to see so that when I hit HTML on my X+ output, they get a descriptive screen shot. For the most part the jobs run without a lot of questions. I'd say try to be descriptive and minimal if that makes sense. I did have a part time programmer that wanted to write a novel at the beginning of each program and the setup guys would have to ask me what to do every time.

I've been playing with this for a while now and it's better than I had hoped for or even imagined. I don't need to do this very often, but it will be a pleasure to do it now this way. Thanks much for the tips.

Outstanding. Thanks a ton!

Seems like I read something recently about making dimensioned drawings from solids in Mastercam, but I can't find it now. I don't make dimensioned drawings often, and even less often from solids but I have had to do it a few times. What I have done is create curves on all edges, orient the wireframes to the view I want, then project to plane, delete the elements I don't want to see, dimension what's left, and repeat for the other views. There's a better way than this, right? Thanks for any help

I always just double click right from my email and it does the job.

Chris, I would definitely look at a machine built as a 5 axis machine since you know it will have the travels you need and you know everything will work together as a package etc. With the VF5/40TR you can always mount a 6" Kurt vise on the table and use it just like any other three axis mill, so there's no down time waiting to get used to the setup, changing or storing trunnion tables or waiting for the right jobs to come along. Lots of Haas bashing goes on around here but ours have made $$millions for us and have taken their share of abuse (physical and verbal )

The double margin may be good. The straight flute drill scares me a bit on this material since I don't have coolant through the spindle, but then again we're going less than 2 diameters deep. Maybe it would be ok? I want to avoid a reamer if possible since we have only two holes this size per part. I'm really interested in cutting out the tool change if possible. Right now I use one endmill to finish the outside of the part as well as the holes, but if I can drill finished holes that will still save me some time. I'll see if my carbide sales guy has a supplier that can provide a custom sized double margin drill for this. Thanks for the input!

quote: What IS the finish requirement? There's no requirement on the drawing, but we would like to stay around 32 microinches since these parts will be handled and we want the end user to feel that they have bought quality. Also just by the way, some of these parts have been produced in China and we've been able to bring the quality and price in line well enough to grab some decent work. Now if we can gain a bit more ground we'll be able to get a bigger bite =)

Looking at making thousands of .593"+/-.001" X 1.00" deep through holes in 6061-T6. So far we've just drilled and mill bored which produces a great finish and allows us to use an off the shelf tool for this odd sized hole, but it looks like we're going to be making many many thousands of these hoes now. Anyone know of a drill that can one-shot these holes, or other way to speed up the process while still producing clean accurate holes?

They did the post for out tilt head iTNC 530 DMG machine and it's great too. Covered all the bases!

The way I like to set part and tool heights on my Haas machines is to set all tools with a 4" tall setter sitting 6" above the table on a 2-4-6 block. We may not need to have the tool plane that high, but it prevented some problems back in our Fadal days and we didn't need to change the method when all the Fadals went away. When the tools are set, we'll typically pick any tool that's convenient for setting the part height, run the tool down to touch the top of the raw stock, then move off the part and drop another .02" or so to clean up the stock. hit "offsets", put the cursor on Z and hit "part zero set". That will enter the current machine position into your offset. Then hit the page up button and look at the length offset for the tool in the spindle. The offsets will be negative, and we just type in that number positive instead of negative, page up again to get back to your part Z and hit enter. That adds the tool length back in to the G54 offset without having to write anything down and no chance of math errors. Sounds like a lot to write out, but if you try it, you'll see that it's very quick and simple.

quote: IMO, you are going to still go nuts saving 200meg files with one 7200rpm drive. I would consider a 10K Raptor or a Raid setup with at least 7200's. YES Just curious... how long does it take to save that size program on your current system? Can you work on files that large with the autosave turned on?

Is there a way to get the chuck and manufacturers code to post out along with the tool name? I've looked around in some of my posts but haven't seen a switch to turn on and I'm not sure it would be there anyway. I'd like to be able to see all of the info shown in the pic below partly for convenience for my setup guy and partly for Vericut or Predator which supposedly can read tool setup info from the NC file. If I'm heading down a wrong road here, how are you getting tool info into your verification programs, and are you using the information from these fields at all? Here's what's showing up in my NC file at the moment: (START TOOL LIST) (T1 1/8 BULL ENDMILL 0.0313 RAD, .125 DIA) (T2 1/4 BULL ENDMILL 0.0313 RAD, .25 DIA) (END TOOL LIST)

See if you have the finish parallel parameters>advanced settings>roll tool over all edges checked. That may be all you need.

Do you have "use tool's step, peck, coolant" unchecked in you operations manager tool settings?