Good upbeat post Jack Neelands I'd also like to say hi and welcome Andy007 if you're even looking anymore. And thank you guys for posting the info about the settings to make the selected ops post without having to jump through hoops. I had been habitually renaming and renumbering my operation groups immediately before posting to make sure no ops got dropped. I have felt from time to time that Mastercam was set to punish the programmer for missing any small detail. Some small things, like having coolant always on unless specifically cancelled, having depth cuts on by default and having all checked operations post by default when told to post would have saved me some frustration along the way. In my opinion, a freshly installed seat of Mastercam should have all defaults set for simplest and most forgiving operation. That may result in a new user cutting a lot of air or making way too many passes, but learning to make more agressive and effective programs seems like a much more sensible way to progress than learning by destroying tools and materials. I suppose quite a few of the folks here have had to learn Mastercam the way I have. I'm in a small company. I manage some guys, quote parts, make schedules, set up a machine sometimes, help with problems here and there, talk to customers, oh and by the way I program parts too. Anyone else miss a detail or two when they complete a program after about 80 interruptions? Fortunately I have learned (on my own of course, who has time for formal training!?) to set up my tool libraries and operation defaults by machine so that things are usually set to avoid disaster when (not if) I forget something somewhere. So yes, I think Mastercam X right out of the box can be dangerous for inexperienced users and while not fatally flawed, it can serve up a ton of hard lessons. I also think Mastercam is truly great after you really learn to use it well and have everything set up properly. I would very strongly recommend formal training if you can get it. Also this forum is a great place to learn. I've seldom posted but learned a ton from all the searches I've done. Most of all be sure to learn how to set up Mastercam to work for you, not against you.

Sure break many will make arcs. It just won't mix arcs with lines. Here's the line/arc button on the ribbon bar: Sorry Thad if that's not what you meant.

Use C-Axis drill from the lathe toolpaths menu. On the toolpath parameters, check the box that says rotary axis, and pick axis substitution with a rotary diameter of 2.0 and check unroll. Just one of many ways to get this job done.

I apologize for getting silly and for getting off topic in the wrong area. I am very interested in the new version regardless of naming procedure. Bulletman, that was uncalled for.

If there is such a program as Dressup Barbie, and it's on version X2, then I suppose ya got me. Er...those Barbies aren't mine, really!

quote: John Paris @ Kevlin X2 is a new release V8, V9, X, X2...... -------------------- See anything wrong with this numbering system? We're talking about version eleven here aren't we? This mixture of roman and arabic numerals seems to me a little ditzy, especially since we're not even using X1 which would at least make some sense to me. If we were playing with Barbie Dressup version X2, that would be fine and dandy! Put on Barbie's wedding dress and snow boots and a big sombrero and make her spin around like a vomit comet! Oklie doklie! I bet those Gibbs guys are laughing at us right now... Seriously though, I'm still looking forward to the next version regardless of the title and early this Fall is close enough to be exciting!

Seems like I may be forgetting something, but here are the main components other than the CPU... MOTHERBOARD ASRock 775Dual-VSTA Socket T (LGA 775) CPU Type Intel Pentium D/Pentium 4 HT/Celeron D FSB 1066/800MHz North Bridge VIA PT880 PRO South Bridge VIA VT8237A Number of DDR Slots 2x 184pin DDR DDR Standard DDR 400 (PC 3200) Number of DDR2 Slots 2x 240pin DDR2 DDR2 Standard DDR2 667 Maximum Memory Supported 2GB Dual Channel Supported Yes RAM Patriot Signature 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory VIDEO CARD XFX PVT42EUDE3 PCI Express x16 NVIDIA Geforce 6800XT Core clock 350MHz PixelPipelines 8 Memory Clock 1000MHz Memory Size 256MB Memory Interface 256-bit Memory Type GDDR3 OpenGL OpenGL 1.5 HARD DRIVE Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JB 80GB 7200 RPM Cache 8MB Average Seek Time 8.9ms Average Write Time 10.9ms Average Latency 4.2ms

I recently upgraded my computer from an AMD 2500+ CPU and Geforce FX5200 video card to an Intel pentium D 2.66 GHz CPU and Geforce 6800XT PCIE video card. It seemed like it was going to be a nice upgrade, but I'm not seeing much overall performance improvement with Mastercam. I have a feeling that the processor I bought isn't a great upgrade for the most part since half my CPU is idle most of the time. I'm thinking of changing the new CPU to a 3.2 GHz pentium 4 Cedar Mill core, but after the last experiment thought I might get some feedback from you guys first. Both of these processors work with my existing hardware and of course going from 2.66 to 3.2GHz won't hurt either. I'm currently running PC3200 DDR ram (2GB), so I think I will also benefit from the higher FSB though I'm not 100% sure. Specs on the CPUs... Now: Intel Pentium D 805 Smithfield 533MHz FSB LGA 775 Dual Core,EM64T Processor 64 bit Support: Yes Hyper-Threading Support: No L1 Cache: 24KB+32KB L2 Cache: 2 x 1MB Multi-Core: Dual-Core Operating Frequency: 2.66GHz Process Type: 90 nm Series: Pentium D Virtualization Technology Support: No Vista Ready: Yes considering: Intel Pentium 4 641 Cedar Mill 800MHz FSB LGA 775 EM64T Processor 64 bit Support: Yes Hyper-Threading Support: Yes L1 Cache: 12KB+16KB L2 Cache: 2MB Multi-Core: Single-Core Operating Frequency: 3.2GHz Process Type: 65 nm Series: Pentium 4 Virtualization Technology Support: No Vista Ready: Yes

After picking it apart I think I see all of what's going on all except for projection normal to plane. Normal to surface makes sense to me, but either way seems to generate the same path. Having the tool axis control normal to the surfaces seems to make the projection method unimportant at least in this case. Great stuff and gets me headed in the right direction for sure. Thanks a ton John! by the way, check out the yellow entities on level one .

I need to make this curtain track but am having a hard time trying to figure how to make the 5 axis machine do this simple thing. I've made several similar tracks that bend left and right, but never up or down like this one. I have all the tooling from the typical 2-1/2D track setup and would like to use the same basic method. Mill the center slot, open the slot up inside the part with a keyseat type cutter, and run a corner round tool on the outside radii. The problem I have is figuring out how to make the tool centerline stay normal to the floor of the part. I realize that the floor inside the part will be slightly concave, but that will be acceptable for this part. This type of path would also be very helpful from time to time in our shop for chamfering or corner rounding the edges of certain parts, or for using a brush to deburr or finish parts before they come out of the machine. The file has been uploaded to the FTP site as: /Mastercam_forum/MCX_Files/curtain track.mcx Thanks for any help getting this going!

Back in business now. Seems I never did get the update code when we updated last time. Took right at 30 minutes from the time I called until I got the code in my email though so no complaints here

oops. I found a hasp code that installed its self automagically. It was a temp code and now when I try the other code I have, I get the message "cannot update this HASP-check the serial number". Definately have the right serial number, but it just don't want to hear about it. My reseller is open now though and they'll hook me up.

Thanks John, haspx.exe is telling me that maintenance expired last September, which is wrong. Looks like I'll be talking to my Mcam guys later this morning =P

Anyone come across this one and know which file I need to swap to get moving? Must be something simple right? My Mcam reseller doesn't open for a while yet and I'd like to try this out NOW of course... Our maintenance contract is current and I don't think I have any add-ons. I have a raster to vector c-hook, but that shouldn't be a problem should it?

Here is a small file I posted and ran on my SL-20 yesterday. It cuts a 3/4" hex. quote: % O00001 (HEX) (DATE - 03-02-06-06:25) (PROGRAMMED FOR HAAS LATHE) ( T1 3/8 FLAT ENDMILL ) (T1 OFFSET - 0) ( 3/8 FLAT ENDMILL) T100 G112 G17 M154 (C AXIS ENGAGE) G00 G54 X0.1373 Y0.8873 Z0.25 M9 G98 G97 M133 P1000 Z0.1 G01 Z-0.1033 F6.332 X0.3248 Y0.5625 X0.6495 Y0. X0.3248 Y-0.5625 X-0.3248 X-0.6495 Y0. X-0.3248 Y0.5625 X0.3248 X0.6998 Z-0.0033 G00 Z0.25 X0.1373 Y0.8873 G54 X0.1373 Y0.8873 Z-0.0033 G01 Z-0.2067 X0.3248 Y0.5625 X0.6495 Y0. X0.3248 Y-0.5625 X-0.3248 X-0.6495 Y0. X-0.3248 Y0.5625 X0.3248 X0.6998 Z-0.1067 G00 Z0.25 X0.1373 Y0.8873 G54 X0.1373 Y0.8873 Z-0.1067 G01 Z-0.31 X0.3248 Y0.5625 X0.6495 Y0. X0.3248 Y-0.5625 X-0.3248 X-0.6495 Y0. X-0.3248 Y0.5625 X0.3248 X0.6998 Z-0.21 G00 Z0.25 X0.1373 Y0.8873 G54 X0.1373 Y0.8873 Z-0.21 G01 Z-0.4133 X0.3248 Y0.5625 X0.6495 Y0. X0.3248 Y-0.5625 X-0.3248 X-0.6495 Y0. X-0.3248 Y0.5625 X0.3248 X0.6998 Z-0.3133 G00 Z0.25 X0.1373 Y0.8873 G54 X0.1373 Y0.8873 Z-0.3133 G01 Z-0.5167 X0.3248 Y0.5625 X0.6495 Y0. X0.3248 Y-0.5625 X-0.3248 X-0.6495 Y0. X-0.3248 Y0.5625 X0.3248 X0.6998 Z-0.4167 G00 Z0.25 X0.1373 Y0.8873 G54 X0.1373 Y0.8873 Z-0.4167 G01 Z-0.62 X0.3248 Y0.5625 X0.6495 Y0. X0.3248 Y-0.5625 X-0.3248 X-0.6495 Y0. X-0.3248 Y0.5625 X0.3248 X0.6998 Z0.1 G00 Z0.25 G113 G18 M155 (C AXIS DISENGAGE) G00 G53 X0 Z-6.0 T0 M30 %

I have no experience working with quartz, but wouldn't a piece of granite be just about the perfect mounting? Should be easy enough to work into whatever shape you need, and dirt cheap. Seems like the thermal expansion should be pretty close to quartz as well.

Thanks Ray, the incremental save sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately, I have no "before" file to upload. I had Xplus loaded, but I was not using any C-hooks. Or if Xplus is a C-hook, then it was the only one I had running. I removed and reinstalled MR1 a few times since the damage was done, and have not been able to repeat the file scrambling. However, I still get multiple (complete) postings from some groups with MR1 but not with SP1. I believe the multiple postings are exact duplicates since I renumbered the NC code for each file and came up with exactly the same line numbers at the end of the files that posted double. As an experiment, I copied my groups 1 and 2 to create groups 3 and 4, then renamed and renumbered each group so each NC file would be unique. When I posted all 4 groups, they posted out correctly. When I posted groups 1,2 and 3, group one posted once, but groups 2 and 3 posted twice each. When I posted groups 1 and 2 only, group one posted once and group two posted twice. Hopefully that info might be useful to someone.

Hehehe Steve, Yeah one minute sounds kind of extreme. With that short interval, I would think that if you botched your file somehow then you would almost certainly have a useless copy as a backup. At least that's what happened to mine. If MC had actually crashed instead of going insane, I would have loaded the autosave file and not given it a second thought.

quote: This is my quote from my last poting saying that I know a Haas will let you do waht you stated a single program that actully contains multy in separated by the program #. But how to get MC to output it with out having to do the editing is what I am trying. I can not find a way at this time. My bad if I disagreed with you. I'm with you 100% on that point. I'm copying and pasting the programs and manually deleting the unwanted start/stop codes. quote: I am curious, how did you get the blue background in your operations manager? That's from X+ for version MR1/SP2 I'm currently not using that utility just in case quote: Thte 2 files in the GL.zip have to be copied into your MCamX directorie, and just overwrite the 2 old ones. Then all should be good with Radeon. Sounds simple enough. Thanks!!

quote: your Machine will not let you send all three programs to the machine at one. I do it every day. All I have to do is remove the % signs between the programs where I don't want it to stop sending. At least it works fine on the Haas and Fadal machines we are using. You may have higher end machines that don't like it. I haven't had a chance yet to try it on other machines, so maybe you could try it out and let me know what you find. Using the PFE, I posted the programs out and the let the editor open them all as they posted, like this: THen I went in and deleted all but the first and last %'s to "stitch" my programs together. With the code removed so you can see what's going on, here's it what my file looks like: quote: % O3510(51 INSIDE) (DATE - 02-05-06-20:37) (PROGRAM BODY) M30 O3511(51 ENGRAVING) (DATE - 02-05-06-20:37) (PROGRAM BODY) M30 O3512(51 FIXTURE) (DATE - 02-05-06-20:37) (PROGRAM BODY) M30 O3610(FIXTURE BUTTONS) (DATE - 02-05-06-20:38) (PROGRAM BODY) M30 O3613(VISEJAW FOR BUTTONS) (DATE - 02-05-06-20:38) (PROGRAM BODY) M30 O3520(52 INSIDE) (DATE - 02-05-06-20:38) (PROGRAM BODY) M30 O3522(52 ENGRAVING) (DATE - 02-05-06-20:38) (PROGRAM BODY) M30 O3521(52 FIXTURE) (DATE - 02-05-06-20:38) (PROGRAM BODY) M30 % All of the programs are sent to the machine, each with its own program number and title.

quote: Select all ops, right click, options, change nci file destination, then all of them will have same nci filename. Then select all and post and they should all post as a single program. This is for V9 but I don't see the same options in X. You may not have that option in X. The guy beside me at work doesn't have it on his mill 2, but I have it on my mill 3. Seems like we tried swapping SIMs once and we both could do that, but I needed my SIM back I can do what you're saying, but how will the machine operator run 3 sides of a part plus a fixture all from one program? Do you have each group post as a subprogram?

Thad, we might be talking about the same thing but seeing it differently. Or maybe you know of a different way of doing the same thing. I may very well be taking the long way around and if you can tell me of a better way I'll be all over it =) What I'm talking about is having say, a part that requires 3 setups plus a visejaw cutout. Each setup and the visejaw for the part will be represented by a group, and each group will have its own program number and NC file name. I select all operations before posting, but each group posts into a seperate NC file. I then take those files and put them end to end in a single file so that when I send my file out to the machine, all 4 programs show up in the machines memory. Often I don't end up sending the files myself, and it sure makes things easier if the person who ends up sending the files only has to know a single file name and can hit send one time and have the whole job loaded up.

I downloaded gl.zip, but there are no instructions in the folder. I have two .dll files and that's it. Should I save them in my MCX folder, or where do they belong? I don't know what's going on with my MR1, but my SP1 seems to run fine so I'll use that for now. I'll try reinstalling MR1 and testing some stuff out before jumping back into it. You're right Tommy, I do it that way all the time. When the editor opens I select all, copy, and paste the programs all into one document. Then I get rid of all the start/stop codes between the programs and save them into a single file. When I send that file to the machine, all the programs used to make the part get loaded up in one shot.

Oh shoot, I forgot some potentially important info regarding this file. Before I post code, I select all ops in a group and rename and set the program numbers, which I did this time as usual. Then as usual, I selected the whole machine group and regenerated all. I didn't notice any problems at this point, and posted the code as I always do. The first group posted, I looked at the code checking tool numbers and offsets, fixture numbers, spindle speeds, or whatever I might find. All looked ok, so I closed the editor and the second group posted and opened the editor again just like always. The code on the second group looked fine, so I was pretty satisfied that all was working as it was supposed to. Then when I closed the editor, one of the groups posted and opened the editor a third time. The only time I've had a single group post more than once was if I hadn't selected all the ops before rename/numbering, so I went back, made double sure I had all ops selected and change NC file Name/program number again for both groups, then regenerated the whole machine group again, then posted and the same thing happened again. Three groups posted. Looked like group one posted twice and group two once. I started looking through the ops to see why something might not be included in the group where I had it, and that's when I discovered all the modifications that had happened. I had not posted anything from MR1 before, but I was pretty sure the Fadal post and machine setup were the same ones I had been using since the list of machines in the machine manager looked the same as always. It looked like it must have imported the machine definitions and posts from my existing MCX folder. Maybe not, but everything sure looked familiar.

quote: Sorry for the semi-flame Jay Aww, that's hardly a flame at all with that apology tacked on =). Ok, I've taken your advice and uploaded the file on the forums FTP site (thanks PPCADCAM for hosting) Face surface.MCX ( may have to copy and paste that link, I tried it and it's asking for a password I don't have.) I am pretty familiar with MR1 and have been using it at home since the day after it was released. I wanted to check it out well before loading it up at work. I have done pretty well so far on my bass guitar design... and have done some pretty nice toolpathing on an actual job... So I'm not exactly a noob. Compared to some of you guys I'm a noob for sure, but I can get around reasonably well and haven't come across a job yet that I couldn't finish. I thought it pretty reasonable to give MR1 a shakedown at home, and have been going progressively further with my projects until this afternoon. I had no reason to suspect that posting my code would scramble the operations manager, and in fact I've hardly been crashing since loading up SP1 although the programmer sitting next to me at work crashes oh I guess about 20X/day. I mean all the damn time he's having to open his autosave file. Wierd too since I built both of those computers of exactly the same components on the same day and loaded up the same software and drivers. Maybe it's because he's using mill level 2 and I'm using Mill 3 with solids and lathe. Seems like I'd be more prone to having trouble since I'm running more software then he is, but again I'm no expert with that stuff. The home computer is very similar having an ATI Radeon 9800 video card (Hey it was built for gaming, the CAD was an afterthought) while I think the one at work uses has Nvidia FX5200. They are all 3 running AMD Barton 2500+ CPU's, high performance heatsink/fans, 1GB of PC3200 RAM in dual channel mode. I use whichever video setting was discussed here on the forums not oo long after version X was released. One notch above minimum or something like that. I'm sure I've left off some important info regarding hardware or settings, but I can find the specifics if you know of something I should check. Oh, and Jay? I get help here ALL THE TIME. I hardly ask any questions because I search and find answers to my questions. I also browse the forum frequently and learn about things I hadn't thought of. I seriously appreciate the sharing of knowledge from you and everyone who posts information and who helps solve problems here. Oh ya, and if you find some crazy speeds and feeds on that file they aren't mine. I need to tell my buddy about getting his tools set up properly in the library rather than entering stuff in the ops manager all the time. Or no. The Ops manager did it! Yeah, that's the ticket...