Has anyone tried to use the Test surface options to try to fix the surface problems? There should be an icon under anylize that lets u trim overlapping surfaces, delete small surfaces and such. Usually it helps with problem models. Or sometimes u can export it into other software and import with differant options to fix problem models.

Ive tried everything that has been suggested. i have also looked at several other threads and did alot of experimenting. Usually i am very addept at fixing toolpaths and have in the past used scallop with very nice results. In x2 i had it down to a pretty consistent science but with the release of x3 i have ran into a whole new bee hive of problems. Scallop used to be a very versitile toolpath now its almost worthless since i am getting guages in parts that are undetectable in verify and backplotters. The only way i have been able to fix it is to switch to another toolpath. Which means alot more work for our complicated parts. I believe it is a mastercam issue. Ive been able to get rid of the ripple effect of the toolpath but not the guage problem. If anyone has anymore suggestions i would appreciate it. Thank you.

We use wear if its a 2d operation that we wanna be able to offset out at the machine. other then that we use computer and occationally i use off if i want it to run down the center of the endmill. Ive never used control comp. Thanx for the suggestion tho.

I tried to run a 1/2 endmill into a pocket today and the start of the pocket has a smaller then .25 rad and then i was going to go in with a smaller end mill and 2d the extra stock out. The 1/2 endmill ignored the arc all together and wiped out the 1st corner. Has anyone else noticed that if you use a larger endmill to 2d something and theres a small radius on the entry or exit move it just ignores it? To get the 2d program to work properly i had to add an extra line to lead into before the arcs then it calculated correctly.

I have been using mastercam since V9 and havnt had this issue until installing the new x3 version. When using a scallop toolpath and runing over a small vertical only a couple hundred tall every once in a while i get gauges out of the aluminum. Typically i try not to run scallops over verticals but in the past as long as its not a very large vertical its been fine. It dosnt always do it and it dosnt show up when you backplot but when you run the programs theres a very visable notch taken out of the part your working on. You can kinda get rid of it if you drop your tolerance down to .0001 but if you ever have a large scallop program that would not be the best idea since your program would take a very long time to process. I usually run .0002 to .0003 with a 2:1 RATIO on scallops and it was always fine in the past. Sometimes i adjust up or down to make a smoother path but never before X3 has it cut in like this. Is anyone else noticing that scallop programs are not as reliable as they were int he past? Or does anyone have any suggestions that might help the situation? Thank you,

I have been using X3 for about a week now or so and i was wondering if anyone else has noticed that every once in a while when you go into the parameters of an op to make a simple change or even if u dont change anything it asks u if you want to update your tool. Almost like you had changed your tool when u actually didnt do anything to the tool. And if u hit yes to update the tool it turns any of your Ops that use that tool into a dirty OP and makes u regen it. And if u hit no then u have to go back in and make your changes that you had already made once. And usually it doosnt do it the second time you make the changes. I havnt changed any settings since x2 mr2. At first i thought it was only my old files that were doing it but after i started to make new files and it was still doing it i started to doubt that was the case. Anyone else noticing little glitches like this in x3?

I agree with mold100. ive done several holes just like what he discribed and using a 1/4" flat bottom endmill and rotoring out the hole and finishing with a nice carbide endmill should do the trick. Have a gauge pin handy that is the size you want and do your final pass with a 2d with cutter comp until the pin fits. Carbides tend to be a thou or 2 off so dont forget to take that into account.

I recently upgraded from 2 gigs to 4 gigs and sadly saw no increase in speed with the benchmark. It seems processor speed is much more important. I have 2 comps with xeon processors and one that is not a xeon and the xeons run almost twice as fast for MC.

You could try seeing what the operators think are the best way they think you should be setting something up. Because if they are taking a long time seting up the way you think it needs to be setup theres a possibility that you are taking them out of thier confort zone or that they arnt completely understanding your plan. Communication between programmers and operators can sometimes cause alot of conflict and make building the parts take alot longer. As far as lake of training if you can afford it bringing in someone to train you for a week isnt a bad idea. If thats too expensive the books are a good help but even they only take you so far. One of the ways i figure out how to use differant areas of mastercam is to just experiment with differant things. Because you can make the same program on two differant blocks and end up with 2 totally differant programs.

It could be that you set your mastercam to make your current view your tool plane and when you rotate or change views it thinks your telling it to change your ops to that tool plane. what setting do you have in your config for your WCS or click on the plane button on the bottom of your mastercam window and see what its set to.

Sorry bout the delayed response. If youd like i could take a look at the file just put it on the ftp site somewhere and tell us where it is and which operations your having trouble with.

Also if the surfaces are all linked and your trying to make them all cut in the same direction every once in a while if you hit single row it sometimes helps the UV all go in the same direction. But it dosnt always work.

Just so theres no confusion all those options i talked about changing are under the operations parameters G83 peck drill tab.

To change the start of your peck you need to change the top of your stock to absolute .1000 which will take it to .1000 above z zero. Then make your clearance height 2 inchs incremental. Your retract can be incremental 0. Then change your depth to incremental and enter how ever deep you would like to peck. Hopfully that should work for ya.

I had a boss that was the same way. everytime things got a little slow he would have me mess with the speeds and feeds like one day i was magically going to figure out a system for any possible situation. Lucky for me he also programs. So one day i sat him down and showed him all the things we would need to change. We came to a mutual agreement and made dafualt and common tool files for our most used tools and saved them. Same with the materials lists. We managed to set it up so it came out fairly close to what we wanted and the machinists can just adjust using the button on the damn control cuz thats what its there for. We are a mold shop so its not very comoon to make the same part over again. We also have 10 different machines. which changes everything. It took a long time and alot of ajusting and there a couple of other areas that we set up to do this that i dont really feel like going into detail about. Such as machine definition stuff so your endmills will calculate right for which ever machine your on. Cuz we all know a 30 year old lablonde dosnt run the same speeds and feeds with the same endmill as a brand new okuma. Now the tricky part is explaining that to your boss in a way that dosnt xxxx him off.

Hi jim. Im not sure if your still looking for new employees. I doubt i have as much experiece as don since ive only been working in the industry for about 6 years now but maybe i could help. If your interested email me at home at [email protected].

There are a couple of things i would try. Usually you can make the check or drive surfs .0001 different and it changes alot of your toolpaths. It usually depends on what type of toolpath and what you are doing with it. And to the guy who said to use a containment boundry i dont believe it is an option with flowline. Actually if it was me and it was an open radius i wouldnt even use any checks unless there is a surf that might interfere. Which from what you discribe seems like the case. If its a radius into a 90 deg surf dont tag the 90 deg surf. If your worried its going to dig into the vertical surf then tag the one above it. The final thing i would try would be to mess with your tolerance under the toolpath. maybe bump it up or lower it, see if anything changes. If it picks up alot and you dont think it needs to, mess with the gap setting just make sure it dosnt try to run thru any of your part. As for the spline question. It kinda depends on what your doing with the spline? If your makeing a 2d toolpath with a spline i sometimes simplify the splines. Which turns it into the closest lines and arcs if possible. It could be a tolerance issue. If your doing a 3d toolpath and its coming out with big scallops then you should probly tighten up your passes. There could be many more things you can try these are just a few thigs off the top of my head. if i had a little better idea of what your doing i could possible help you more. For all i know a flowline might just be the wrong toolpath for your application. Anyway hope some of this helps...

I agree with crazy millman. If you are taking a full cut the only differance is what side you want a nice finish on. And in my experience plastics do tend to chip more while climp cutting if you do not have the proper lead out. As for the small endmills in our shop we believe if you convetional the endmill tends to flex towards a vertical wall and in many cases will undercut. Basically in most cases anything under 1/8 we try to climp cut. Not sure if thats entirely true in acrylic.

Hi Tazzer. I am also trying to convert a font to true type so i can use it in mastercam. I have the .PFM file. The name of the font is Sinclairscript.pfm. If you can help that would be great. thanx.

The tormach is defanatly a fitting machine for what i was thinking about doing. Its even single phase. The price is a little higher then i was initially thinking of spending but like i said befor i dont mind going over budget if i can get something that performs better and is worth the money. "It's also a great way to learn Mastercam with out risking the bosses machine Barry " Ive been working at a machine shop since i was 17 and a couple of years ago they moved me into the programming department. Ive been here for about 2 years now. We use mastercam X2 at the moment. I was just thinking of doing something like this so i could have a machine at home and do some of my own stuff. I have some designs for some prototypes. I was thinking of trying to make some more money on the side by programing or if i get a machine for my garage, then maybe run some parts there. My issue is im one of 2 programmers for a small mold shop of about 15-18 ppl. But since I kinda started off here they keep my pay fairly low. I know alot of people on these forums have alot more experience then that and have probly been in similar situations. So if anyone feels like they might have some good advice for me it would be much appreciated. Im only 23 years old so im still young and im very fast at learning things. Thank you everyone for your imput on this post.

Thats one of the reasons ive been considering the smaller machines. I believe this sieg supper x3 cnc conversion takes 230v ac. I dont think i should get a large machine because i would have costs up front switching to 3 phase. Even tho im not sure what the costs would be to switch to 3 phase im just guesing from past experice with wiring electrical that it wont be cheap.

What do you guys think about this deal. http://www.syilamerica.com/catalog/product...&products_id=28 Its around the price ringe i was looking for and i dont need a bunch of room in my shop compared to a full size mill. I know its not a haas TM1 or anything but for smaller stuff i would think it should be alright. I was thinking if i started small like this to break the ground that once i got fairly productive with this model and started making some money with it that i could upgrade if i need too. I was kinda thinking that starting out with a large expensive machine would be alot more risky and i would need alot more money up front. I also believe they have a 4th axis you can add to this unit for fairly cheap. Thanx for imput.

Hi. I was thinking about buying a milling machine and converting it into a CNC for my home garage. I havnt done this before so i was wondering if anyone has done it on the forums and if they have any ideas on what milling machine they think would work the best. I would like to be able to machine aluminum and steel. It would be nice to have a decent amount of machine travel. Low cost would also be a plus but I also want a decent quality machine. Ive looked at some series 1 bridgeports and they would be nice but they are fairly expensive to convert compared to smaller machines. Not too mention it would be a large investment for something as risky as starting a small home machine shop. I would mostly use it for personal uses for home projects but it would also be nice to be able to use it to produce parts and make a little money on the side. Im currently looking at the sieg X3 or a grizzly. They seem really good for small parts of hobby stuff but is that the limit of the functionality?Ive also seem some Jet milling machines that seem to have more power and travel for about 600 dollars more. But im not sure what it would cost to convert it to a cnc. Im also not sure weather to get a milling machine or possibly a milling/lathe combo. They are more expensive and im not sure how well they work. So really As much imput as anyone can offer would be very much appreciated. Im very flexible and open to ideas and have been very pleased with previous help and responses on these forums. Thanx.

We are having trouble accesing the cadcam FTP site. If we change our servers firewall setting to low instead of meduim it lets us access the FTP site. But it makes us more vonurable. I was wondering if anyone knows the port number for the FTP site. Our network administrator says this might help him fix our access problems.

Ill check out your file. Ill have to do it later at home since the FTP dosnt work right from my work place for some reason(hasnt since we added our server). I also contacted a mastercam dealer about it and they told me that if i ajust the material removal rate under highfeed machining that it should work. They were right, origanally it was set to 10 on a .500 dia. endmill so i droped it down to 2 and got what i was looking for. As far as what i am trying to cut it is a slot with both ends open and we start off the part on one end and the first cut is right down the center. Works its way from inside to out. Its actually just a test application that we are trying to get a method established so all of our programmers can recreate what we need on a consistent bases. We are just searching for a way to make an endmill adjust its feed rates depending on the amount of material it encounters.