That worked! And I'm glad to help.

Ahhhh! I do not own a smart phone! Colin, is there a way that you could put a link to your PayPal account into this topic? While doing a search I found someone who had done just that. here is the link to that example. http://209.68.14.80/tipjar.htm

Hi Colin. I'm feeling sorry and glad for you at the same time. I just need to clear it with my wifey first but I'll be sending you a little something tomorrow. Hope everything shakes out in your favor soon.

Oh. I'll see if the true type font is given over and if not I will try the chook. Thanks

I think that I was a little unclear. one piece will have one name, the next piece will have another name, etc. etc. So seventy presentation pieces seventy different names.

I've been tasked with engraving presentation gifts for a company. The first problem is that I need to use a proprietary font. I think that if they can get me the font in true type that I can use it directly in Mastercam, if not it's going to be a rats nest. There are seventy names and five different text strings to use and I am thinking that I will need to use a macro to call the different names. That is complicated enough. Any comments or suggestions?

I have my backup directory on the company server so no worries about filling up my hard drive.

Any one here on the Forum ever cut 232 - AF or SPRF - 38 friction lining material?

Go into configuration and change the background to white but don't save it. It's only a one time fix but it saves time and frustration.

I've been at this career since 81. It's been the most challenging and rewarding 35 years of my life. I haven't always loved my job, but I have loved my job a lot. It satisfies my creative side and desire to solve problems. I happen to work in one of those shops where most of the employees are not highly valued. I had to teach myself almost everything that I know including digging Mastercam 3.1 out of a box, installing it on an old computer out on the floor and then teaching myself how to use it A to Z. The lathe programmer, my then boss was a Smartcam devotee (Hated it) but I persevered and ended up being offered the Milling Supervisor position which included being the programmer. Now I'm 60 making mid 60'S with 14 Mills in my section. I am as worried as most of you guys about the direction of machining in America. The young guys are so often unmotivated and downright lazy, but they seem to be whats available for employment so we chew through a bunch of them to find one or two who are worth their salt.

I just upgraded to X9 and I have a glitch in X+. I use a screen shot for my setup sheet and now I am getting a screen shot with the dark graphics background unless I shrink the image more than is useful. Larger images are also truncated if displayed too large. Any ideas?

Thanks Colin, as always you give clear, concise explanations. I will digest this all tomorrow.

Well, dang it. I got my reseller to send me the 5 Axis Power Point Presentation in hopes of fixing this post. The entire section about the matrix is 2 pages long with NO detail about how the darned thing is setup, just a vertical and a horizontal example. BTW the example that I posted matches the horizontal example in the power point. However, the illustration therein gives me a possible clue. It shows the indexer facing to the left at B axis home position. I have always set up the indexer with the indexer spindle facing the Z axis.

Thanks Foghorn, I tried the force tool change and got correct code at least for one test. More later, Peter

This is what I currently have in my post settings matb1$ : 1 matb2$ : 0 matb3$ : 0 matb4$ : 0 matb5$ : 0 matb6$ : 1 matb7$ : 0 matb8$ : -1 matb9$ : 0 I checked in help and found nada about machine base matrix. I'm actually surprised that this is in the post and not set in the machine definition. are there any reference materials out there for me to read?

Greg. I'm not unwilling to share the post, I just don't know the approved procedure. Thanks bd, I'll take a peek at the matrix settings.

Well I went to my reseller and asked for some help setting up a new post for my horizontals. It's a straight forward 4 axis horizontal with an aftermarket indexer bolted onto the B axis and run from a controller box. They were helpful to the point where I started getting some pretty serious errors in certain programs. Then they asked for cash for a custom post. I think that this post is close to working correctly so I have been doing a little investigation in my spare time. This is what I have found. If I am working from B0 or B90 everything seems to work great, I can rotate the indexer with either a custom view or transform equally well. If however I rotate the B axis and the indexer to a compound angle and then post multiple toolpaths at the same time the code seems to be rotated about the z axis and my rotary axis values are bogus. Below is a example of the output. I'm hoping that one of you wizards out there can help point me in the correct direction. BTW this post is based on the generic Mastercam 5 axis post. N4( 3/4 DIA. X .030 RAD STUB VARIMILL |TOOL - 4|DIA. OFF. - 4|LEN. - 4|TOOL DIA. - .75) M11(UNLOCK) T4 M6 M8 G0G57G90X1.0253Y-.9812B45.(A0.) S713M3 M10(LOCK) G43H4Z.5 Z.3121 G1Z.1414F50. Y.7812F8.56 G0Z.5 M11(UNLOCK) B315.M20(A324.) ********THIS POSITION AND CODE SHOULD LOOK LIKE N400 BELOW M10(LOCK) X-1.1253Y.9812 Z.3121 G1Z.1414F50. Y-.7812F8.56 G0Z.5 M9 M5 G0G28G91Z0. G0G28X0.Y0. M11(UNLOCK) M30 % N400 POSTED BY ITSELF N400( 3/4 DIA. X .030 RAD STUB VARIMILL |TOOL - 4|DIA. OFF. - 4|LEN. - 4|TOOL DIA. - .75) M11(UNLOCK) T4 M6 M8 G0G57G90X1.1253Y-.9812B45.M20(A144.) S713M3 M10(LOCK) G43H4Z.5 Z.3121 G1Z.1414F50. Y.7812F8.56 G0Z.5 M9 M5 G0G28G91Z0. G0G28X0.Y0. M11(UNLOCK) M30 %

Thanks

Hi there, I just wiped out my mastercam config by mistake. I was wondering how I might extract the needed files from a ziptogo. Thanks

We use a LMP called Serametal. I have had good luck using it keep a shallow angle exit of a small drill strait and relatively burr free. I've used it as a temporary support for thin wall material, and I've used it as a down and dirty support for castings where the quantity was too low to justify a machined fixture.

I'll just mention that Transform Toolpath works on any type of toolpath that you need to transform, rotate etc. It's definitely not limited to drilling.

Shoot, I was hoping for something a little closer than that. I can't believe that my Horizontal configuration is all that unusual. My experience so far with a 5 axis post is with a Haas TR post which I discovered only gives good code when programmed at COR. This approach would be impractical on our horizontals with the type of work that we do. Thanks for the suggestion though.

I am tired of my clunky old horizontal post which seems to be less and less functional as I upgrade to newer versions of Mastercam. I want a recommendation as to which generic post to start with for use on a Fanuc horizontal with a Haas indexer mounted to the B axis. Thanks.

Edit P.s. If you did it wrong something in the nci file gets set wrong and it will not work even if reset to the above mentioned values

I do rotary transforms all the time with little or no issues. The trick is to set a value for the View (not -1) BEFORE you create the transform op. for Type check Rotate, Method check Toolplane and Include Origin, and set Work Offset Numbering to Maintain source operations Hope this helps.