We have all Haas machines here. Most of what we mill is alum. They work great for that. Right now I am in the middle of making 6 titanium pieces that go from 31cu inch to 2 cu inch of material. Not so good in a Haas.

A rough toolpath, I don't use canned cycles.

quote: the lathe stuff will become alot simpler, the post structure will change incredibly and alot of the 'headaches' that us poor lathe people suffer, should fall away with it.... It would probably benefit CNC to make this more well known. We have been evaluating other cam packages for our lathe/mill turn programming.

Randy, If you chained the geo with the vertical line being your last entity, use the extend/shorten contours in the lead out options. It works great if your last entity is a line, Curves and splines not so well.

Thanks Hardmill, you got mail

We need to outsource a few parts to make our deadline on this project. We need 6ea of the four parts in the picture. The longest part is the handle to a fishing reel (for size ref). All parts are 6061 alum - not too difficult on tolerances. Looking for 9-10-2007 delivery. If you are interested in quoting please email me dspence at zebco-dot-com or through this forum. I can send solid models and dwgs for quoting.

I have noticed a difference with MCX if I set the affinity to both processor 0 and 1 (0 only is default) when running another app (Vericut for example). On its own MCX will not get above 50% processor usage.

Go with the Renishaw inspection plus software.

I have noticed this since MR1 SP1 came out. The work around I have found is to save the file, start a new file, then re-open the saved file and the operation will perform without getting the warning. there has been a few times that I have had to save/close/re-open the file for every toolpath.

As always, Thanks for the quick replies.

I will just have to run Vericut side by side with MCX to verify toolpaths as they are created in MCX.

I moved the model and the toolpath works properly now. The down side is that the stl for stock is no longer usable.

Turns out that IBM had installed some "MouseSuite" control app. We uninstalled that and went with windows standard mouse drivers and the problem was fixed.........After I got IT dept to replace the Graphics card - OOOPS

I am trying a 5 axis swarf set to 4 axis. The active wcs does not match the world coordinate. When it backplots it is trying to rotate about the world coordinate x axis not the active wcs x axis. I have other X axis positioning moves that are working properly. Do I have to move my model so it matches the world coordinate to get this to work. I have a stl for stock that is to large to xform so I would rather not have to move the model.

No vista here. Our IT department is not very impressed with vista, They say they won't be upgrading here for a long time. The computer in question has XP pro. We don't have problems in any other apps with the mouse/pointer, just MCX.

Colin, Thats what I told IT when I specked the computer. Get a $300-$400 quadro and all will be good. They didn't listen.

Ive have already checked the settings in cofig, Thats what doesn't make sense. It works fine until you create some geometry, then it changes function.

I should add this is on a new computer. My IT department cheaped out and went with a Radeon x1800 against my recommendations.

Guys, I think I got a graphics card problem maybe. We have a new seat of X2 here for our new programmer. The problem we have is this. When you open a new file and import a model the middle mouse button works like its supposed to, it rotates the model (dynamic spin free checked). Once you create some geometry of any type the middle mouse button changes functions. click middle mouse button in work space and it scrolls the operations manager. Tried closing Mcx and restarting computer. new files middle mouse button rotates, but open the saved file with geometry and middle mouse button scrolls op manager. Thanks in advance.

quote: There is no way you can tell me a 1/4”EM at .011” DOC is going to get within 10% of “my” insert cuter in terms of cubic inched per minute. If the work piece geometry would allow use of 1.0 dia mill in annealed state, Why would you use a 1/4 cutter to rough? You need to compare "apples to apples". Look at the material removal rate of a 1.0 dia highfeed insert mill in hardened material vs a 1.0 dia insert cutter in the annealed.

Highfeed works with volume removal not chipload. That is why on the perimeters its going too fast. It is trying to match the volume removal rate in the corners and straights to be the same.

If the solid has non symmetrical features I use create-curve-slice.

This is a known bug. Use a 89.999 deg face mill or use a bullmill instead.

In your verify option page select file and select stock file STL.

If you save the stock as stl in your first op, use STL xform to reposition it, then resave and select file in your verify of second op.