I have also had mirror crash mcam and reverted to re- selecting geom to get it programmed. On very simple part. This on X4, I am not on X5 completely yet, partly due to setup sheet problems- but I will try out the X5 mirror just to see. Colin is right, a mirror that works is great. Hypermill has it, I would love to get a complex part program mirrored without re- programming all 200 ops on 5axis or 3d part...

I was told that there is a problem with 4 axis rotary in X5, but the work-around was to use axis substitution...? It worked with a milling op, but haven't tried drilling. I usually use drill5x or FBM.

Yes it helped- Thanks John!

Chris, I had a lot of trouble with moves between passes in that routine also...reprogrammed in Adv 5x and that solved it. My problem was multi-ax didn't make progressive X-Z-C moves between passes on a cylinder, so if it finished a ruf pass 180 deg from the start point, it would just rapid thru the part to get back to the start... In Adv5x, you can control the between-passes moves much better, and it always produces output that positions the Z away from the cyl while it rotates back to the start, so it goes to postion, say, 1.0" above the wall and then stays there all the way around to the start again.. Hope that helps..

Does it look right in verify, with the correct tool dimensions? Can you do a "compare" with an stl of the port? If the tool def is off, you get some interesting overcuts that you can usually see in verify, if verify doesn't crash. If it looks good in verify, do you have Vericut or some code-verification software? Is the cut possible with only a 4th axis? What kind of machine is it, and when was the last geometry check.... Just some suggestions..

Colin, thanks a lot- I had no idea....lol

Lately, X4 is not updating changes in speeds and feed in existing ops- so if I bump a feed up to 200 from 100 in the tool def, and choose to update all ops using that tool, it doesn't change the feed and speed in the op.... I've tried "repairing" my install (X4), set "use tool's feed and speed" in params, still no dice. I don't remember this happening before, so it's likely I screwed something up. Does anyone know what it might be? Thanks in advance Steve

+2 on MPSUBREP. We just got it updated to work with X4, and it makes subs very easy. We can tell it what program number to assign to the subs, AND! it writes all sequential ops with the same tool to a single sub, instead of a sub for every op...

So, what do you guys do for multiple parts with multiple datums, if not subs? I use MPSEBREP for posting multiple part programs, because the "transform ops" doesn't group all sequential ops with the same tool together as one sub- it makes a sub for every op, which leads to a lot of subs, or a lot of confusion. Plus, MPSUBREP allows assigning program numbers of your choice to the subs. We tend to make the the prog #'s sequential from the main prog number, and keep them in their own folder with the part name. So, if you all know a better way than subs, can you share the details? Everyone does things differently, and its always nice to get a new perspective.. Thanks Steve

Dave, I don't know what kind of mill work you do, but if its 5x, look at Hypermill also...

Matt, that could be a $35,000 spindle and $10k of labor to straighten all 5 axes out again... And +10000 on turbo verify. It takes so long to run on most of my parts, I leave run overnite, and then it crashes so I have to separate it into little pieces and start over 10 times. Bah!

When I bought the two I have, they were about $4k ea, so not cheap. High quality, they have held up well- ours are the 100's, and we have had stuff a big as 14 x30 in them...

The Langs look nice for smaller machine- what are they priced at? We make our own jaws for the Hilmas, Carr lane has solid models you can download. Makes it easy to put the vise in the part model so you can see interference.

We have a pair of Hilma 100's that we use for most things, and our own version of the Raptor/technigrip dove tail for some things- the dovetails go into the Hilma's. Carr-lane sells the Hilma line if you are interested.

+1 on the Intel SSD's- mine is nearly 3 yrs old and still goes like hell... SLC is better, but maybe not worth the price diff...

If you own your own business, 80 hrs is a light week... Somebody once told me, if you own the business, you only have to work half-days, and it doesn't matter which 12 hours it is.... I thought they were kidding. Wrong.

Rob, the Cimco guys have dual-hex-core HP workstations----very fast, if you find software that uses multi-core! Sadly, that would not be us... In the meantime, I'd still like to have one for future enhancements, and for now, I really like the SSD performance. I just did a comparison with a 5x path- PC took 4m 45sec, lappy- 2m 15sec..and the lappy is not OC'd like the pc IS... I think the 5x and highspeed stuff is disc-intensive, and the ssd shows a big difference for me, since most of what I do is 5x. I also wish Windows made clustering a bit easier...can't afford a mac just for that. So, good luck with your new system- it should fast!

Rob, if you look at Anandtech's benchmark data, you will see that the ssd leaves the velocraptor in the dust for real-world tests. I can't explain the details as well as his article does, but I have a 2-disc raid0 with 10k raptors on my desktop,and the laptop with the single ssd is about 5-10x faster for any disc-intensive task. X4 opens in a few secs on the lappy, about 35 on the desktop. I've had the laptop for 2.5 years, runs x4 every day, and never cleaned the ssd. Still smokin fast. The lappy goes from dead to a Vista desktop in 12 sec. The PC takes about 2 minutes....and if you RAID the ssd's, its even faster. Anand's article is long, but its worth the read. He pretty much forced OCZ and others to completely change their ssd controllers because they showed poorly even against a hard disc, and really sucked vs the Intel X25. Now the other mfg's are catching up to Intel... I haven't looked at updates for a couple months, so it may have changed, but I think the ssd is here to stay...

Rob, if you want to see some comparo's between SSD and ANY platter hard disc, go to ANANDTECH and search SSD. You will see that NO hard disc setup is even close to a SSD, esp the Intel version...

+2 on the X25M...its worth it just to boot from OFF to DESKTOP in about 12 seconds...McamX4 starts in about 5 secs. My laptop runs the benchmark in about a minute.. Keith, you wouldn't see a big diff on the benchmark, but you would on any 5x calc-heavy routines..

Zoober, if you send what you need to Camplete, they usually can get it done for you- they made a mod for me that allows us to turn-mill with the Caxis, so we can cut a diameter bigger than the table..!!

Wow, nice shop! I have a Hermle 5x with a bigger envelope than your machines (32" table) , so if you ever need to have a large 5x job done, please keep us in mind... I can email contact info you are interested.

One of the many mistakes I make every day is trying to select an entity when I have the "window" button right-clicked in the selection drop-down menu...

Good deal, with the monitors- a nice Intel SSD would prob get you under a minute...

Problem is, some of the regens take hours...