Rick, I have had this problem appear in X3- I could never get it to consistently repeat, and often it was with a Cimco path, so I never reported it...I see that it has maybe gotten worse with X4. I will try and get it to happen and send in a new bug report. This sort of problem is ridiculous.

Really nice- thanks for keeping it updated!

Yep. Oh well... But it's a really good gaming rig...

Murray- I forgot you have Dell- it may have mb thats Dell-specific..? Still, a very fast machine! Evil- this laptop is NOT soldered- its a Clevo D901C. I can change cpu, video(sli), 3 hd's, at will, and it uses the desktop processor 775 socket. Best I could do now is put in a Xeon 3380, and add another X25m ssd in raid 0. This laptop is discontinued, replaced by a Core i7 machine.

Colin-" this thread is worthless without pics"

Erik, 5.35 is much more reasonable...I thought maybe you were working a diesel Harley...lol

Whew! that long of a stroke makes it difficult to get a milling tool between the counterweights..You may be better off farming it out to a crankshaft specialty house to do the rod journal... Otherwise, I would try setting it up with the pin journal at 0 deg in the mill, rough down to the centerline, then flip it 180 and rough down again- this at least limits the depth to only 4 in or so- then put it in the offset fixture and turn the rod journal. Turn VERY slowly...lol!

If the hole has an inner surface, I have used create point-dynamic-line and put the radius of the hole in for an offset. Then position the dynamic arrow on the hole's inner surface and click, and it produces a line normal to the surface with the length set same as the radius, so the endpoint is right in the middle of the hole. This dynamic line is useful for making axis-control lines for 5axis-curve routines, also. But, Verisurf's way sounds easier, and I normally use Hole-Axis.

+1billion to an undo in all functions. Even the 20 year-old cad system I learned on did that. Backspace key undid whatever you did last...Plus, it trimmed what you wanted trimmed....

Evil, sure.....but I know I can't get much better than that- poor thing is in valve float at 1:07...The BIOS is locked up tight and won't allow overclocking. I suppose I could get a Macbook and use it for a cluster like yours- that would speed it up a bit. Too bad it is a socket 775 instead of a 771, then I could get one of Murray's 5570's. There is a laptop available that will take the Nehalem cpu- I guess that will have to be on the wish list for now...I'll have to settle for "king for a day"..lol MAtt, thats a great time for us old-school, stand-alone guys...Murray's machine just illutrates the power of the new architecture.

Yikes! You guys are kickin the ol can way the hell up there!.. I just got X4 to run on my laptop, and got a new best- 1 min 7 sec time....I thought that was pretty good till I came here and got left in the weeds... So, Murray- Dual-Quad Xeons is what you have? are they OC'd? what motherboard? Great results! Maybe I can be king of the laptops for a minute....

On 3d contours, I have actually programmed using a standard chamfer tool, Contour 3d-chamfer, from the BOTTOM tool plane. Then, do a backplot, save the toolpath as geometry. Then switch back to TOP toolplane, and use a double-chamfer tool in a standard contour toolpath with the saved path for geometry. (Turn off the tool offset) You then just need to do the math on the shapre of your double chamfer tool, and set the contour depth at whatever it needs to be for the tool to touch. I use a "custom" tool that is draw exactly to match the real one, and you can see in backplot if you get the depth right

The problem I have seen with using bigger tolerances in mcam, is it then makes the line segments for each block longer, resulting in a facetted surface where you want a round one. The best-running and best finishing paths are huge amounts of 5-axis code. I know my machine is different than a Haas, but the program results from mcam should be the same. And I haven't seen mcam output 5-axis arcs in a simultaneous toolpath. FWIW...

I agree with everything James said- its an invaluable tool for any 5axis machining, and the new 4.5 is very nice. Also agree training would be the way to go, but its usable and fairly intuitive to figure out yourself. We have big (33") turnable on our 5x machine, and getting the tools right for minimum clearance on parts, fixtures and the table is critical. DOn't know how I'd do it without Camplete.

Haha, so THATS what netbooks are good for.... OK, so I need to get a macbook, and upgrade to a dual Xeon mobo, then hook the Xeon laptop into the cluster....mmm sounds simple.....

Evil I am curious why Murray's dual-quad-Xeon is so much faster than your dual-quad OC QX system?

Jay, I might be- whadda ya got?

A year of mcam crunching and daily transport on my laptop with Intel's X25M ssd, and not one problem. Plus, its dual-booted for XP64 and Vista64. All data stored elsewhere, just the apps and the pagefile on the ssd. Faster than my WD raid 0 on the desktop. Heard of good luck with 2 X25m's in raid 0, and nearly twice as fast...I may do that on my laptop. Sad that the C1060 doesn't work with mcam- I'm having trouble with a big file causing 2-3 HOUR calc times on 5x paths. A supercomp would help. Evil's cluster is very appealing, but I haven't figured out how to get it to work with Windows instead of a Mac driving it. Any advice?

A Swiss screw machine will do it in one pass. Especially if it has a sub-spindle to pick up the ball and keep it from whipping...with a magazine loader, it will run them in no time.

A friend of mine was there for a while, and he would send me some of his rfq's- we quit when we weren't getting jobs bid at $20/hr shop rates....plus, you spend all your time quoting and don't get much for it.

I have been using Cimco's HSM for many years, and agree with Doug and Neurosis- It is much better than anything Mcam has right now. Even if you just use adaptive clearing, its worth the price, but all the other toolpaths calc much faster than mcam, and usually result in a smoother toolpath for high speed cutting. For instance, a mcam "waterline" vc Cimco "contour" surfacing path- on a complex surface with small stepovers, Cimco will calc the path in about 1/5 the time of mcam. Adaptive clearing is very good at removing material and controlling tool engagement, whether you use small depth-big stepover- high feed, or large depth- small engagement- low feed paths. I highly recommend it. I and wish for the day when mcam makes it redundant, but its not there yet. Or, I wish Cimco made its own, complete, standalone package including 5-axis. Also, I have gotten much faster response from Cimco tech support- usually within 24 hrs.

I would just do a helix-bore with 3/16 end mill and use the spot drill to chamfer the hole, or contour-2d chamf with a chamfer mill. No custom tools needed...FWIW

+1 on the adv 5x and its positioning control- the linking page gets it done where mcam fails.

I have found that it also does this in a 4th-axis-roll toolpath- if the tool comes out of a pass, mcam just generates a straight line to the beginning of the next pass. If thats around 180 deg from the start, it goes right through the part! do NOT ask me how I know..... I can see this being endemic to a toolpath that you roll around a cylinder from a flat pattern, but there really is no excuse for it any 5-axis path. Its for that reason I do as much as possible with the adv 5x routines....

I've had this problem with mastercam's multi-axis routines for a couple years- only way I know to get around it is use only the "advanced"5-axis paths because they automatically write code to go around your part. The standard mcam stuf just outputs a single rapid move from the end of one pass to the beginning of the next one, and on my machine, it WILL go through the part. Or, you can do as MLS suggests and make geometry. I don't know how you get that to work when the problem exists within a routine, and the tool goes through the part between passes. Works OK for going from one routine to another. Sorry to not have a better solution.