I know that subway and blimpie make pretty good sub plates.

What types of files can you export out of cadkey? Only certain file types support solid entities.

Yes, solid, next menu, draft faces. It gives you several options that work well with different geometry. good luck

You can extrude or cut as a thin feature. But this is probably more work than exporting it out as an IGES.

Your Welcome

Draw the letters flat and do a xform roll. It is a bit hard to explain if you've never done it. Give it a try or post a file. good luck

In SolidWorks if you do a save as IGES in the options dialogue you can check a box that says "save sketch entities". good luck

TheePres, change your gap motion from smooth to direct in the gap settings dialogue box this will eliminate the gouging of the side wall. On the surface parameter page in the direction dialogue box punch in 10 in the retract angle and this will eliminate the gouge on the bottom of the part. Having problems uploading the file to the ftp. hope this helps,

Can you post a file that contains all of the undercut areas only? if not good luck,

One thing to watch out for is your transition motion. Broken is the default, it transitions in the xy first then z which is great for a regular toolpath without undercuts but gouges on a toolpath with undercuts. Either direct or smooth work well. hope this helps

No problem

1st when backplotting make sure you're displaying your tool and see if it is coming in from the correct side. If it is coming from the back you will have to redo your wcs for that view. 2nd try flipping the accross and along compensation from left to right one at a time and do a regen. good luck

That is the key, you are not actually importing the file. If you open up Mastercams help file and go to the index and type in cad file machining, this should explain it a bit better.

If you click on the WCS and then you can right click on any of the standard system views and set current: gview, cplane, tplane, cplane & tplane, or all. hope this helps

Relatively small surface gaps can pose relatively large problems when finishing with a .008" ball end mill. As far as 2D, I agree with Peter. The Majority of contour, pocket, and drilling operations can be created much quicker with less chance for error. I did say the majority. It is a very powerful tool in a well stocked toolbox. IMHO

In response to my last post. regardless if the file contains wirefram or not you are unable pick a point to translate from or rotate about. So the best thing would be to have the cad file in the correct orientation with the correct origin, which isn't really a problem.

I have actually used this to cut a part. It works well but not quite as well as you think. Ideally if you design in SolidWorks you would grab the native sldprt file and work with that. The only problem is the orientation and origin. If you have an iges file with wireframe you can pick a point and translate that to your origin inside the surface toolpath. With a parasolid file there is no wireframe so you have to save it as an iges with wireframe. This is still quite useful where all you have to do is save a new iges file with any changes. Getting closer to parametric programming. my 2 cents,

One small token is if you use solids you can pick "last" as option so you don't have to repick the same solid faces for subsequent toolpaths. Or you can just drag geometry from a previous operation as if you used surfaces, which doesn't give you "last" as an option. If you have a large file with many many solid faces here's what to do. Change your main level, create edge curves, squash them above the part, extrude a solid through the solid you want to machine, remove the faces from the top and bottom and then you can do a solids, trim, to sheet solid and select keep all and you end up with three solids. Once you have three solids you can pick one as your drive surfaces and the other as your check surfaces, and just turn off the level that has the sheet solid. It's a few steps but it does work. I'm not sure if I explained this very well but I think you'll get the idea. good luck, [ 11-25-2002, 06:04 PM: Message edited by: Roger ]

In SolidWorks you can specify how many backups you would like to have.

The first thing to do is go into your mcam8commonicons directory, or something like that, and see if there are bitmaps there.

How about if we move the insert key to the tab key and then move the tab key to the ctrl key and then... sorry, I couldn't resist.

Thanks Jay, I will give it a try.

Has anyone used the Unigraphics to Mastercam converter available from CADCAM-E? Can someone post or email me an Unigraphics file to test the converter? Thanks in advance.

quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9.0 sp1 at Bratton CADCAM Services good luck mold100 The WCS alone is worth the upgrade to V9. It doesn't matter if you use mill level 1 or 3 as long as you have parts that have more than one setup or if you do anything for the automotive or aerospace industry. I think anyone that uses the WCS on a daily basis would agree. my 2, scratch that, 4 cents

If you use island facing the tool will stay inside the outer boundary. Setting the drop down window to just face will leave the islands standing to the full height of the stock and face the outer boundary off, overlapping the tool over the outer boundary. When doing this use either zig zag, constant overlap spiral, or high speed pocketing methods. good luck