d21 is the register for t20. fanuc is 'professional A'. whatever was happening has been resolved, and the part was successfully machined, using another program. but i'm still trying to determine what caused the bad code in the first place. what i was told was, it was originally a 2d contour toolpath cutting the outside walls of a cluster of pockets (transform copied), with lead ins and outs. worked fine. copy/pasted the toolpath and made adjustments so that it then removed the center area of the pockets without the lead ins and outs. the results of this amended toolpath are the first part of this thread. i realize the most logical answer is a manual edit, but what sense would it make for someone to do that on this program? since it isn't machining the outside walls(the first program did that), if you didn't want cc on, you would just turn it off in the parameters, not go to the trouble of a manual edit.

quote: My guess is that your programmer entered G41 by hand. i had thought of that, but it doesen't seem likely, simply because he reposted the program a few times after the problem first occurred and would have had to edit the same thing right back into the program each time.

i opened the file and could not access the highspeed paramaters, but checked the box anyway, ran the backplot and accepted the changes. then verified and it worked o.k. also did not have a problem with the other ops that crashed you.

now i'm trying to find out how this happened, and cannot get MC9 to output any code that does the same thing. i asked the programmer how he did it, and he can't seem to remember. (he's changed the mc9 file since then, so it's not the same.) it was a 2d contour with multi passes and depth cuts. are there any circumstances where mc9 would output this type of code?

thanks.

here is an abbreviated version of the file run on a makino vmc/fanuc. please scroll to the bottom to see the problem. i don't think the problem is in the code, but more likely something else. machine error, etc.(???) i didn't program it, but watched it run, and the control showed the same code you see here, but did what i have edited in. is this breadwinner getting senile? hope you can help. gone for the weekend now. thanks in advance. quote: % O1000 (10364-101-10) (21-03-06 - 07:41) ( 6 MM FLAT ENDMILL TOOL - 20 DIA. OFF. - 21 LEN. - 1 DIA. - .2364) (INSIDE POCKET(15-17)) G20 G0G17G40G49G80G90 T20 G0G90G54X-2.8882Y2.8882S15000M3 G43H1Z.1M7 G5 P10000 Z-1.089 G1G41D21Z-1.191F5. Y3.1118F50. X-3.1118 Y2.8882 X-2.8882 Z-1.091F150. G0Z.1 X-2.7482Y2.7482 Z-1.089 G1Z-1.191F5. Y3.2518F50. X-3.2518 Y2.7482 X-2.7482 Z-1.091F150. G0Z.1 X-2.6082Y2.6082 Z-1.089 G1Z-1.191F5. Y3.3918F50. X-3.3918 Y2.6082 X-2.6082 Z-1.091F150. G0Z.1 X-2.4682Y2.4682 Z-1.089 G1Z-1.191F5. Y3.5318F50. X-3.5318 Y2.4682 X-2.4682 Z-1.091F150. G0Z.1 X-2.8882Y2.8882 Z-1.091 G1Z-1.193F5. Y3.1118F50. X-3.1118 Y2.8882 X-2.8882 Z-1.093F150. G0Z.1 X-2.7482Y2.7482 Z-1.091 G1Z-1.193F5. Y3.2518F50. X-3.2518 Y2.7482 X-2.7482 Z-1.093F150. G0Z.1 X-2.6082Y2.6082 Z-1.091 G1Z-1.193F5. Y3.3918F50. X-3.3918 Y2.6082 X-2.6082 Z-1.093F150. G0Z.1 X-2.4682Y2.4682 Z-1.091 G1Z-1.193F5. Y3.5318F50. X-3.5318 Y2.4682 X-2.4682 Z-1.093F150. G0Z.1 X-2.8882Y2.8882 Z-1.093 G1Z-1.195F5. Y3.1118F50. X-3.1118 Y2.8882 X-2.8882 Z-1.095F150. G0Z.1 X-2.7482Y2.7482 Z-1.093 G1Z-1.195F5. Y3.2518F50. X-3.2518 Y2.7482 X-2.7482 Z-1.095F150. G0Z.1 X-2.6082Y2.6082 Z-1.093 G1Z-1.195F5. Y3.3918F50. X-3.3918 Y2.6082 X-2.6082 Z-1.095F150. G0Z.1 X-2.4682Y2.4682 Z-1.093 G1Z-1.195F5. Y3.5318F50. X-3.5318 Y2.4682 X-2.4682 Z-1.095F150. G0Z.1 (apparently a good move) X-.8882Y2.8882 (made an x positive move, no y move.) Z-1.089 (made a good move) G1Z-1.191F5. (made a good move) Y3.1118F50. (made what appears to be an x pos. move) X-1.1118 Y2.8882 X-.8882 Z-1.091F150. G0Z.1

sorry, just backread this. maybe MR2? quote: FYI: Also, a 'backup files' option is in the works where you specify a max number of backup files to be retained whenever you file your part either manually or during an auto-save. If you save your part "Test.mcx", then any existing files of the same name in the same directory will have an incremented version number appended to the file name. The result would be "Test-1.mcx", "Test-2.mcx", etc. up to the max you specify. The next time you filed "Test-9.mcx" would be incremented and renamed to "Test-10.mcx" and any existing "Test-10.mcx" would be deleted (if your max backup files was set to a value of 10). thanks gcode

regardless of whether it's a windows bug or not, crashing and losing files continues, and usually without warning. even though some users have devised workarounds to save backups, that's not really the answer. does anyone know if the CNC people are developing a more permanent and/or user friendly method?

Ivan, before mcX... Ivan, after using mcX...

make sure you don't have a depth limit-limiting your depth. or any other surfaces selected which may be either, blanked or on another level or not shown for whatever reason.

does not seem like i will get much use out of it for now, but thanks for the responses.

i've never used this before and it sure looks like a powerful tool. my question is, does anyone use it and what would be some typical applications?

thanks for a great forum. and thanks to all of the users for their patience and help.

sounds like you're on the right track. what are the points on level 255 indicating? lead ins? inside corners? uploading to ftp is a good option if you can.

quote: How do you create points along entity in X? Along mode (Relative Position ribbon bar) The Select button on the Relative Position ribbon bar activates the Along mode. This mode allows you to create a new entity along an existing entity. In Along mode, you will be prompted to select a line, arc, or spline. in case you were still looking. hth

tony, that sure would be a nice feature, but i don't think it exists in mc. maybe go to a side view and change color of a window's contents. hth

welcome to the forummmm. quote: but my work Drive is C and my home drive is D,so when I tried using it at home it complains about the path being wrong. when you open mc at home, open the config and then, browse to and open the config that you want to use. then correct the filepath. you probably will have some other issues as well, until you correct all of the neccessary filepaths. hth

quote: when moving the arrow on the arc it will travel past the end of the arc. is there a way to make the arrow stop at the end of the entity? while you are moving the 'arrow', it is dynamically looking for the entity which it is to be tangent to. once you select that, the line will automatically find tangent on the arc, even if line and arc do not actually touch. if you would like a line attached to the end of an arc, select that point first and then try to constrain it tangent.

quote: What I was thinking, (out loud or in this case typing) is being able to just window or select a line, curve, surface without have to first go to the Selection tool bar, sort of a smart selection.wouldn't this be the same as pre-select?

shhhhhhh!

anyone got a napkin? BURRRRP.

quote: yes the water in the X jacuzzi is nice isnt it. first, i thought it was empty, then i thought it was half empty, then i thought it was half full, then i thought 'aw, s**t, this ain't water!!.

oh, greaaat! another optimist.

quote: (and for any smartie out there, I know I spelled problem wrong in the title!) scure, kno provblem heere. jk

right click in operations area/ display options/ make sure toolpath file name is checked. then look at your ops and make sure all that you want posted together has the same name. different names will prompt for multiple programs.