Mdf may be a decent alternative to get started if your just testing art and finish. Pecan is a dense would that carves to nice detail. Hard maple isn't bad. There is also several South Americam species that lend themselves to carving Jadaba is very dense but carves beautiflly. Needs good carbide tools tho, no highspeed steel, will dull too quickly. There are also several high density foams that work well for this type of application.

Look at the post called X4 Mu1 Verify down in the list. There are a few things to try. If they don't help you can uninstall X4 Mu1 and rollback to X4 if you need to.

Just keep it simple starting out. Use wireframe geometry using the top view. Go to planes and set it for lathe, either Radius D and Z or Diameter D and Z, which ever your machine uses. Orient wireframe so that the right side of part as Z0. Now do some toolpaths, Also take a look at the sample lathe parts to get an idea of how it works. Hope this helps. Also a Lathe class from your reseller would get you going pretty quick if you could swing it.

Make sure when you chain it to use a partial chain, and check the wait check box. This allows you to pick going in and coming out all as one chain. If you just use chain it thinks you picked 2 seperate chains.

That is the plan if I can't come up with a fix. Was just hoping to get lucky.

I have a customer with a Viper Mill using V9 and using the old built in communications in Mastercam. They had to change to a XP computer. I have fifo buffers turned off. They can send a file to the machine with no problems. When trying to receive the cmd.exe window never asks them to hit enter to continue. Like it isn't receiving the file. They just have to finally close it and it has created a blank file. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Yep, going from X2 to X4 won't give you the option to migrate. you would have to do all the updates in order to get it.

You may also want to check on the Mastercam University Online training. We work with a lot of schools here on training and certification and they seem to like the online training courses. The local reseller can tell you more or go to Mastercam.com and look at the Mastercam U there.

IS this X3 or X4? Here is one I just did in X3 and it is working fine on my end John. I did bumb the resolution in the Art settings on the ame page where you pick trace, as high as it would go on this one.

Greg, Send me an e-mail.

If you are setting your default ops to default coolant on in a new X3 install and it is not sticking make sure you have full admin read/right control over the Mcam folder on the c:drive. If you don't a lot of other things are going to give you problems as well.

Glad to help. And yep, welcome to the forum, you will find a massive amnount of help here. These guy's are awesome and have a wealth of knowledge to share.

IT souns like the 2nd op has a different .nc name for the op, try selecting all ops, right click on the toolpath group, edit common parameters, change NC name, type in the nc name you want to use hit green check box, now post and see if it all posts together.

This still sounds like a permissions issue. You need to be logged in as adminitrator and make sure that permissions are set to full admin/read and write for all users set up on the pc for the Mastercam folder on the C;/ drive. Without this being set it will not accept changes to the config or control def.

I use a microsoft wireless notebook optical 3000. I wore out the rubber coating on the first one, they have always worked fine for me on my laptops and the office pc's. I got my wife the new Wireless notebook laser mouse, it worked fine on my systems as well, it just didn't feel comfortable to me.

Thanks for helping Tim. I talked with him this morning, I think he is on track now. I was at a show Friday so I couldn't get with him but as usual you all are on the ball. It' great to be able to send people here for help when we're out of touch for some reason.

If it is an .hcode attachment. Save the attachment to the dektop of the pc with your Mastercam on it and double click the .hcode file. It will run the update automatically and shoul tell you it was sucessful.

That is some first rate woodwork.

I don't know about John, but I love the OSAI controls. We retrofitted them to 6 CMS routers we had at one place I worked. Operators loved them as well, very user friendly control.

if you just want a tool list try changing from GUI to the .set file option and see if it works any better.

Thanks for reading system requirements. MAC IS NOT SUPPORTED! From Mastercam.com. Mastercam System Requirements Processor: 1.5 GHz 32-bit Intel®-compatible processor. 64-bit Intel®-compatible processors are supported. Operating System: Windows XP® or Windows Vista® (Business or Ultimate), including the latest service packs and recommended updates. NET 2.0 framework. Memory: 1GB (minimum). Because available RAM significantly affects performance, your use of the software could require more RAM to ensure optimal performance Graphics Card: 128 MB OpenGL-compatible graphics card (minimum). Full hardware acceleration display setting is recommended. Integrated graphics share system RAM and can degrade performance on large or complex parts. 96dpi / small fonts should be used at resolutions less than 1280 pixels in width. If the dpi setting is too large to display the entire contents of the ribbon bar, you can display the options that are not visible by choosing the chevron. Hard Disk Space: 1.7 GB available hard disk space (minimum). Monitor: 1024 X 768 pixel resolution (minimum) at 96 dpi (1280 X 1024 recommended). Mouse: 2-button Windows® compatible mouse (minimum). Network Protocol: (NetHASP users only) TCP/IP protocol for NetHASP installation; VPN is unsupported. Additional Supported Hardware: Dual monitors; multiprocessors; Spaceball® motion controllers.

There are several experienced wood guys on here so don't be shy of asking questions.

quote: The thing with File Import Directory is you can not choose only a single file, only what is in a directory. _______________________________________________ This does make it a bit of a pain but I create a blank folder called whatever on the desktop and the C:/mcamx3/cnc mchines folder, I put the .lmd in the folder on the desktop and then do the import, then just move the .lmd from the new folder to the main cnc machines folder.

Welcome to the forum Eric. These guys are very computer savvy and there is a benchmark thread below that may have some info. They will chime in shortly to give you some good suggestions. Personally I like Xeon dual or quad core processors, 4 gig ram, nvidia quadro fx video with at least 512mb. I have seen how much faster that system seams to run.

You might try this. Start/programs/Mastercam 9/CNCreg. Select either Mastercam or standard windows style file get dialog (the one not picked currently). If that doesn't do it. Might also try right clicking the icon, properties, compatibility, set it to 95, 98, or 2000 and try that.