Here we teach that WCS is always set to top. You can use different planes and custom planes to tell Mastercam how the tool/spindle will be oriented for the 5-axis positioning of cuts. You can get in trouble quick if you go changing WCS incorrectly so be careful. You really may want to go to a 5-axis class at your reseller. If you can't get there for a while take your time and dry run stuff before turning it loose at full throttle.

You can plunge mill, helix entry, or ramp entry. Just depends on what your wanting to do and what toolpath your trying to use. Using contour toolpath you could plunge mill. Using a pocket toolpath you could use helical or ramp entry. Edit: Dang too slow again.

You should be able to use some type of high density foam. I saw some parts cut of some this past weekend at IWS that were very detailed and the surface finish was quite smooth. They should easily be primed and painted. You may be able to get some samples to test from a foam supplier in the area.

Strabe, Load the machine you want to change default ops for, go to settings, control definition, operation defaults, make your changes, save your way out, now in the operations manager hit the plus sign beside properties, hit the replace button pick your machine def, open( this will load the changes you just made, if you don't do this you'll never see the changes). You have to go thru control def to get to the operation defaults, you can't get to then from the machine definition.

This was a surface rough parallel toolpath converted to 5-axis using advanced multiax. It worked fine in X2 MR2 SP1. Opened in X3 and tried to regen. Comes up with the "NCI Helix is Invalid" error then bombs out of regen. It has been logged by tech support.

Jimmy and Katie are there Wed., Thur., and Fri. I'll be there Fri. lunch time thru Sat. Have him swing y the Mastercam booth and say hey.

Hey toolmann, After changing to arcs you can use the tolerance, # of arcs to break into, or length of arcs to break to. I have to do it here on some router parts every so often and have not had any trouble lately. I had some trouble in X but not since X MR2. This is how I do it. I create a spline in Mastercam, edit, trim break, break many peices, select the spline to convert to arcs, end selection, pick curves, use the tolerance tab, set to .002, set delete, it should preview showing the arcs in blue and showing the endpoints of the arcs, hit green check mark to finish, analyze and you should have arcs now. If it is still giving you trouble something may be corrupt in the install because it should be working.

quote: ------------------------------------------------ His solution would be ESPRIT, saying its faster. ------------------------------------------------ Don't they make you pee in a cup for saying things like that.

------------------------------------------------ Break many pieces works, but it does not produce arcs. ------------------------------------------------ Yes it does, I use it all the time. Make sure you change from lines to arcs in the ribbon bar.

Easy guy's, you'd think he was from Canada or something the way you jumped on this.

Are you using a custom plane on that operation. If not you may want to create a custom plane for it using geometry at the Z level you desire. Now while in the custom plane when you do the toolpath it should use that custom planes origin in Z. If you need to change the Z value now go to the wcs, view manager, pick the custom plane, and in the lower right corner it will show you the origin it is using, if you need to raise Z you can change it here.

You may want to try settings, ram saver(An option that compacts the system database, frees up available RAM, and performs an efficiency and integrity check on the database) and see if it helps.

In my experience when creating toolpaths starting off in the wrong plane it can cause the toolpath to hang on that incorrect plane. I usually delete the incorrect one, set my plane correctly and start over. This is not always the case but sometimes it is the only way I have found to get the toolpath to generate correctly after starting in the wrong plane.

Motorcityminion is right other cards can work just check them out here by doing a search on that card to see what results might be posted. Nvidia Quadro is by far the most successful on the most varied types and brands of computers, some of the cheaper cards may or may not work on your configuration. In other words it can be a crap shoot with a cheap card. Hope we've been able to get you started in the right direction. I'll be out away from e-mail for a few days but the other guy's here can help you. A lot of them, including John Paris are a lot more computer savvy than I am. He's o.k. for a dang yankee!

Hard to say, that is an odd result I haven't seen before. Maybe something patched itself somehow. If it starts to go crazy again thou you'll probably have to set it back and look at a Nvidia Quadro FX or ATI FIRE card.

Yea, this is by no means the best fix but for low end or integrated graphics it does help. As John said it is just a workaround for those who can't make the company buy a better card or until they get the better card, or to get a laptop with integrated graphics to at least let you be able to work. In a situation where it does help you could then try bumbing the setting back up some to find a happy medium whre Mastercam will still work o.k. and you get a little better performance.

Try right clicking on the desktop, properties, settings, advanced, troubleshoot, set the graphics acceleration bar from full to 1 position right of none, apply, ok, appearance, effects, uncheck the (use the following transition effect for menus and tooltips. This will help with graphics issues a lot of times. Will be hit or miss on the integrated graphics tho.

Back when I was doing them, we sent a part out and had a fiberglass fixture made, then we attached a base that mounted it to the machine and plummed it for vacuum lines to hold the part. You could also look at laying up a mdf or foam core and then machining it and then drilling vacuum holes and plumming it. It's been a few years so some of the younger gen may have some better ideas.

Go to settings, cad settings, at the bottom are 2 check boxes,(update cplane and tplane when changing views and reset tplane to top in isometric view), I uncheck these when doing lathe just so I don't accidentally come out of the D+ Z+ plane.

If that doesn't take care of it, try right clicking on the desktop, properties, settings, advanced, troubleshoot, set the graphics acceleration bar from full to 1 position right of none, apply, ok, appearance, effects, uncheck the (use the following transition effect for menus and tooltips. This will help with graphics issues a lot of times.

I talked with Miss Beth and she got it pulled over. She appreciated all the help from you guy's.

It is a known bug. Defining the steady rest doesn't work in X2 MR2 SP1. Their working on it.

That's way cool!

You probably have a spline. If so it may need to be converted to arcs to get the result you looking for. Edit, trim/break, break many pieces, pick spline, hit end selection, pick the curves icon that looks like 2 red curves, now you can pick to do it by # of arcs, length of arcs, or tangency of arc, use the one you want and fill in the value you want and hit the green check mark to finish.

+1000 to JParis. It was great to finally meet you in person John.