That's the conclusion I'm coming to as well. It's a shame, it could be a useful feature to be able to make simple changes to the model and not have to re-import the whole thing. Thanks for your help.

Does anyone know why the solids history of these simple Solidworks parts don't import properly? Tutorial 10 Exercise.sldprt imports properly but the other 2 don't. Mastercam direct for SW does the same thing. Is there a log file somewhere that contains errors that the import translator encountered during import? Is there anyway to know what has imported correctly (other than visually inspecting) vs. what hasn't? I know some features can't be imported (domes, through next, sweeps, etc.). Is there a definitive list? X4 MU3 SW Professional 2010 SP2.1 [ 02-17-2010, 11:51 AM: Message edited by: bbrown01 ]

quote: Actually it's a little better than that. Look at total time on the other side of the page.I saw that as well but wasn't sure how most people were measuring the time. I noticed when using a stop watch the time starts (when clicking the regen button) at the OMregenSlelectedOperations line in the event log. Either way I'm pretty happy with the Mac Pro hardware so far. I priced a similarly equipped Dell (T5500) and it was more expensive. Plus I have all the Apple OSX capabilities as well. It's like getting two new computers at once.

2'4" - first pass 34" - second pass Mastercam X4 Mac Pro Desktop 32-bit Windows XP Pro SP3 (Boot Camp) Quad-core: 2.66GHz Intel Xeon 3500 series processor 8MB of fully shared L3 cache per processor 3G of 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 7200 rpm, 32MB cache NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB of GDDR3 memory System price $2,499.00 + Windows XP Pro

Thanks for the responses. danbo, Kannon - this is just a test, the real part I plan to drill, slot and engrave using axis subsitution. Storkman - I'm assuming you mean limit the a-axis travel in the machine definition to 360°? If I do that I get a post error when it gets to 450°. Playing with this a little more I have been able to get the expected output from mpmaster by changing the rotary axis in the toolpath to cw and the direction of rotation to ccw in the a-axis machine definition. But it doesn't make sense. Here is a z2g file if anyone has interest to take a closer look. http://www.santacruzoptics.com/tmp/ROTARY.Z2G Thanks again.

I'm having a problem while posting with mpmaster (vmc) for axis substitution for a rotary toolpath. I'm trying to drill 4 blind holes (90° apart) on a cylinder following a tutorial in the 4/5 axis milling guide by In-House. Instead of starting at 0° the mpmaster post (gcode below) a-axis starts at 180° then 270°, 360°, 450°. The generic fanuc 4-axis post outputs 0°, 90°, 180°, 270° which is what I would expect. I'm using TOP for my WCS/T/P so I think I'm using the proper "reference view" as describe in the post text. I've played with all the a-axis/rotary parameters I could find in the machine and control definitions. On 7/27/07 there was an "updated mpmaster" comment from Brett Thomas about "Next project is to clean up axis substitution with respect to start points being close to (within 180 deg) the ends of previous chains/paths". Is this related to what I'm seeing? I would like to standardize on mpmaster for both 3 and 4-axis programs. Mpmaster vertical: % O0001 (OP-1) (MPMASTER GENERIC 3/4-AXIS VERTICAL) (MACHINE GROUP-1) (MASTERCAM - X) (MCX FILE - C:DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGSBBROWNDESKTOPROTARY.MCX) (POST - MPMASTER) (MATERIAL - ALUMINUM INCH - 2024) (PROGRAM - OP-1.NC) (DATE - DEC-09-2007) (TIME - 5:14 PM) (POST DEV - IN-HOUSE SOLUTIONS) (T1 - 3/8 DRILL - H1 - D1 - D0.3750") N100 G00 G17 G20 G40 G80 G90 N110 G91 G28 Z0. N120 (DRILL - AXIS SUBSTITUTION) N130 (TOOLPLANE NAME - TOP) N140 T1 M06 ( 3/8 DRILL) N150 G00 G17 G90 G54 A180. X7. Y0. S713 M03 N160 G43 H1 Z4. N170 G94 N180 G98 G81 Z1. R2.1 F4.22 N190 A270. N200 A360. N210 A450. N220 G80 N230 M05 N240 G91 G28 Z0. N250 G28 X0. Y0. A0. N260 G90 N270 M30 % Fanuc 4-axis: % O0001(OP-1) (DATE=DD-MM-YY - 09-12-07 TIME=HH:MM - 17:17) (MCX FILE - C:DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGSBBROWNDESKTOPROTARY.MCX) (NC FILE - C:MCAMXMILLNCOP-1.NC) (MATERIAL - ALUMINUM INCH - 2024) ( T1 | 3/8 DRILL | H1 ) N100 G20 N102 G0 G17 G40 G49 G80 G90 ( 4 - AXIS VMC ) ( MACHINE GROUP-1 ) ( DRILL - AXIS SUBSTITUTION ) N104 T1 M6 N106 G0 G90 G54 X7. Y0. A0. S713 M3 N108 G43 H1 Z4. N110 G98 G81 Z1. R2.1 F4.22 N112 A90. N114 A180. N116 A270. N118 G80 N120 M5 N122 G91 G28 Z0. N124 G28 X0. Y0. A0. N126 M30 % --------- X2 MR2 Mill L3 Solids

Rigid tapping is an option for the Toolroom Mills. Check to see if you have it.

quote: Brian did you let it follow thru at lest once and then restart?Yes I did. I also have just completed an experiment on my own system (Dell M70 w/XP)creating and using a Windows XP "Limited" and "Administrator" user accounts. The Administrator account works fine, but I can't even get Mastercam X MR2 to even launch using the Limited account. I get a quick X splash screen (no license agreement) then nothing.

Thanks John. I did not uninstall MR1 before upgrading. I did do a "remove" from the MR2 install and reinstalled and I still have the same issue. Time to get the reseller involved. -Brian

John. I assumed it may be completeing the installation, but I think it may be trying to update the system registry as part of that process. I installed MR2 on top of MR1 using the c:macamx directory. Have you restarted (or logged off) your machine since upgrading? Does your user account have wrtie access to the registry? Jay. The install was done from the mastercamx-mr2-web.exe located on the local (c:) drive. The school is DeAnza College, Cupertino CA.

Has anyone had problems running (not installing) MR2 using a limited (non administrator) account? I'm trying to help update 20+ classroom systems currently running MR1 to MR2. The systems run Windows 2000. The update installs and runs fine using the administrator account. When using a student account MR2 launches fine, but when you select File Open, I get an installation dialog saying.. "Please wait until Windows configures Matercam Maintenance Release 2" Then I get an "Installshield error #5" dialog. After I cancel the File Open dialog appears and things proceed. This only happens when you first log in. It also happens during other fuctions (e.g. working with levels). I believe the only restriction the student accounts have is they can't write to the system registry. They do have read-write access to the C: drive. It appears that MR2 requires access to to the system that MR1 didn't.

Hi Matt, I loaded your file and it behaves the same as you describe above on my Dell M70. Looks like a bug. -Brian

Bellyup, I have figured out the problem is with OP-5 not OP-11. I deleted and recreated OP-5 and the error now indicates OP-86. So this must be a bug with reporting the OP number. The points are associated with re-machining an inside arc. I think I need to play with lead-in/out. Now that I know what the real OP numer is, I should be able to figure it out. Thanks for your help.

I get the following error when backplotting. "The following operation has an invalid arc: #11 - Pocket (Remachining)" If I check "Mark invalid arc end point" I get a series of points added to level 255. The problem is I don't have an operation "#11 - Pocket (Remachining)" I do have a "#11 - Pocket (Standard)" Is there a method to figure out what's really going on here? Thanks, Brian

quote: The real scary thing is it completely zeroed my 6M+ MCX file....I now periodically do a "save as" just to be safe. quote: Instead of having to do a "save as" periodically couldn't you just "salvage" back one save. I have to admit I'm not familiar with any "salvage" command. Can you explain how you do this? I didn't have autosave turned on, but I'm not sure it would have helped in this case. After the crash the file was there but empty and there was no backup since I didn't see the need to do a "save as" prior to the crash.

I believe you click on planes on the bottom status bar, select geometry, then select your 3 points and choose which of the 7 views you want and name it.

I'm trying to run the trial (30 run) version of the emastercam HTML setup sheet and this is what I get. 04 Mar 2006 06:56:42 PM - <0> - Report created. 04 Mar 2006 06:56:42 PM - <2> - Initialize posting log file 04 Mar 2006 06:56:42 PM - <2> - Using MP run version 10.00 and post components version 10.00 04 Mar 2006 06:56:42 PM - <2> - Initiate opening the post processor file(s). 04 Mar 2006 06:56:42 PM - <2> - Post processor file name: C:PROGRAM FILESMCAMXMILLPOSTSHTML.SET 04 Mar 2006 06:56:42 PM - <2> - An encrypted post file is associated with the .pst file. 04 Mar 2006 06:56:42 PM - <2> - Post processor file name: C:PROGRAM FILESMCAMXMILLPOSTSHTML.PSB 04 Mar 2006 06:56:42 PM - <2> - Invalid post access code in post .acc file. 04 Mar 2006 06:56:42 PM - <2> - The application has been aborted! Based on the log, it looks like the license protection mechanism isn't allowing the 30 runs for some reason. Is anyone else having this problem?

Graig, You're not alone. See recent link.

quote: Alt x then click on an entity. This will change the level and the color to the entity level. That's it! Thanks Moldy.

quote: It would also be nice if you could select the level by selecting an entity already at that level. quote: bbrown, Just found: 1)open level manager 2)click on white arrow to the left of the green check mark 3)select entity This sets the main level to the entity selected. Hope that helps. Thanks brilu397. I was aware of that. What I was suggesting was the ability to click on an entity in the graphics window as a way selecting the current level without having to open the level manager. I.e. if the current level was 1 and entity x was at level 2, just clicking on x would set the level to 2. Sometimes it's hard to remember what level things are at. Yes you could analyze the entity to find the level, then set it accordingly. This just saves 2 steps. Not a behavior for everyone.

It would be nice if the drop down list contained all levels, not just those recently entered. It would also be nice if you could select the level by selecting an entity already at that level. I find myself creating geometry in the wrong level and having to move it all the time.

quote: It means there are no entities or name for the other levels. Once you name a level it should always appear if you have used and #ed levels active.Only the active level or levels that were previously typed into the drop down list window will show in the drop down list. Not any named (or otherwise) level that exists in the file.

Hi John, I have had this happen to me 3 times in the past 2 days. Mostly during file save after verifies with big STL stock files. The real scary thing is it completely zeroed my 6M+ MCX file each time losing a days work. I now periodically do a "save as" just to be safe. It did generate crash dumps that were automatically sent to CNC. I apologize in advance for some of my comments included in the transmission. I'm running MR1 on a Dell M70, NVIDIA Quadro FX G0 1400, 1G of ram. -Brian

Hi Bruce, Sorry, I'm new at this and may not have been clear on what I'm trying to accomplish. Say, for example you have a 6 sided part with 6 different toolpath operations using seperate G5x work offsets/fixtures. In addition to being able to verify the part all at once you can walk the part through each operation/fixture by: 1) verify op#1 using stock file 2) save the result as STL#1 3) xform STL#1 to fixture #2 4) verify op#2 using STL#1 5) save the result as STL#2 6) xform STL#2 to fixture #3 7) verify op#3 using STL#2 etc., etc. through op#6 If you have modeled your fixtures, this allows you to verify your, G5x offsets, origins, fixtures, etc. to see if you made any screw-ups along the way. What I haven't been able to do is create one STL file that embodies STL files STL#1-STL#6 showing each stage of the 6 step process. An enhancement to Xform STL allowing multiple STL files to be loaded and transformed before saving it out would solve this. Since Xform STL can't do that I'm looking for an alternative. Thanks, Brian

Hi Matt, I have used WCS to completely program and verify my part. This is an independent exercise to model each operation (6 total) including fixtures, offsets, etc. to simplify the setup process. -Brian