I've contacted reseller and will send this file to him, and he'll pass it on to QC. I'll see what they say. Lynn

Peter, Robk, Mayday... Did anyone ever figure out what was the problem here? Today we have a job that won't program leftover without crashing the PC. Have tried it on both machines we have here with no luck. 9.1

+2!! Lynn

I started in 72 in a machine shop and til 77 worked aircraft machining and a machine shop for an iron foundry. In 77 caught a break and transferred to the patternshop where I've been ever since. In the early 90's, I got involved with CNC and Smartcam. Finally about 1996, we got MasterCam 5.5. Life has been great ever since. I started a home patternshop as a 2nd job in 1996 and in 2000 got a CNC for that shop. We got a seat of MasterCam 8.1 for my home shop at the same time. Sometimes life can get rather hectic doing the dayjob and the 2nd shop, but Mastercam does make things a lot easier than it could be.

Mastercam will import parasolids even if you don't have the solids package. It will convert it to surfaces and wireframe. We have a seat of Solids and one without. Parasolid is the best format to import into Mastercam, in my opinion. Lynn

Add 1 more vote for SolidWorks.. Lynn

mold100 I uploaded a file to cadcam's ftp site called Jviewer.zip into the free viewers folder. Just extract the contents to your hard drive. No installation required, just click on the jviewer.exe to execute. Go to file/open, set type of file to 'all', pick your c4 file and you can view and print it. It's kinda clunky but gets the job done. Lynn

mold100, give me your email and I can send you a viewer I got several yrs ago called Jviewer. It reads jedmics, cal-raster files and .c4 files. I had a DOD job once and about went crazy trying to chase this viewer down. I can't remember exactly where I got it. hth Lynn

For the last 6 months, we have been making new patterns (25 or so) for a company that had their wood patterns burned in a foundry fire last summer. Most of the prints are from the late 40's or early 50's. But surprisingly the info is for the most part all there. Lynn

In the mcam9 > mill > mc9 > samples > newv9 directory. You can find it in the mcam9 > mill > mc9 > samples > project directory also. I have the file in 2 different directories. Hope you can find it. Lynn

I just tried to xform a solid and its edge curves without any trouble. with 9.1 update installed Monday. There has to be something else causing you grief. Lynn

spec, What machine are you running this on? I have experienced this in the past with Hurco mills. Lead in and out stops the problem, but in some cases that is not desirable. In my case it was a Hurco problem. Lynn

We've had it from V5.5 to the latest. Lynn

I'm thinking Little "E" or his teammate Michael Waltrip. These guys have dominated restrictor plate races the past 2 years. Wouldn't bother me if Bobby Labonte won though. Lynn

I am using this card. Because of lack of support (out of business) from Elsa, I have gotten my updated driver from guru3d.com It's a Nvidia Detonator driver. The version I'm currently using is 30.80. I'm using Win 2000 I was having troubles with Solidworks 2003 before I updated, but all is well now. Lynn

5/5/54 here. Elad, my son was born 2/6/75. That was a very good day........ Lynn

The way I deal with configs in SW is while in Solidworks go to the configuration that I want in Mastercam,then save the file as a Parasolid with maybe a different name. Then convert it into Mastercam. You should get what you want to program. Lynn

If you have access to the subscription support, go there and click on download software. Then on next page click on download 2003. On the 2003 page at the bottom there is a link to Solidworks forum. It's rather new and this is only way I know how to get to it, but there is some good discussion there. This is not the newsgroup, but a SW supported message forum. I don't know why they made it so hard to access. Lynn

I use SW for creating 3d molds all the time. For the most part, it goes fairly well. Some Pro-e files from customers can give me a few headaches, but it seems I always get the job done. If it is a native SW part file to start with, the job seems to go flawlessly. Lynnz

quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Since V8 you've been able to convert NATIVE SolidWorks and SOlid Edge files through File, Converters, Parasolid, then just change the drop down file type to the SW extention and you,re good. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Since Solidworks came out with 2003 PR2, you can no longer import SW directly. I have to export SW as a Parasolid, then import it to Mastercam. It still comes in clean as it used to, but we have to take the extra step to export now. The SW add-on Mastercam Direct no longer works either. I think something changed with the Parasolid end of things. Has anyone else noticed this? Lynn

Another way is to create the letters above the cylinder, then Create,Curves, Project, To Surfaces. Pick the surfaces to project to and it will place them on the cylinder. Then you can write your toolpath with contour. Lynn [ 09-03-2002, 08:16 AM: Message edited by: lynnz ]

Allan, Thanks for backspace tip. That one will be really handy. I learn something everytime I go to this forum. Lynn

Greg I got the new file from Bob. I don't know whether I'll get a chance to check it today or not. Pretty hectic afternoon. I tried Peters suggestion and changed tolerance to .002 from .011 in V9 and the problem went away. I still think it shouldn't do it if one wanted to increase tolerance. Or maybe there should be a max tolerance that we could input. I'll see what CNC has to say. Thanks Lynn

cam-eelon, For now I will run in V8 as it is proven to run as programmed. If I have to start changing angles and such to avoid cutter violating the part, that tells me there is a problem with the program. Anyway I sent this to my dealer last nite at the same time I posted here. I think before the SP1 patch, V9 would have cut this fine. I should have been more cautious when installing a new patch. I will let all know what CNC/dealer has to say. Thanks Lynn [ 08-08-2002, 09:55 AM: Message edited by: lynnz ]

I loaded the file in the V9 folder on the ftp site. Lynn