Cadcam, I have put my file in the FTP under "/MC8 files/1860-40.MC8". Take a look at it and see if what you are thinking of will accomplish what I'm trying to do. TheePres, gcode & romer, Yes, more useful features is what it’s all about. From what I have seen so far, Mastercam is pretty rich in that respect. I am most impressed with Mastercam's tool path associativity. In adapting from other programming systems it is a matter of making use of the new and different tools it has and finding work-arounds for the shortcomings. And we can always ask for more...

Thanks for the replies. Marc, I am already using LEADIN/OUT (perpendicular) to create a move when turning on cutter comp. What you suggest would be a handy solution if you could have 2 LEADIN/OUT moves, one tangent and one perpendicular. Sem001, Extending the line that makes up my chain pretty much accomplishes what I'm after. With tool path associativity, I can regen the tool path and have it cut further out from the ends of the block. However, I guess what I'm after is a way to get it to output what I want from the existing wire frame, without "faking" it by modifying the wire frame. In our other programming system tool path is geometry and can be modified directly as such. I know that you can use the tool path editor to move individual points in the tool path, but it is rather laborious to move 4 points at each end of the cut to move out the start and end. Also, you lose associativity by editing the tool path. Am I trying to do something that Mastercam just wont do? Say it ain’t so...

As some of you may remember, I am making the transition to Mastercam from another programming system. I am trying to do something that should, I believe, be pretty basic, but I haven't been able to figure out how to do it easily in Mastercam. It is very frustrating. What I'm doing is cutting a dovetail lengthwise on top of a rectangular block. (Simple, right?) I have built a nice wireframe of the block with the dovetail on it and created a CONTOUR tool path by chaining one edge of the dovetail along the front side of the block and the other edge of the dovetail along back side of the block. I have a LEADIN/OUT specified to give me room to turn cutter comp on and off. Everything is fine except that I want the tool to come down past the end of the block, not just move in at the exact end of the block. I also would like to cut past the other end of the block as it is cutting the dovetail down the edge of the block. This will allow for variation in length of the block as it comes off the saw. I guess what I'm looking for is something similar to the APPROACH distance and EXIT distance you can specify with a FACE tool path. FACE doesn't work for this because you cannot offset the tool path or use cutter comp. If I haven't explained what I'm trying to do well enough I could upload it to the FTP site so that anyone who would like to help can take a look at what I've got.

Eat 20 donuts in one sitting? I think the Surgeon General has a warning about that.

No prob, Jay. It’s all good. The real question: Is Krispy Kreme a more functional and fully associative donut than Winchell's?

Peter, ROTFLMAO!!! Amen, brother, amen. This morning I wanted change the periphery of the tooling I'm progamming. So I used TRANSFORM/STRETCH to move the wireframe, regen'ed the tool paths and BAM! Done! Rough and finish passes, corner edge breaks and all - done in 2 secs. How cool is that???

Cadcam, Thanks for your reply. I am using V8. I can live with Mastercam outputting max 180° arcs for now, if need be. What troubles me is that it isn't correctly calculating arc centers as shown in the code I posted. I will be talking to my dealer about this and I will search the forum for posts on this as suggested. I intended the gentle jab at Mastercam in my previous post to be in fun, that was the reason for the smiley. Forgive me, I am going through the trials and tribulations of learning a new system after many years in the business. I appreciate the help and insight from you and others. BTW, my name is Bob and I am a SmartCAM user. Is there a 12 step program for me?

Not being able to code a 360° circle in a single block was only one of my concerns. Take a look at this snippet of code: N3G0G90G54X5.4Y-.5A0.S3056M3 N4G43H4Z1.M8 N5Z.1 N6G1Z-.3F5. N7G41D4X5.6212 N8G3X5.1788R.2212 N9X5.6212R.2211 N10G1G40X5.4 N11G0Z1. This is as coded with MPFAN.PST with "breakarcs" set to "no". Note that the "R" in the second G3 block is .0001 less than the first 180° segment. If it is set to output Is & Js, it gives similar results. Again, what's up with that? Our old programming system may have gone off the market 3 years ago, but at least it can code a 360° circle in a single block and get the arc center right every time.

I have since found "Circ tlpths" which works much snappier than Contour for interpolating simple spotfaces. But it is still outputing two G03 blocks. One for each 180° of the spotface - which confirms to me that it's comming from the post. "breakarcs" is set to "no" in the post as I noted earlier. Hmmmm... What's up with that?

MPFAN.PST, "out of the box", is generating 2 blocks for a 360° arc. (I'm interpolating a spotface). My machine only needs one block for 360° interpolation, and most troubling is that the "I" for the second block is .0001 off! "breakarcs" is set to "no" in the post. I'm using Countour(2D) to interpolate the holes. My post CD is on its way from our dealer, but I was wondering if anyone can point me to how I can get it to just give me one block for a complete 360° arc?

Keith, Thanks for the reply, but that's not what I was after (I can see how to do that). What I was looking for was a way to automatically have it put the posted file in the same folder your MC8 file is in.

Is there a way to have Mastercam put a posted .NC file into the same folder that the MC8 file is in, rather than the "Data Path" specified in "System Configuration"?

Yes, I have contacted our dealer and the post CD is on its way. Now the fun begins...

What is the best reference book for tweaking Mastercam posts? Apparently no documentation ships with the product.

Tony, Thanks for pointing me to that tech tip. I'll try it first thing Monday.