Well, I've started the process of us moving up to 2024. As I said in another thread, I no longer wait until the 3rd update because of the stupid bugs in 2020/2021 which kept us from moving up at all those years because when we found them it was too late to send them in to get fixed as CNC Software had already moved on to the following year's version. So now I try to move up after the 1st update and I and our other mastercam guys poke around for a week or two looking for stupid bugs before we move ahead and actually use it. So far, and we haven't moved up fully, but things seem mostly positive. Here are my impressions so far: 1) they turned migrating/updating our Varco Reports into a nightmare. My IT lady had to manually do it, with multiple phone calls and goto meetings with Jim, but we finally got it working. 2) It looks like, hopefully, maybe, they fixed a d@mn annoying Transform--Project bug I reported back in 2022, got it logged, and they made it worse in 2023. My preliminary test gave me hope because that bug's been a real headache for me: it's something I use a lot. Edit: nope, sigh. I grabbed one of my big parts and the bug is still there, sigh. Maybe it's not quite as bad, hopefully (fingers crossed), but Transform--Project, when I project a curve I have verified it's closed, is still leaving gaps in the projected curve. Guess, I'll try to get it to my reseller, again... 3) still not quite sure how to navigate the changes in the stock model setup. Like Murlin(?) I use a solid and then bring in my stl's I create from Verify as I update my stock model rather than tie it to my toolpaths. That way my toolpaths don't go dirty if I make any minor changes like one of my coworkers. But, anyway, the stock model changes don't seem to be a deal breaker yet, hopefully. 4) Machine Simulation on which I heavily rely seems to work fine except they turned off the collision warning button. Last version it was forced on. It's not a big deal but I warned my coworkers about it. Verify also seems fine. 5) Overall it seems a little faster saving stuff, but I won't know for sure until I get to some of my bigger parts. My coworkers and I will probably spend next week still poking around, and as long as we don't find any deal breakers, we'll move up after that. Good luck.

Thanks, Gcode, I'll give it a try!

In 2020 or 2021, they had some stupid bug in machine simulation so that it couldn't read bullnosed tools correctly and gave false collision warnings. We had literally spent 6 months updating our abilities to use machine simulation with custom models of our machines and adding all our tools and holders and extensions into the library in 2019...only for them to break something so simple. We found the bug as soon as we moved up, but it was already too late, and CNC Software had moved on to more pretty bells and whistles for the next year, and so we were stuck in 2019. I'm kind of surprised no one else in the entire world found that glitch...are we the only ones using machine sim with bullnosed cutters??? Anyway, there was another game stopping, stupid bug the other year of 2020 or 2021, can't remember what it was at this moment, and so we had to skip 2 years until 2022 finally came out. But I learned to try and move up before they move on to the next year's version, if possible. Right now I can't even move us up because we need an external post enabler file...and my reseller said it isn't ready yet, sigh...

Hey everyone, thanks for all the comments and thoughts and for the stuff Bill and other have uploaded here and also what he sent to me. I appreciate it! It's a lot to think about, but right now, if I'm understanding everything, it seems like AR and even X+ are more focused on Mastercam operations and tooling information, and for our operators we really want to minimize the information because, as some have pointed out, they (our operators) hardly read what we give them as it is, and so our toolpath sheets need to be that: focused on the toolpaths not Mastercam operations or anything else, but a bare-bone list of information they 'might' read. I'll keep digesting what Bill sent me and the stuff here, but I think unfortunately, what we have is what we want unless I want to learn to program and only grab the information we want...probably not as I've never done anything remotely like that and would have no idea where to start... Scott Yep, that's where our shop is at. When I was on the floor, we did almost everything. Now the operators do almost nothing other than setups and calling up the next program and some of them still can't handle that....

I'm clearly internet challenged as I couldn't get the upload link to work. Go with what Rekd gave you.

It means something is wrong with your boundary. I can't look at your file right now, but if you have two boundaries you'd do better to use the new 3d high speed suite of toolpaths because they can handle boundaries, imo, better than the legacy toolpaths. Just make sure your boundaries don't do what it says: overlap, intersect, backtrack or anything weird. Normally I just use one boundary with the legacy stuff. If you make the boundary the outline (square) of the stock you show, you should be fine. Just give it a Z-height (3rd parameter page) if you want it to start in the pocket and ignore the rest.

So, maybe I need to contact Gunther and see if he can approximately replicate what I have in our Excel sheet??? Does it load right into Mastercam like our Varco reports does so that it will automatically grab as much information as possible, but still allow us to make generic comments like I showed in our Excel sheets?

Hey guys, thanks for all the replies and input. As I've tried to remember why we abandoned our attempts at using AR 4 years ago, the biggest problem is, say, when we output a drill, ream,tap, bore toolpath, it may have 20 or more tools (thus 20 mastercam operations in it). We didn't want 20 different entries in our report. We simply want one that gives the name of the toolpath the operators will run, how long mastercam thinks it will take, and a very generic description "drills all mounting holes", not 5 pages listing every tool in that one toolpath. That's what the tool build sheet is for, NOT the toolpath sheets IMO. I've never looked into Gunther's X+, so I'm not sure what it does from the things some of you are saying about it... Thanks again!

Thanks! I sent him a message and will see what he says.... The images we grab from Mastercam's print button, but we "print" it to OneNote and then paste it into PowerPoint...

Does anyone know who might be available for hire for me to contact about trying to replicate the toolpath sheets? If he/she is reasonable, it would probably be easier than us trying to figure it out from scratch. Not everything is that long by any means...not even most...but that's also not unusual....

Yeah depending on the complexity, I've had up to 6-7 toolpath sheets, same number of pictures (1 or more per operation setup) and the guys like printouts of the drilling programs which means 30 or more pages....

hmmmm....since no one responded, not sure what to make of that. I had hoped to generate a discussion on the topic if nothing else. Does this mean I have 'great' setup sheets and nothing Mastercam can generate compares??? I was kind of hoping to see screen shots of what the rest of you are using. Maybe since we are a pattern shop, where every piece is unique and every operator is essentially a setup guy, our needs are just too different from the majority of Mastercam users. Terry (my co-worker) and I have often wondered how many other pattern shops use Mastercam since it seems so many of you are in machine shop settings....

Back in 2019 when we massively upgraded how we use Mastercam's stand-alone tool library and machine simulation software, we briefly tried to customize the setup sheets Mastercam generates. But we were never happy with them because they either gave way too much information....or not enough of what we wanted... and so we stuck with the custom Excel sheet we use to give our operators toolpath information, a Powerpoint printout we include in our packets for pictures and setup instructions, and then some of the guys on this forum suggested we use Varco Reports for our tool build sheets. Now, I'm pretty happy with Varco Reports (I included a screen shot because I always like to give Jim's stuff a plug whenever I can!) because the software loads right into Mastercam, and is highly customizable and so everything it generates is right from within Mastercam thus, no mistakes. But as you would figure, by doing our own Excel and Powerpoint sheets, there's plenty of room for error and typos since we all try to reuse them to minimize the amount typing we have to do which leads to carryover mistakes from previous jobs as well as simple typing mistakes and such. I'm curious if the guys using Mastercam generated toolpath/setup sheets think we could get anything even close to either the Excel or Powerpoint screen shots I uploaded. It would be nice to eliminate the mistakes and typos. Maybe we just didn't spend enough time trying to customize what Mastercam provides. Maybe it's something that would be worth paying our reseller or someone else to help us customize what Mastercam can do to approximate what we do AND eliminate all the mistakes. Just wondering, thanks!

I just gave that a try. I went into the planes manager and hit "edit" and then drug the gnomons along the part and it dynamically sectioned the part and I could use my space ball to move the part so I could see it better. I'll have to try that on an engineering change in the future. Thanks!

Thanks, I'll give that a try. That sounds like it may work.

My supervisor uses the old Powershape/Powermill software and he's able to dynamically do section views of a part. It's really helpful especially when we are doing engineering changes and he can lay the old surfaces over the new ones so we can see how much change there is. I've been reading about the Section View Mastercam can create and even created one earlier this morning, but it seems 'static'. He can just take his slide bar and move the section view thru the entire part, if that makes sense. Does Mastercam have that ability? Thanks

I think we had that issue, too, and I had to work with our reseller and the post department to finally get it fixed...but we're still having issues with coolant not being posted correctly as I've got it set in the library. I think some of the problem is we have different machines with different requirements and using different slots in the library settings. Our reseller tried to fix it for us, but it's still not right and I finally gave up...

Thanks, Ernie, and everyone at Verisurf! I've got it installed and there are a couple features I definitely will be using.

I'm sure this isn't what you want to hear, but since no one else has responded, I thought I would. We briefly tried to use the stuff Mastercam provided, but we weren't happy with it. Maybe we were just too ignorant to use it properly. But we use Powerpoint to do our setup pictures. An Excel document one of the guys made a long time ago and enter the information we want for each toolpath. And then we use Varco Reports for the tool build sheets for each job.

Ok, I probably sound a little ignorant asking this: but what does the free Verisurf software do? I've skimmed through some of these 15 pages, but maybe I missed it. We used to own Moldplus which I saw mentioned in here but we never used it much because our cam guys didn't do much surface modeling, but our cam supervisor is retiring in a few months, so that could change. We are a pattern shop: everything is one-off. Most is 3-axis, but we do have 2, 5-axis machines.

In 2019 we did a major upgrade to our Mastercam capabilities which I shared at the time on this forum: loaded in tool holders and extensions, so we could create assemblies in the stand alone library. Had our reseller make some custom machine simulator models for us, including our 6axis machine. And we started using Varco Reports at the suggestion of guys on this forum so we could print out an exact model of the tools needed for collision-free machining after running it thru the other stuff....But 2020 and 2021 each had bugs that were so bad that we couldn't even move up because they negated all the upgrades we had just spent an entire year doing. We finally moved up to 2022 feeling like we were getting left behind...but we were NOT happy with all the stupid bugs...and in our opinion 2023 was worse, and we would have gone back to 2022 but I had continued to massively update/upgrade our tool library with new holders and tooling, and I didn't want to lose the ability to use them, sigh...

I'll at least wait until the 1st update...I get so tired of the d@mn bugs. I got one associated with Transform Project logged in 2022 and it got worse in 2023: something I use all the time. When we moved up to 2023 after the 1st update, Terry and I found half a dozen bugs in the first week, a number of which our reseller was unaware of. They always act like we ought to become Beta testers because we seem to find stuff others don't: I just want a reliable software, not one that with each update we have to find new workarounds to the latest crap, sigh... The problem with waiting until the third update is that then there's zero chance of them actually fixing it the current year...and so you have to fight the bugs all year only for more things to get broken the next year...

16 minutes ago, JParis said: No problem, John. You spoke the truth, and I know I do struggle doing my best at a job I never wanted. And so I am trying to do better. I appreciate your input!

I know this doesn't belong here, but I don't know where else to put it...I'm a little sad the off topic section got shut down. Some of you guys I've interacted with ever since I started programming 15 years ago. Some of you might remember I never really wanted to be a machinist or programmer. I've got a ministry degree, but I needed a job, and this was available. It's hard to have my heart in this, and sometimes I struggle with trying to do my best when I'm such an oddball here in the shop. Then when my wife's childhood trauma and dissociation exploded into our marriage and family, the stress was overwhelming for both of us, but I got a chance to live out my desire for ministry and I walked with her on the healing journey. If you don't remember she essentially had PTSD on steroids...and I figured out how to help her heal, deeply...simply (though not easily) by engaging her in every aspect of what she experienced. I wrote a booklet about it 2 years ago, but it was too cerebral. After the off topic site got shut down, I wrote a second booklet, mostly of examples of how I helped her heal...and a national organization that is funded by the government was so excited, that they found me someone to, hopefully, turned the booklets into a real book to help other family members do what I've done and teach them how to understand and help their loved one heal from 'extreme states' (panic attacks, flashbacks, comatose episodes, mini-seizures, 'delusions', 'paranoia', dissociation, and pretty much anything you can think of), . That's where my heart really is, but John is correct, and I need to do better here, and so I'm in the midst of literally running every, single option for Surface Finish Leftover, Surface Finish Pencil, 3D High Speed Scallop Rest Passes and 3D High Speed Pencil Rest Passes. So far the ONLY one that even looks close to what I want is Surface Finish Leftover 3D collapse, but I'm still working on the other options. So I may have to go back to that and like John said, who cares if it takes a little longer to process. I will probably also send all these toolpaths to my mastercam reseller, and if 3d Collapse remains the best option, see if they can get it to CNC Software as an enhancement request. Thanks everyone, Scott