Water seems good, but thanks for the suggestion Del!

Hello, I am kind of in a jam here and was wondering if anyone has run into this before. My hard drive died in my Charmilles Robofill 240. I contacted Charmilles and they gave me the rundown for installng a new drive. Well everything seemed to go swimmingly with the install. I was able measure, do dry runs etc... without any problem. So I set up a job in the machine, touched off my wire on it...did a dry run...everything seemed good to go. That is until I executed the program for real. The machine threaded, tank filled up, wire spools started spinning and I could heard the machine juice up to start cutting but then it just sat there. No alarms, no short...nothing...wire just spins and the machine just sits there. It also does the same thing in MDI mode. There is juice getting to the wire (it will spark if I start the programwith the wire rubbining on a part). I have reinstalled the soft ware multiple times, contacted charmilles till they are sick of me and I still cant find a solution. Charmilles says it could be 3 weeks before they could send someone to look at it ...UGGGGG! I am really getting sick of sending my work out to someone else! Any advice would be appreciated!! It has millenium /fanuc controls. Thanks! Mike

No Del, its a sintered material, kinda cuts like cast iron but its used in high temp aplications like rocket nozzels although I am only making some kind of holding fixture out of it. Its a "Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum alloy " Mostly moly though. I guess its pretty exotic stuff seeing the customer hand delivered it and wants the rest back. After I changed my resin and started cutting again my levels slowly krept back up off the charts (have never seen this before except when the resin was going bad) so I am guessing there is something about this stuff overwhelming my DI unit. I can find zero info about wiring it besides that it can be wired. My filters show plenty of life left in them so I dont thinkk that is it, unless the 5 micron is to big and its not filtering enough??? Thanks for your reply! Mike

Hi everyone. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with wire edm'ing this stuff. It is cutting fine but is really messing with my deionization. After i first started running this material I noticed my deionization levels going up so I thought I just needed to change my resin. So I did that and after the machine ran idol a few hours my levels came down, then as soon as I started cutting the moly again my DI levels went off the chart again. Never had a material do this before. So my plan is when I am done cutting this stuff I am going to drain all my water and change all my filters so I dont ruin another bottle of resin trying to filter this stuff out. Anyone ever deal with something like this before? Something you really have to think about when quoting a job. Charmilles Robofil 240 Thanks! Mike

As I use Mastercam for Wire, I really dont expect anything....in fact, if X7 went back to X4 it would actually be a improvement because of the bugs in X6.

I was hoping MU1 would fix it, but it seems still to be there. I received a reply from CNC and they acknowledged the bug and gave me defect number for it. Look's like I might have to back track to X4 since X6 does not really offer any advantages for wire as far as I can tell and i dont want to miss a bad lead out and scrap a part.

Hi everyone, I have been using X6 to program my Charmilles for a few weeks now and I have just run into problems with my lead outs between passes. In all the versions of Mastercam I have used (X4 was the latest one) it never mattered what direction you chained an entity,or if you chained multiple entity in different directions it always chose the correct direction to lead out between passes (according to the wire comp I presume)so you did not gouge your part. I am finding in X6, if entity's are chained in different directions,(circles in my case) the lead out will be incorrect and gouge the part on the entity's that are chained in a different direction then the 1st chained entity was. I have been told the solution is to chain all the entity's in the same direction but I have never had to do this before. Sometimes you need to chain in different directions because of the shape of the part. I still have access to X4 and no matter what I do, I can not get it to lead out in the wrong direction. I don't know why this would change with X6. I am running X6 64 bit. Anyone else run into this? Thanks Mike

Hi, I run a 240 here with Mil. Control. The one thing I notice is that on line N170 it is outputting a D1 to force a off set. With my machine this always has to be set as a D0 (on all cuts) or it wont take the off set value. This is done in the power library parameter page. I always have to fix this when I upgrade to a new version of MC. Keep this in mind if you run a test cut and the off set does not take. This is what my post spits out for that program: % O0001 N100 G90 N110 G92 X0. Y0. N120 M31 N130 G11 (TEC,TEST) N140 G11 (WIR,XS25) N150 M50 N160 G00 X0. Y0. N170 S501 N180 G92 X0. Y0. H1. J0. I1. N190 M60 N200 M24 N210 M28 N220 G41 D0 G01 X1. N230 G03 X-1. I-1. J0. N240 X1. I1. J0. N250 G40 G01 X.99 N260 M24 N270 M28 N280 G11 (WIR,XS25) N290 S502 N300 G92 X.99 Y0. H1. J0. I1. N310 G42 D0 G01 X1. N320 G02 X-1. I-1. J0. N330 X1. I1. J0. N340 G40 G01 X.99 N350 M24 N360 M28 N370 G11 (WIR,XS25) N380 S503 N390 G92 X.99 Y0. H1. J0. I1. N400 G41 D0 G01 X1. N410 G03 X-1. I-1. J0. N420 X1. I1. J0. N430 G40 G01 X.99 N440 M24 N450 M28 N460 G11 (WIR,XS25) N470 S504 N480 G92 X.99 Y0. H1. J0. I1. N490 G42 D0 G01 X1. N500 G02 X-1. I-1. J0. N510 X1. I1. J0. N520 G40 G01 X.99 N530 M50 N540 M15 P0 N550 M30 % Hope this helps, Mike

Matt, I run a 240 here. Do you set your guides up with the mounting block with the carbide eyelet like my machine does, or does it use a different procedure?

Sometimes when I am using a model that has crappy geometry, I draw a line across the bottom and top of the surfaces I need to wire and use "xform, project to surface" These seem to give cleaner geometry then I usually get from our models. Just another idea if you have trouble with your model.

Like John said, using lower and upper chains is the way to go. In "Toolpaths" pick 4 axis and then select a thread point and the lower chain, then select the upper chain. Then in the wirepaths pages you need to fill out the correct info. Mastercam help explains it pretty well. I would suggest cutting a test piece just to make sure your settings all jive. I would go into more detail, but it varies a lot depending on the wire machine. Welcome to the forum! Mike

Ok, since I have never used the cut wire thread point, I decided to play with it. I chained a contour and used a cut thread point this time. I still got the same result as before so I looked into the wire path parameters. I had to go into the "Leads" page on tree and unchecked "MAX LEAD OUT" After this it used my cut wire point as the location to cut the wire. I imagine this is common knowledge but I have never used it. You learn something everyday. Mike

I always use a start thread point when I am chaining, but I do not use a cut point. I believe that is taken care of by the post. It posts a cut wire command after it finishes cutting each chain, and then rapids to the next thread point. That is how mine works, perhaps yours is different.

We have a Charmilles 240 here and these are the numbers from the machine. (In our case, there is a transformer between the incoming power supply and the machine that is used to accommodate the machine's requirements) 3 Phase 400 Volts 10 KVA 50/60 HZ 18 Amps 2100 K Hope this helps.... Mike

Mark, I have 240 and this is how I handle it. pstart # Stuff to output at program start # Specify the TEC file to use. Spaces$ = 0 if sof, n$, " G11 ", "(TEC",no_spc$, ",", no_spc$, sprogname$,")", e$ When I start a tool path, I use whatever tec I am using as the NC file name. This code uses the NC file name when it calls out the tec file when it posts. Mike

Cam_mando, Have they started recently making the 240 in Asia? My 240 is all swiss, but its 5 years old, so they might have changed production since then. I must say I really like my machine, it will hold a tenth all day long and has impressed the inspector running our cmm quite a few times. I cant compare it to anything else though because its the only wire I have ever run. Maybe ignorance is bliss. I must say I don't find Charmmiles support as good as it was before they merged with agie. Mike

We make tools,gages and fixtures for Pratt, Sikorsky and the like. and we were told to expect to be busy for at least the next 6 months.

I had this problem with X2. After I completely uninstalled X2 and installed X3 it went away. I don't think X3 fixed it...just the fresh install.

I had this same problem. Before I knew better I used migration when installing X3 and just like you guys the results were not good. Even after uninstalling X3 and replacing all my files with back up ones I could not get MX2 to work correctly. I eventually had to totally uninstall mastercam from my computer and installed X3 fresh and everything worked fine after that. My 2 co-workers who did not use migration did not have a problem upgrading (side by side).

Thats seems to be the trick! Thanks guys! Mike

Hi everyone. A co worker of mine has just upgraded to X3 and is having this problem: Whenever he backplots, or verify's...when X3 is done back plotting, verifying etc, it minimizes his op's manager and he has to alt/o it to bring it back. He is using X3 Mill level 3 Thanks, Mike

Lans, I have Charmilles 240 here with Charmilles Millennium control..which I think is pretty close if not the same as yours. The hardest time I had was finding a good post, but after that I have had few problems running it with MC. If your control is like mine,you will have to tweak your wire library so it puts out the right power setting (S501.S502 ETC) and that it outputs the correct "D" setting (always D0 for my control) so that it kicks in the cutter comp. If you are used to MC mill, you will pick it up in no time. Mike

Jim, Yes, I was prompted to update the machine def,and I did. Now....I probably did something wrong like not making sure all the files paths were pointed at X3, but...it did alter something in my X2 Machine def because after installing x3, the next time I opened X2, it came up that the machine def was not good. If I replaced it with a prior definition I had saved then it worked. I really hate to be taking anyones time if Im the only one having a problem like this. It could be something unique to my computer. And I have X2 up and running good enough to get my work done. I appreciate everyones help. Mike

I thought I did, but I might have missed one. For someone who only does this once in a blue moon this can be pretty confusing....even after paying close attention to the instructions. You kind of get the idea after you bring the files in and they are updated, that you are good to go, but I guess you are not. Is it possible Mastercam could have a pop up that says..."Hey you are using X3, but your file paths are pointing to previous install..do you want to change it" Maybe this would at least point us (pun intended)in the right direction here.

Just a note... I had problems using migration....it messed up both x2 and x3. So the next time I installed with out migration...and brought the files over manually. This still screwed up both x2 and X3 The next install I renamed my X2 directory and brought the files over manually, and this kept it from altering anything in x2. I can now get X3 running but it starts up with a corrupt file warning that gives me this message: Part_file>T Corrupt or Invalid file. Contact your local Mastercam dealer It still starts after the warning, but it is very slow to respond and pretty much unusable because of this. My x2 works ok except that ever since I did my first install of X3, every time I try to get into the machine def it crashes. I tried a repair install but it did not help. Mike Mastecam wire X2