G93 is time based. Unless your post isn't calculating I would assume that there is something funny in your machine settings. What is the maker and control type? If it's a Fanuc we can certainly help diagnose the issue.

At a quick glance of the logic in ptcp I don't think you want 4 if's in a row like that. I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish there looking at next op. Thinking about it, I think all you may really need is. ptcp #Tool length offset if stcp, [ if map_mode = one, sg43 if map_mode = zero, sg43_4 ]

you need to call ptcp after your g49 in pretract, likely there is something else simple wrong as well.

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Default Programs\Set Associations

Time for another lathe product update....

https://kb.mastercam.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50169.aspx Here is the knowledge base article.

I guess probably. Can't see it was the easiest approach for side milling walls though.

I'll use them with both ball and square end. but I have not used them for side milling.

Parallel, Morph, and Curve. In that order and pretty much nothing else.

http://forum.mastercam.com/Topic18656.aspx Second Video. Might be better in 2018.

My signature hardware is up to date.

This might be an example of where the new option in morph might help for twisted surfaces. Not sure when that will come through though. Can't seem to find the video. Anyway, try creating and using wall surfaces as bounding instead of curves, might help a bit.

Colin, I was hoping you had done some fancy dancy stuff and had a way cool machine at the customer..... Guess I was dreaming. I have been told how to program parts in the past, done it and hated every step along the way. I like a box with ladders on the sides to make getting out of it a bit easier. In the three years I have been cutting wood. I have developed or improved upon a few different methods for cutting gun stocks. All I can say is that my programming skills are far behind my imagination, and certainly also need brushed on up machine technology and options to get the smoothest fastest running programs possible. The joke method of clamping is pretty much how it goes. We do something similar on that front. However, I prep blanks with precision drive keys and don't have to push very hard. Repeat-ability isn't usually an issue in most types of wood. A couple thou isn't going to hurt anyone in most situations. If it needs to be tight, press fit in wood is easy... Now one thing I have to say is that I don't have a clue on roughing anymore. Just don't need to do it. No point about 99% of the time. I usually go straight to finish, then rest finish the tight areas, it gets sanded anyway... I am going to send you a PM to discuss how I think you can help me training wise, and see if you think you can help me out. I am not sure, but I have noticed that migrated gun stock files have much more trouble than un-migrated files. Thanks, Husker

Set your tolerance below .5mm

When I copy and paste a toolpath the graphics view moves. This if obnoxious and I don't remember this behavior. Any idea what setting this would be?

Colin, Interesting that you were having that trouble on a shotgun stock. I was last working on a rifle stock.... I would be willing to pay for some of your time to see how you go about some things if you are willing. Always looking for other ways to slice and dice these things. Seemingly simple rest milling ops can take hours to create a good smooth efficient path for that won't rub the hell out of the tool or tear the wood grain. The in-letting is the only easy stuff, but you still have to worry about chipouts.... Anyway, maybe we need to team up with QC on this one and have them do some testing on a few files to see if they can't repeat some of the frustration we have been experiencing, I am guessing they would run into similar troubles immediately upon attempting to follow the sequence of events that we do. I think partially the lack of being able to repeat it is due to things we don't think about, or can't control at the time. Things like streaming music over Bluetooth, I just had to stop using a Bluetooth speaker as it was causing instability with my mouse and keyboard (also Bluetooth to avoid dongle). Most of the time it was fine, then all of a sudden it would freeze my mouse any time a clicked a key. Then with a different brand of keyboard my shift key would be stuck and I would get repeating ////// whenever I clicked in a box. Haven't tested that keyboard since I figured out the speaker aspect. My - key is the problem with keyboard right now, it broke off in my backpack a month ago, just have to hunt a little harder now to type it in. I don't believe it has to do with any specific set of commands that we use but rather something more in the video drivers aspect things. My suspicion on this is due to the fact that the toolpath editor is useless for me right now and it is a very useful and needed tool for making a multi-axis path not gouge a part at high speed. If I set to integrated graphics, toolpath editor isn't as bad but still sucks and many of the problems go away, but others crop up, like hovering over the gnomon on lower left will blank the screen. Surface tessellation takes forever but its stable. This is why I deal with the problems when set to the graphics card, these activities take much less time and things look great. Some examples from the logs from yesterday: 3/26/2017 1:24 AM Application Error Faulting application name: Mastercam.exe, version: 19.0.15109.0, time stamp: 0x58866305
Faulting module name: Mastercam.dll, version: 19.0.15109.0, time stamp: 0x58866285
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000033ae90
Faulting process id: 0x3a38
Faulting application start time: 0x01d2a5cac6bdd4b8
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\mcam2017\Mastercam.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\mcam2017\Mastercam.dll
Report Id: ed683b5a-11c2-11e7-b871-8086f2bd4d30 3/26/2017 1:24 AM Windows Error Reporting Fault bucket , type 0
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: Mastercam.exe
P2: 19.0.15109.0
P3: 58866305
P4: Mastercam.dll
P5: 19.0.15109.0
P6: 58866285
P7: c0000005
P8: 000000000033ae90
P9: 
P10: 

Attached files:
C:\Users\Doogle\AppData\Local\Temp\Mastercam Event Log.xml
C:\Users\Doogle\AppData\Local\Temp\Mastercam Error Log.txt

These files may be available here:
C:\Users\Doogle\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_Mastercam.exe_2347b83d910b68c41c91f1b827343391cd8c130_2901a10a

Analysis symbol: 
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: ed683b5a-11c2-11e7-b871-8086f2bd4d30
Report Status: 0 3/26/2017 3:39 PM Application Error Faulting application name: Mastercam.exe, version: 19.0.15109.0, time stamp: 0x58866305
Faulting module name: interfacial12.dll, version: 2016.1.19.0, time stamp: 0x5668feb4
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000001d1a0
Faulting process id: 0x2a38
Faulting application start time: 0x01d2a646da6cc572
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\mcam2017\Mastercam.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\mcam2017\interfacial12.dll
Report Id: 5b383644-123a-11e7-b61c-8086f2bd4d30 3/26/2017 3:39 PM Windows Error Reporting Fault bucket , type 0
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: Mastercam.exe
P2: 19.0.15109.0
P3: 58866305
P4: interfacial12.dll
P5: 2016.1.19.0
P6: 5668feb4
P7: c0000005
P8: 000000000001d1a0
P9: 
P10: 

Attached files:

These files may be available here:
C:\Users\Doogle\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_Mastercam.exe_13c82798fb497861f9a3d95fb980e080191f4b_0baafc69

Analysis symbol: 
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: 5b383644-123a-11e7-b61c-8086f2bd4d30
Report Status: 0 I also have a bunch from this app, not sure what it is but will be looking into it. 3/27/2017 2:44 PM Application Error Faulting application name: devicecontrol.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x5309a791
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7601.18247, time stamp: 0x521eaf24
Exception code: 0xc0000374
Fault offset: 0x00000000000c4102
Faulting process id: 0x1f00
Faulting application start time: 0x01d2a708a043cabc
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Hotkey\devicecontrol.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: ded27856-12fb-11e7-8044-8086f2bd4d30 3/27/2017 2:44 PM Windows Error Reporting Fault bucket , type 0
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: devicecontrol.exe
P2: 0.0.0.0
P3: 5309a791
P4: StackHash_4c95
P5: 6.1.7601.18247
P6: 521eaf24
P7: c0000374
P8: 00000000000c4102
P9: 
P10: 

Attached files:

These files may be available here:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue\AppCrash_devicecontrol.ex_2a9c9b5a4a3ef727875925a825549670b255fc_1f59d23c

Analysis symbol: 
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: ded27856-12fb-11e7-8044-8086f2bd4d30
Report Status: 0 3/27/2017 2:44 PM Windows Error Reporting Fault bucket , type 0
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: devicecontrol.exe
P2: 0.0.0.0
P3: 5309a791
P4: StackHash_4c95
P5: 6.1.7601.18247
P6: 521eaf24
P7: c0000374
P8: 00000000000c4102
P9: 
P10: 

Attached files:

These files may be available here:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue\AppCrash_devicecontrol.ex_2a9c9b5a4a3ef727875925a825549670b255fc_1f59d23c

Analysis symbol: 
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: ded27856-12fb-11e7-8044-8086f2bd4d30
Report Status: 4 But overall those are pretty much it that in there. Nothing else seems to be having many problems. Husker

Just reinstall without formatting? Or clean install?

So, I am sure you already know this, but it is all about tracking the error vector. If you don't mind it taking a little bit longer execution wise, do it in two steps. This way you are only doing one axis transformation at a time which is easy to accomplish long hand. No need to get all fancy and do it with only 4 measured points. Find the tilt, then find the rotate. Use a pocket measure function on the waistline of the sphere, single surface the top, then interate until you pass a repeating trap that checks to make sure your measurement repeats to a given tolerance. With a strain gage probe, I would guess you will be good on the second go around. If you want to make sure it is perfect, index the spindle 180 and hit it again to take out probe error, by averaging the two results. Then move onto the next point.

BOXX has K2200 and M4000 listed at a decent price range. What was the card that people were having issues with? I don't feel my card is all that great, has issues with things like the tool manager not displaying.

Mem test yielded nothing. Neither did a benchmark on the graphics card. Though I wonder what some of you guys are getting benchmark wise with your graphics cards. If you look in my signature, my laptop has 3 year old top notch mobile hardware. I guess I should plan a day to reload my OS. Now starts the creation of a list of things to save before I format.... I always forget something.

Buy AxisSet from Renishaw. Spend your time making money programming more chip making activities. I am not sure if it can compensate the machine, but you could at least get the values and write another macro to update it if needed. Why are things changing, and by how much? I thought Makino's were pretty stable? If I had a probe, I would definitely have it. No question. I spend way to much time checking and correcting rotational centers / zero positions on our routers. Usually for us it is crash related. Or in some cased due to taking a bit too heavy of a cut. Or a piece of wood splitting and overloading a tool. Small bump = 2 hours minimum to check and correct...

So I hate to start another hardware thread, but I think what I want to ask is a question we all need answered from time to time. So I have a decently equipped Sager workstation laptop, and it was needed when I bought it as I was part time here and was working from home on the weeknights, then driving a few hours up to SA on the weekends and working in the office. Well now I am full time in the office and don't need full time blazing fast mobile capability. Anyway, I think the lappy is starting to show its age. I can't tell if it is software, hardware, or both. I am having issues with Mastercam crashing constantly. I have to close and reopen at least once every hour, and reboot the machine at least once or twice in the middle of the day (4-6 or so hours of use). I am experiencing issues with things like toolpath editor being unusable even for simple paths. I have extensive lag opening the moduleworks path parameters dialog. I just can't tell what is wrong and have hesitated to just blow everything away and build software fresh as I don't have the time to invest into that if it isn't guaranteed to help. If I had to guess, I am losing at least an hour a day due to computer/software issues. Frustrating, just plain frustrating. We are a small company and have been struggling to get some things up and running the last few months as some projects have unexpectedly all but dried up that were our cash flow kings. Its a blessing and a curse, as we need the down time to get caught up on maintenance, but I don't have time to program and work on machines at the same time... I have lots of small run / sample jobs to get out the door, average time to cutting chips on a programming job right now is 2 long days for a simple part. I think I could cut this significantly if I were able to get rid of interface lag issues, and didn't need to restart MCAM all the time. How often do you upgrade or replace hardware? Entire machine or just components? Is the value of what BOXX sells worth it? How do you decide how to configure? Do they help you with that? I am not very interested in building my own system, but at the same time can't afford to drop 5k on a machine right now. Do any of you guys lease workstations? What are your lease terms if you do? TIA Husker

Use Morph. Create two bounding flat surfaces top and bottom then select the surfaces you want to machine. Pay attention to surface normal's. I have found surfaces to be a bit more reliable than curves for morph. Then either use tilt a way as a collision strategy, or preferably create a circle above the part and use from chain as the tilt strategy. Make it bigger or smaller to change the angle. Should produce a decently smooth result.

X613.675 Y-13.107 Z21.54 A202.879 - cut X469.951 Y-14.432 Z19.837 A200.989 B-.846 F14999.76 X469.642 Y-14.436 Z19.845 A200.989 F2100. - lead out X469.335 Y-14.441 Z19.871 A200.989 X469.03 Y-14.445 Z19.916 A200.989 X468.728 Y-14.449 Z19.981 A200.989 X468.431 Y-14.454 Z20.065 A200.989 X468.14 Y-14.458 Z20.169 A200.989 X467.932 Y-14.461 Z20.256 A200.989 X467.749 Y-14.512 Z20.293 A201.145 B-.848 F14150.95 - blend spline X467.579 Y-14.546 Z20.328 A201.291 B-.849 F14116.19 X467.498 Y-14.557 Z20.344 A201.361 F14089.22 X467.42 Y-14.565 Z20.359 A201.428 B-.85 F14089.92 X467.345 Y-14.568 Z20.373 A201.494 B-.851 F14043.27 X467.272 Y-14.567 Z20.387 A201.558 F14027.91 X467.203 Y-14.563 Z20.399 A201.621 B-.852 F13958.57 truncated X467.75 Y-12.585 Z19.406 A205.004 B-.878 F14396.34 X467.932 Y-12.628 Z19.295 A205.158 B-.879 F14425.78 X468.141 Y-12.625 Z19.208 A205.158 F2100. - lead in X468.432 Y-12.621 Z19.105 A205.158 X468.728 Y-12.617 Z19.02 A205.158 X469.03 Y-12.613 Z18.956 A205.158 X469.335 Y-12.608 Z18.911 A205.158 X469.643 Y-12.604 Z18.885 A205.158 X469.951 Y-12.6 Z18.878 A205.158 X613.666 Y-10.662 Z21.056 A205.302 B-.881 F15000. - cut This is a snippet of code. cut, leadout,blendspline, leadin. Doesn't matter what type of slice link I use, it does the same thing with the feeds. The feeds on the blend are wonky because I am calculating feed in the post with A moves as I don't have TCP setup on the A. the machine is setup for B/C kinematics. NCI refelcts the same here, though the cut flag and control flag shows it as lead off/contour end until the lead in. Feeds are changing in the NCI same as above. 456.42372883 -62.85169037 -95.82590715 456.82464157 -58.40207544 -97.47563508 15000. 10 1000 0.08418115 0.93430235 -0.34639957 11 456.12981726 -62.78654199 -95.7576949 456.53072999 -58.33692706 -97.40742283 2100. 50 100 0. -0. 0. 11 455.83861327 -62.70531193 -95.69583285 456.239526 -58.25569701 -97.34556078 -1. 50 100 0. -0. 0. 11 455.5515499 -62.60600549 -95.64144671 455.95246263 -58.15639056 -97.29117464 -1. 50 100 0. -0. 0. 11 455.26983235 -62.48903957 -95.59476482 455.67074508 -58.03942465 -97.24449275 -1. 50 100 0. -0. 0. 11 454.99464338 -62.35490526 -95.55598316 455.39555612 -57.90529033 -97.2057111 -1. 50 100 0. -0. 0. 11 454.72713834 -62.20416569 -95.52526457 455.12805107 -57.75455076 -97.1749925 -1. 50 100 0. -0. 0. 11 454.53661955 -62.08351086 -95.50794746 454.93753228 -57.63389593 -97.15767539 -1. 50 100 0. -0. 0. 11 454.36803271 -61.9801409 -95.49877746 454.76539652 -57.53458438 -97.16026337 15000. 50 100 0. -0. 0. 11 454.20663846 -61.88809378 -95.50252628 454.60066815 -57.44637679 -97.17503847 -1. 50 100 0. -0. 0. 11 454.12864456 -61.84630926 -95.50922601 454.52108133 -57.4064358 -97.18699934 -1. 50 100 0. -0. 0. 11 454.05245603 -61.80734701 -95.51913239 454.44334582 -57.36926957 -97.20201088 -1. 50 100 0. -0. 0. 11 453.97807526 -61.77120424 -95.5322377 454.36746094 -57.33487839 -97.22007596 -1. 50 100 0. -0. 0.

Ron/Colin, Mostly yes I am looking to control the feedrate during the slice link move, whether it be direct, blend spline or whatever. I can use the feed percentage to control the lead in/out, but then it bumps back up to 100% for the slice link and causes a vibration which still hasn't settled down by the time the machine enters back into the part, hence my gouging. I have come to believe there is an issue with the y-axis on the machine and will be getting a tech in to help find it, I am stumped on that front. After working on the phone with them a bit, we are leaning on the following in order: Y gearbox (master or slave), Linear guides, backlash (<.025mm currently), cable issue, amplifier. I did a ballbar test yesterday, and the Y was VERY noisy in comparison to X (10x or so noisier). I have to get them in to help us repair the c brake on our other machine anyway (did anyone say big job?). So hopefully we can figure it out during the same trip. As far as 5ax rapids, the machine is setup to linear interpolate rapids in G43.4. Pretty slick feature for sure. Overall, I think CMS did a decent job integrating the machine, just wish I had more look-ahead, and nano-smoothing 2. I think it would help me tremendously on cutting down some cycle times, and end up reducing wear and tear on the machine. I am not convinced that the machine issues I have now are a result of not having these items or what I do have for options setup better. Plus training on my part on how to optimize my programming for what options that I do have. Ron, I don't have any moduleworks paths that would require linking like I described. Operation 18 uses a blend spline, but it is just an old surface finish blend path, I would have thought that it would slow down to the plunge and retract rate as I have the checkbox checked for that in gap settings, but apparently it doesn't have an effect. Thanks, Husker