Thanks Jeff

Cambrey how do I check that. I have a Quadro FX4800.

Thanks for the specs. I'm going to install X7 on my M6600 this weekend and see how it performs.

K2csq7 Thanks for the info. What are your computer specs. I'm starting to think my lag issues may be caused by my computer. It originally came with 32 bit XP and I upgraded it to windows 7 64 bit to try to save the company some money. I have a Dell M6600 lap top that was out performing this computer with X6. I also have MCX5 and MCX6 installed along with MCX7. Maybe that is an issue. Anyway I'll try your suggestions. Thanks again

By the way my computer specs are: Dell T7400 with Windows XP 64 bit 16 Gigs of Ram, Quadro FX4800 Xeon 3.2 Gig processor ( I think its a quadcore) I can't figure out how to change my sig.

I just started using X7 and I really like a lot of the new features. However verify is giving me some issues. The main issue is a long lag time up to 30 for verify to launch. I get the message "processing nci data" and the verify screen is frozen for up to 30 seconds. This time increases if I use a saved STL file and it also increases when I add more tool paths. Is anyone else experiencing this or does anyone know of a fix. Other general questions I have about the new verify interface are: How do I designate a solid model as a fixture. How do I make the left over stock one color for each tool. What is the recommended precision setting. What are the recommended settings for moves before and moves after. If I get three monitors can I have my op manager and level manager on one monitor, my mastercam workspace on one monitor, and dock verify and backplot on it's own monitor Thanks in advance

This is a subject that I find fascinating and one that is unfortunately overlooked not just in our industry but in every industry worldwide. I am a firm believer in the fact that everything rises and falls on leadership. Leadership ultimately determines a person’s level of effectiveness, and how good any company can be at what they do. If you look at any successful company you will find that they have the right leaders in the right positions. That being said here are some of the qualities that I believe make a good leader. I don’t have time to touch on them all. If you want to be a good leader the first person you need to learn how to lead is yourself. This means you don’t have any destructive habits, you are punctual, you have the highest integrity, you have a positive attitude, you will do whatever it takes to get the job done, and above all people can trust you. Secondly you have to connect with the people you are leading. Many leaders or supervisors rush right into their offices each morning and fail to communicate with the people they are leading. It’s much better to slow down, and talk to people as you pass them. Find out how their weekend was, how their families are, and if you can do anything to make their jobs easier or make them more productive. If you want to be a good leader you genuinely have to care about people and like people. Above all make yourself accessible so people can approach you for help at any time during the day. Thirdly you must be highly competent in your industry. People respect competence and I have found one of the easiest ways to get people to follow you is to help them become better at their trade. This doesn’t mean you have to be an expert at everything but the more you know about your industry the more respect people will have for you and the more you can help people. This leads to another point which is just because you are an expert in your field doesn’t mean you have to do everything and micro manage everyone. My philosophy is to surround yourself with good people, give them the correct training, and then let them do their jobs. Stay out of their way unless they need your help. A good leader is also a good communicator who can communicate the company vision and what needs to be done to accomplish that vision. Good leaders are secure in their own ability and because of this they try to make everyone around them better. They do not hoard power instead they empower others. I’ve worked in shops where leaders have felt threatened by individuals who show potential and either hold them back or get rid of them all together. They would rather take a talented person and hand him over to the competition than let him excel and become and asset to their own company. Above all a good leader must produce results and be able to get the people working with him to produce results. Like I said earlier, this is a subject that I find is often neglected especially in our trade. Many people spend their entire career learning the technical side of our industry and never learn the leadership side. You can only be so effective by yourself no matter how much talent you have. When you train other people to be good at their jobs, and to be good leaders you multiply your talent exponentially.

Jrygus, What size holes were you drilling. We are thinking about buying the Titespot with the 1D head to drill a .218 diameter hole in aluminum.

I started learning solidworks about a year ago. The two training aids that have helped me the most are Inspirtech and Solidprofessor.

There are a lot of different ways to create tool planes for 3+2 machining. Dynamic planes, planes by solid face, planes by geometry, planes by normal, and planes rotate are some of the options I use most frequently. If you are going to be drilling holes I strongly recommend you download the verisurf hole axis c-hook its a free add-on you get when you download verisurf tools. Just remember when creating tool planes to output rotation moves leave WCS set to top and only change your tool and construction planes. If you have a file to share and you want some additional help shoot me an email I'll point you in the right direction

Thanks sweinberg I'll keep that in mind. When I was a member on Streaming Teacher they had a good video explaining all the settings. I just can't remember what it said for corner rounding.

Does anyone have a standard they like to use for corner rounding when using surface high speed toolpaths for roughing? What do you guys like to use for max radius, profile tolerance, and offset tolerance and why. I'm using Surface High Speed (Rest Roughing) to rough aluminum with a 1/2 carbide Diamondback rougher. The tool has a .03 corner radius. Thanks in advance,

I've been training people at our shop lately and the one I always get is: How do I import a solid model and position it in mastercam the way I'm going to be holding it in the machine.

We keep all of our MCX files, machine defs, control defs, and posts on our local C drives with backups of them on our server. All of our NC programs are saved on our sever with DNC Pro .

When I use the toolpath editor I find that the coolant turns off unless you turn it on when you edit your first point even if you had it turned on in your toolpath. I'm not sure if this is a bug but thats how I get it to stay on.

If I was hiring for a programming or forman position I would ask all the standard techinical know how questions listed above. I really like the idea of asking someone how they would approach making a certain part. One question I would add is what type of leadership qualities do you possess. I'm a firm believer in the fact that everything rises and falls on leadership. If the people at the top have the right attitude and want to help bring the company and the people under them up to a higher level that attitude becomes contagious. A persons level of effectiveness is determined by his or her leadership ability. No matter how much you know you can only accomplish so much on your own. Much more can be accomplished by training others and influencing people to work together as a team and that requires leadership ability.

Thanks for the replies. It's all coming back to me now. I think file/browse went all the way back to Mastercam version 6 (I don't mean X6). Back then it wasn't even a C-hook. You just selected file/browse from a drop down menu......That's old school. Left Coast I'll see if I can get that to work tomorrow. Thanks again

There used to be a way to get a preview of all your mcx files one after another. A preview of each file would flash on the screen for a few seconds. Is that option still available? If so how do you do it in X5. Thanks, Justin

Thanks for the replies everyone. I am asking these questions to help a co-worker. When I talk to him monday I will be able to give you guys more information. It would also be helpful to us if someone would be willing to answer some questions over the phone. Thanks again

Wes for the tool change why don't you use Tool ID Code for example: T006.01 for tool type A

Thanks Wes this is for a Mill Turn Machine. We would still like to see more code if anyone has any.

Can someone please post some sample code of EIA/ISO for Mazatrol Matrix Integrex IV. We are trying to program this machine using mastercam for the first time and need some sample code. Thanks

I have microsoft security essentials and haven't noticed any problems with mastercam on my computer. I'll check with our other programmer and see if he is having any issues.

John, I'm using MU1. As soon as I get my computer updated to windows 7 I'll be switching to X6 64bit. Hopefully this issue will go away. It's annoying when I create geometry and then it gets deleted when all I'm trying to do is project it. Then I have to go back, recreate the geometry, and use xform translate to position it where I want in space. The difference is with translate I have to analyze the distance first to know how far I have to tranlate the geometry. With xform project I simply right click and select z coordinate of a point. Then I can snap onto an entitiy at the desired z level and the geometry is moved to that z level. I never had this issue in any of the previous mastercam realeases.

I'm using MCX5. Every now and then when I use xform project and xform offset instead of projecting or offsetting my geometry the geometry just disapears. Undo will not bring the geometry back so I have to create it all over again. I normally simplify my geometry before I try to project of offset it so I am working with arcs and lines instead of splines. I know the geometry is being deleted because the number of entities decreases on my level manager. I know I'm in the correct construction plane when this is happening so I think it is some sort of bug. Is anyone else experiencing this issue. Thanks