At work I have dual monitors and a space pilot. At home I have a laptop with a single screen and regular mouse. When I work from home I can really notice a difference in the time it takes to program a job. Dual monitors and a 3D mouse are the only way to go.

Aaron, Thanks for trying to help I really appreciate it. I think I'm going to call our reseller and have them get in contact with In House Solutions. They are the ones who made our post. I'll let you know what I find out. The good news is we got the entire program to fit in the machine. The bad news is it took about an hour and twenty minutes to load.

Colin, We tried to switch the filter tolerance from .001 to .010 and it makes the toolpath look less accurate in in backplot. We didn't want to try to run it on the machine because of the way it looked in backplot. Aaron We are using inverse time notice the G93. Also the post is encrypted so we will have to send it back to In House if we cant find the setting in mastercam. All this toolpath is doing is milling a round diameter by rotating the A-axis while avoidng some bosses that stick up on the part. Instead of making one A-axis move to index we get thirty lines of code for the A-axis to end up at the end position for that rotation. Since the A-axis is the only axis moving it seems like there is a lot of extra code. It seems to me that we could eliminate the A-axis moves from N44180 to N44450 and still get the same result. I'm not sure if this is the case because this is our first attempt to use this toolpath.

austing, What exactly are you guys debating. Options like this seem to be a matter of personal preference to me. If you guys are sharing one seat of mastercam you can have customized config files so you can load in your personal settings each time you use mastercam.

We are using a 5-axis flowline toolpath and it seems to be generating a lot of extra code. I was wondering if there is a way to filter it. It seems like it's spitting out a lot of unneccesary A-axis moves. Here is a sample of the code. N44150 G94 X-13.3292 F60. N44160 G93 A-61.2 F1000. N44170 A-59.357 F1000. N44180 A-57.48 F1000. N44190 A-55.568 F1000. N44200 A-53.622 F1000. N44210 A-51.642 F1000. N44220 A-49.628 F1000. N44230 A-47.582 F1000. N44240 A-45.502 F1000. N44250 A-43.39 F1000. N44260 A-41.247 F1000. N44270 A-39.073 F1000. N44280 A-36.87 F1000. N44290 A-34.638 F1000. N44300 A-32.378 F1000. N44310 A-30.093 F1000. N44320 A-27.782 F1000. N44330 A-25.449 F1000. N44340 A-23.093 F1000. N44350 A-20.718 F1000. N44360 A-18.325 F1000. N44370 A-15.915 F1000. N44380 A-13.491 F1000. N44390 A-11.055 F1000. N44400 A-8.609 F1000. N44410 A-6.155 F1000. N44420 A-3.695 F1000. N44430 A-1.232 F1000. N44440 A-358.768 F1000. N44450 A-356.305 F1000. N44460 A-354.279 F1000. N44470 G94 X-13.3173 F60. I'm wondering if there is a way to make all the A-axis moves just one A-axis move. Using MCX4 with a custom Fadal Post from In House Solutions. Thanks in advance.

pualf One more useful tool to help you view your mastercam file is Viewsheets. Viewsheets allow you to save custom views of your part on seperate tabs. By clicking on the tab you automatically go back to the custom view your created.

paulf, I still think it may have something to do with changing your WCS. I always leave WCS set to top and just change my tool and construction planes to get rotation moves. If I accidentally change my WCS from top all my ops go dirty. HTH

paulf Are you using a three axis machine or a multiaxis machine. Also what do you mean when you say "when I change plane view". Do you mean when you change your tool and construction planes.

Sounds to me like you are changing your WCS along with your tool and construction planes. If you want a rotation move leave WCS set to top and only change your tool and constructuon planes. Once you change WCS from top to another plane all your operations will go dirty.

We do it the same way as CNC Apps on our Kitamura.

I don't think Ron meant to save his file as an STL. I think what Ron is talking about is saving everything to a new mastercam file and using that mastercam file for verification.

For our Fadals we use a custom 5-axis post from In House Solutions for 5-axis work and the Mpmaster post for our 3-axis work.

We use DNC Professional.

It seems like you can't select the surfaces because your solid selection is active. If you create your surfaces on a seperate level you can select your solid then turn of the level your solid is created on. Once you have no solids on the screen solid selection will automatically deactivate and you will be able to select your surfaces. It's easier to just select the surfaces first, activate solid selection after you have selected all your surfaces and then select your solid.

You could also just window select both boxes and translate.

Zero times in mastercam and once on my motorcycle....Oh wait that doesn't count.

tornero32 I have the same laptop but my video card is a Quadro 3000M. I don't have any of the issues you are describing. Sounds like your video card may be the issue here. I know in the past ATI cards didn't work very well with mastercam. I'm not sure what people are saying about the newer ATI cards. If I were you I would send that computer back and get one with a Quadro card. When I picked this computer out one of my biggest requirements was that it had a Quadro card and not an ATI card.

Darin, Have your tried the radial button that says use last size under initial stock size source. It's on the first screen grab you have posted. It may do what you want.

I couldn't agree with you guys more about moving forward. I'm using X5 and getting ready to switch to X6. This was a file another programmer was working on. He doesn't like the tree style layout so for now he is sticking to X2. He is a really talented programmer who programs the most complicated jobs that come into our shop. This last part ended up having 250+ operations. It was part of the cockpit assembly for the Appache helicopter. Now I just have to convince him it's time to use the latest software. We actually joke about it here. When I have to look at one of his X2 files I tell him I'm back in the stone ages. We also have conflicting styles. I name all my planes, keep all my geometry named on seperate levels, and keep my mastercam files totally organized. He's the exact oppossite but the end result is that the work he does is very immpressive and I'm very thankful to have had him mentor me for the last five years. Thanks for your replies.

Mark, Sorry I didn't make myself clear. Here's what happens: I create a toolplane and mastercam names it "New View 49". I create another tool plane and mastercam also names it "New View 49" even though they are different toolplanes. When I restart mastercam an error message pops up and says "This view already exists do you want to overide. When I select yes mastercam renames one of the "New View 49's" to plane old "49". Having different toolplanes with the same name makes it a little hard to tell what output I'm going to get. The only fix seems to be a restart of mastercam.

Thanks Mark. If you don't name the planes yourself do you get duplicate plane names.

Is there a maximum number of tool planes allowed in one MCX2 file. We are up to 45 and mastercam has been using duplicate names for the planes. I know we can rename them. I'm just wondering if there is a max.

Jeff Some times you will have to create additional wireframe off of the solid as well as on the edges of the solid. Here is a picture to illustrate what I am talking about. I imported the grey solid without wire frame then created all the red wireframe to drive my toolpaths. The wireframe for each toolpath is ceated on a seperate level and named so I can turn it on and off as needed. This helps keep the graphics area from getting to cluttered up. HTH

Jeff, There are two ways to add toolpaths to a solid. You can chain the edges of the solid itself or you can create 2D wireframe on the edges of the solid and use that wireframe to drive your toolpaths. Creating 2D wireframe is my method of choice. There are a few options to create wireframe on your solid. You can import the solid with wireframe or you can import it without wireframe and use create/curve/one edge or create/curve/all edges. The basic principle is to chain the wireframe to drive your toolpaths and use the solid to select your depths. HTH

I just used tape to hold down some parts last week. Material was 7050 T6 Aluminum. Material size was 1.250 X 17.00 X 18.00. I used three strips of tape equally spaced and faced the parts with a 3.00 diameter facemill. It worked like a charm.