Even when you get to astronomical feedrates? such as .015-.030 IPT with a 1/2em. I may have made a mistake? I just figured that because it was a little harder, the threshold would be a little lower? No or Yes? Mike

cmr, The big difference between 7075(assuming standard stuff) and 6061-T6 is that 7075 is harder and has a higher tensil strength than 6061. I think that unless you were really pushing the limits in feedrate then you will be OK. IE: if the EM's are being pushed to just before the breaking point and then you put a piece of 7075 in there, they will bust. 7075 is nice because I think it is a bit more stable than 6061. Mike

Hey guys, The last program is complete and the parts are almost finished. I put a file in the MC9 files directory. "Michael Whitten 6-18-04-1.zip" Look at it if you like. The program is not fully optimized because they gave me virtually no time to program it and we only had one part to build. It is a fairly simple but nice little part for a five axis machine. The main problem I had was the machine we had to run it on was way to small. The spec for the swing in only 300mm(11.811") and the part was a little over 16.9". It was hard to get the part machined with the small travel on the machine. The machine is a Matsuura MAM72-3VS and has a 6" dia pallet! Thanks for the support. Mike

Very Interesting Thanks again

That's great Murlin. I need to start doing that kind of stuff more instead of going to SW Thanks for the Info Mike

CNCme, Keep us posted as to the fix on this issue. Thanks, Mike

CNCme, I agree with what everyone has said here and I have had the same problem for many years. Thanks Gilberto for all of the tips! His method will work great but I like to find a faster way if possible. Long story short: The short term fix for this issue is open this file in SolidWorks as Wally said or Inventor and they should be able to stitch this file without incident. Maybe someone from the Forum can do it for you. I will not be at work until Monday or I would. These full power modelers have more robust iges translators that will correct the issues in the surface model. At this point, if Solid works, just open the file and save the file. Once you have saved the file, you will now have a Solidworks model which will have an entension of .sldprt. At this point just go to Mastercam and File > convert > Parasolid read. change the extention of course. If Inventor, the inventor model should work also, if not, try a different format. It has been a long time since we did that but it was the solution before we used SolidWorks. Long Term: If you do a file scan in Mastercam on your Iges file. Mastercam reports a tolerance of .00039". This will not usually stitch in Mastercam on a complex model such as this. Maybe you could ask the engineer to adjust his Iges export settings to allow for a more compatable transfer. As I learned from this Forum and also from experiance, Mastercam likes a tolerance that is at least twice as good as it's system tolerance. This S/B about .00002 or better. Thanks and good luck, Mike

Thanks Millman

Hey guys thank for the help! I really appreciate it. I have two parts that are simalar. One of them is already shipped to the customer and the other we are going to cut tonight and tomorrow. So..I will finish the program because of course we are very late and then I will post one of the MC9 files up tomorrow so that you guys can have a look if you want. I am getting results but am VERY GREEN an this 5ax stuff. Thanks

Has anyone had luck with using the Depth cuts feature in "Curve Five Axis". I haven't been able to get it to work correctly. The tool just does all kinds of wierd things once I try. For now the work around is just change the vector depth and just copy the Op. ? Thanks for any replies, Mike

Yikes! This is a problem!

You guys are correct! I just don't understand this? I was thinking about putting up a steel building up in northern Nevada and the same thing is happening! The price that they want for steel buildings now is nuts!. The steel going up even makes buying existing buildings more expensive! Mike

It is kind of like the Tool path editor issue that I posted recently. Not that many people use it so ... Thanks

Iou, Be nice and stay on em, they should address this or at least write up a bug report. Try to get a bug number on it so that you can make periodic inquiries. Mike

I Think he is talking about a Roughing(Hog) endmill. If this is the case, then it may be good to run a 4 flute because of the higher tensil strength 2024 aluminum. A 3flt Hog (aluminum type) would be better though. As they say a 2flt EM would work great as long as you have a rigid setup and machine. Sometimes this is not the case, which is why people use Hogs. B Whale, for us to answer that question more accurately, we would need a machine and setup description as the cut you are trying to take would be substantial if the machine was a whimp. Thanks, Mike

This makes sense because the help never makes any reference about them being different. Thanks

This is a good question, I would like to know the exact difference myself. DavidB. this is what I heard also. I have never seen any reference to the difference between the two in the help though. Thanks

Anyone else with this problem? Thanks

I am here, always trying to learn something and help others if I can. I am just short on time sometimes. Thanks, Mike

BTW, The "work around" I am using now is to just save the Toolpath as geometry and cut it with 3D contour. Then the Toolpath editor will adjust the feedrates just like contour and pocket. Thanks, Mike

Hello, re: MR0404 I have used the toolpath editor from time to time for editing a feedrate and I always remember it working correctly. I am now trying to edit some Flowline and Parallel toolpath and I cannot get it to change the feedrate modaly or on a section of toolpath. I then went back and tried it on contour and pocket and it works fine. ? Is this a Bug or am I just doing something wrong? Thanks for any input. Mike

It would sure seem that LW would have figured this out by now! My guess is that Highfeed has nothing to do with LW which is why it works! Mike

As far as I know the Fadal must have a signed "A" as this specifies the direction of movement. Mike

I don't know? Does anyone else have XP and not have this problem? Thanks

FYI, Hello, quote: I am running WinXpPro and MR0304 when I double click to open a MC9 file, MC truncates the file name and path to what looks like an old eight character DOS file name. If the file name is "S20215 4 POLE HOUSING LEFT & RIGHT.MC9" Mc will open it as S20215~2.MC9. My box at home opens with the correct file name. I have tried CNCreg, File Get both Standard Windows and MasterCam, same problem. SP2 on the same box will still open correctly. I am having the exact same problem at home because I am running XPPro but I just havn't got around to figuring it out yet. So, have other people also had this problem? mab, Thanks for the tip, I will try that. Mike