Chris,

Have you tried the DOS style communications button? This would let you communicate with the version 9 style communicator. Every setting would then be on the dialog box...

GO TO:

Settings - Customize

Select the File option from the Category drop down list.

There should be a button that looks like a serial cable end (yellow plug). Drag this button to an existing toolbar or create a new one.

Save this in your toolbar states.

When you press the button from inside Mastercam the communications dialog box of yore will appear.

Hope that helps Chris,

Colin

Unfortunatly the only thing that you can program to those mouse buttons is keyboard keystrokes. There is no current functionality to program mouse clicks on a dialog box control (which is what the green check mark looks like to windows). I really wish CNC Software would add this option though. I'm really hoping we can get the macro recorder to work one of these days. The Macro recorder has the same limitations. It will not recognize the mouse click event on a dialog box control. It only records keystrokes. Could everyone who would like that functionality please email [email protected] and request it? I'll send it in again...

Thanks guys,

-Colin

MR2 w/all the trimmings

Solids works much better than surfaces as long as the solid from Catia is "good". It depends on if the solid you are trying to import is a closed body, or if it not closed. I have found some Catia solids where the geometry in Catia wasn't closed and "water tight". In these situations you can usually import a set of trimmed surfaces instead of a solid and machine the model that way. Sometimes you have to live with what you get, whether you like it or not. I have machined plenty of models where the surface geometry was pretty ugly and I had to go back in and rebuild surfaces, wireframe, ect.

-Colin

+1 on the inverta-bolts. It requires some prep work on the block ahead of time, but they work great for window frame machining. Its a great way to hold parts that have no straight walls for clamping.

-Colin

You are very welcome....

Hi Guys,

Does anybody else do lots of circle milling in 5 axis? We do lots of circle milling with the arcs normal to a curved surface. Because of our process requirements we cannot drill these holes. They must be circle milled. Most of our part files come in with a surface and points that represent the location of the circle milled hole. In other words, the holes are never modeled in the part, just the center point location of where the hole should be. So what we end up doing is projecting the point normal to the surface and create a line at the same time. We use the line as the normal axis for creating our circle. What we would like is the ability to drive a circle mill in 5 axis using only a point and a line. The point would represent the hole depth reference point and the line would represent the tool axis vector. The user would then be able to enter the hole diameter in the operation dialog box. Would anybody else find this feature usefull? We are hoping CNC Software will be able to add this functionality soon. Otherwise we are considering writing our own NETHook to accomplish this. Let me know what you think....

Thanks,

Colin

David,

There are two versions of the Catia Translator availble. The one from Mastercam and the one from Moldplus. Here at Boeing we use the Moldplus version. We have tested them both and they both seem to work fairly well. We only bought the Moldplus version because at the time we got ProDrill included for free. Originally we thought that ProDrill would provide us with a slick way to do drilling on 5 axis panels. The problem is that ProDrill will not work for 5 axis Circle Mill. In fact I'm going to start a thread about it. Oh, and no history tree from Catia with either translator. You do get the option of importing the planes from Catia though (which is really nice).

Thanks,

Colin

Hi Guys,

Just a thought.... Are you in 3D mode when you are doing the projection? and are you using the normal option? I have had problems when trying to project a curve normal to a surface in 2D mode. Also, I would recommend saving right before a projection. I have been using the new Backup feature for MR2 and it works great. If you run under any sort of network I recommend that you have an administrator create a new folder in C:. We call ours MCBACKUP and we have our administrator set the folder for full access for all users. That way if one of our programmers calls out sick everybody has access to the backup files on that programmers machine. By saving right before the project you should have your part file and a backup copy both saved at the same stage of completion. I just had Backup save about 6 hours of work yesterday. I had a 5 axis part with about 30 operations crash on me. Autosave hadn't kicked in yet (15 min interval for me) and my file puked. I opened it back up and I had an empty operations manager.

Backup saved the day. Sorry for the hijack.

-Colin

Hi Jack,

Do you have any part files you can share with us? I'd be happy to write a sample toolpath or two on one of your parts, but it is a little hard to know what you are trying to do. It doesn't have to be a full model either if you are worried about intellectual property issues. Just take the surfaces in the runner (create them off of the solid if necessary) and save only those surfaces into another Mastercam part file. (File - Save Some).

Thanks,

Colin

Sure thing Del, I'm happy to help. I sure like the ability to lock the autocursor option in addition to the hot keys. It is great instead of having to keep pressing the key on the keyboard.

-Colin

Del,

Use the "Power Keys" option for point creation. CNC software has brought back the keyboard shortcuts for point selection. Right click in the graphics window and from the right click menu select the "Autocursor" button. Turn on the check box for "Power Keys". With Power Keys enabled you can press E on the keyboard to lock the cursor into endpoint selection mode. You could also go up to the autocursor override menu and right click on the Endpoint key to "lock" the cursor into endpoint selection mode. Note that if you lock the selection mode you will have to press "ESC" to get stop the endpoint mode. Check out the "What's New" document. Look In: C:McamX-MR2Documentation. Hope that is what you are looking for.

-Colin

Hi Guys,

What I tend to do is break the new mirrored part into several different transform operations. Here is the problem: When you mirror a contour the toolpath needs to be reversed (chaining direction). When you mirror a pocket (or any surface operation) you do not want the toolpath operation to be reversed. The problem with mirroring a pocket operation is that mastercam reverses the toolpath options. So if you take the example of a pocket, the step over direction (inside-out/outside-in) gets reversed, which is not what you want. So what I do is several different transform/mirror toolpaths. I check the reverse toolpath option on the contour operations and I do not select it on the Surface/pocket operations. Its kind of a pain. I actually got a chance to talk with Brian Summers about this very issue when he visited Seattle recently. Hopefully CNC software will be able to put some more time into looking at this issue. It would be really nice to have one operation that would be able to completely produce an opposite hand part.

Thoughts?

-Colin

Hey Guys,

You can also load multiple Machine groups and have different settings for each Machine group. So potentially you could write a program to rough out a part on one machine, write a finish program for another mill, and even write a lathe toolpath to do a big bore if necessary, all in one part file. Also, when doing rotary axis programming, use WCS instead of T/C Plane. You will like the results much better. Remember that you can import Views into the View manager as well. One of the things I do for A axis programming is create a "seed" model with The common planes I want: 0, 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270, 315, and 360 degrees. All created by rotating my WCS (top initially) by 45 degrees about the X axis. Then I save the model as A Axis Views. When I want to machine a new 4th Axis job I open the view manager, right click and select import. I browse to the location of my seed model and import the view. And just like that I have 8 new planes, rotated by 45 degree increments about the A axis. They all come in with their names as well. If you want to program a vise job with no A axis code output, then load a machine group with a properly configured machine ( i.e. copy your 4 axis machine definition, remove the rotary A axis and the fixture/holder component, go into Axis Combinations and update. Now save the new machine def. with a new name).

Hope that helps,

Colin

James,

Boeing pays very well! Do yourself a favor and apply. Considering your Mastercam and professional experience I'm sure you could get the salary that you want. I grew up here in Seattle and the weather isn't as bad as you think. We have lots of baseball here and the weather in the summer is pretty nice. It's no California but it is not as bad a people say it is. If you have any more questions about Boeing or living in Washington, feel free to email me.

Thanks,

Colin

Yeah,

Come work with us.....

Try it....

Chowquoe,

What would you want to upgrade? Anything worth upgrading (RAM, Video Card) is easy to put in on a Dell. Anything else (motherboard, CPU) and you are much better off buying a new computer. You shouldn't have to spend more than a $1000.00 for a kick butt computer these days. Then in a two years you can buy a new computer that is twice as fast and costs half as much. I recommend that businesses stay with technology that is current in the market place. I'm sure you may disagree, but Dell's are virtually painless and that was my original point.

-Colin

-Colin

Try hitting TAB or CTRL + TAB to navigate while in a dialog box. ALT + TAB works too to navigate between active windows. If you are running XP, go to the Start menu and click on Help and support. Do a search for "Windows keyboard shortcuts overview" and click the link. This gives you a list of the default windows keyboard shortcuts. My favorite so far: hold down the "windows key and press the E key to launce a windows explorer browser. No more right-clicking on the start menu and selecting explore!

-Colin

Someone I know did a 5 axis hydroplane propeller. It had two different configurations in one file (there were differences in only about 60 of the operations). The file had 908 operation. I almost lost it when I saw that. I think the most I've done was around 200.

-Colin

Surface High Speed Horizontal gives you seperate values for Wall and Floor stock to leave as well. Finally!!! And they added this feature to all the High Speed toolpaths for MR2.

-Colin

Anybody try the Chook STLHeal.dll ?

-Colin

Hi Randy,

Give your re-seller a call. You may need an update code for your NetHasp license manager. We just got our codes for MR2.

-Colin

+1 John

Also, Go to Settings - Configuration-Toolpath Manager

This is a new function for MR2 and controls how Mastercam names your NC files. You can read about it in the Whats New document (C:/McamX-Mr2/Documentation).

-Colin

Man... I'm going to have to get faster at typing. Good job John/Jay, and Good Morning!

Hi Chuck,

The "boolean remove operation would result in disjoint body" warning means that when you are attempting your second extrude cut your chain of geometry is going to cut your solid into two pieces. Make sure that your chain does not completely intersect your solid. Also, make sure you are doing the extrude cut operation in the correct construction plane. I'm sure if you put a copy of your file on the FTP site that someone would take a look at it. Unfortunatly, I'm behind a firewall so I can't take a look at it until later. I'm sure if you ask that someone will let you know how to put a file on the FTP. Hope that helps get you started.

-Colin