Forgot to add. Only Big Daishowa offers headshrink holders in Big-Plus. But limited in sizes. Only from 6 to 20 mm. http://www.big-daishowa.co.jp/pdf_data/shrink_chuck.pdf Nikken is purely collet chucks. But very nice collet chucks.

On the Metav fair in Germany some weeks ago I spoke with a Matsuura application engineer. He said that the Siemens 840D is faster and better then it comes to 5 axis simultaneous. You can tweak the Fanuc to machine just as good but it requires a lot more work. But with that said he would still choose a Fanuc if he had his own machine. The Fanuc is much more stable and "bug" free compared to the Siemens. Just make sure to get all the Fanuc option for the controller. There is a lot of them by the way. Regarding holders. Currently only 2 companies produce Big-Plus holders. Big Daishowa ( witch holds the patent ) and Nikken. The Big-Plus patent still runs for 2 years if I remember correct. Personally I would go for Nikken holders as they are lower priced. The have 2 lines for this spindle type. 2Lock and 3Lock. 2Lock are normal Big-Plus holders and great for normal machining. 3Lock is a special Nikken design ( and patented ) and offers improved dampening especially for roughing.

MultiAxGod -> As far as I know VoluMill is only 2D roughing so far. How can you then be able to do undercut machining? Only strategies in Mastercam witch supports undercut is surface finish contour and flowline.

12 years ago!! I used true 3D cutter compensation on a Matsuura MC-760VX with a fully loaded Fanuc 15M controller. I can't remember if we used G41 or G41.something. But all G1 lines had XYZ + IJK witch was the vector to do the compensation along. We used a cam system called ICEM DDN and programmed a 5X toolpath normal to the surface, that way we got the correct vector. And tip comp was of course set to center. We used it mainly for machining edm electrodes. That way we could change the gap without changing the program.

If you change parameter 5006 #6 ( bit 6 ) from 0 -> 1 the control should cancel G49 without any movement.

Hi Rickster Try Surface Finish Shallow with the following settings: Cutting metod : 3DCollapse From slope angle : 0.0 To slope angle : 0.001 Expande inside to outside : Yes Order cuts by minimum distance : Yes This should give you what you're looking for.

Maybe a stupid question, but what is HOOPS?

Kyle Have a look at the bottom of page 7. There you'll find the time from my new Dell Precision M6300.

At the Mikron headquarter in Nidau, Switzerland they use hyperMILL from Open Mind for all their programming.

Is your also with the X7900 extreme edition cpu? The first thing I did after getting my new toy was formatting the harddrive and reinstalling win XP. Dell had loaded it with all kind of crap. Task manager showed 70 processes running just with the system on idle.

I've a M6300 with the X7900 cpu. Benchmark time was 6 min. 58 sec. I went for the anti-glare screen because of the higher reflection on the truelife screen. I normally work in a room with light and here the anti-glare is the best. But if you like to sit in the dark and watch movies you should go for the truelife.

Hi esherbro Now I've tried your new interactive toolpath generator on your updated website. Very nice feature by the way. First issue. Would it be possible for you to also upload dxf-files of the 3 parts? That way people has a change for trying the part in their own cam-system without having to use the 15 days trial period for a simple test. Second issue. After having run a simulation of the toolpaths from the interactive site it stands clear that this is a very fast and efficient way to machine soft material like aluminium. But you can forget this approach for hard material like inconel and hardened toolsteel. The cutters used for material like these normally has a lot of teeth's ( 6+ ) and therefore a very small chippocket. This means that the d.o.c. for the opening cut of slots has to be very small not to overload tool. This will drastically increase the cycle time compared to truemill's trochoide motion for opening new area's.

Hi Jean-Simon With M128 you don't have to specify distance between origin and pivot centre. All these calculation is done automatically by the controller. But M128 is only ( mainly ) for simultaneous 4 or 5 axis cutting. For normal 3+2 Heideinhain has CYCL DEF 19 ( G80 in ISO ) or PLANE on newer machines witch also automatically compensates for the distance between origin and pivot centre. Your local Mikron HSM competence centre should be able to supply you with the needed information. Otherwise feel free to contact me. When using these 2 cycles you can put your part anywhere on the table and still use the same program:) And you can make a finished program prior to setting up the part on the machine.

Hi esherbro Thanks for answering my question's. About this ramp opening for new area's. For aluminium it will work fine, but for harder material I would still prefer the TrueMill approach. Imagine a long and narrow pocket. Here would TrueMill make a helical opening and then open the centre of the pocket with trochoidal and that way use the side of the tool for most of the material removal. VoluMill would ramp out the centre part and that way cut much more material with the bottom of the tool instead of the side. I've seen your video ( please make the next one without coolant as it will make it more easy to what's going on ) and the motion looks very nice and smooth. But now I need 3 different software's. MasterCAM for all basic stuff. VoluMill for roughing aluminium and TrueMill for for roughing stainless, titanium and other hard to cut material's.

Hi esherbro Always interesting with new cam stuff. A couple of questions about your software. Truemill keeps a constant engagement angle and variable feed to achive a constant load. Right? VoluMill looks like it uses a constant feed so I guess you then constanly adjust the stepover in order to also achive the constant load? What makes this approach better than the first one you developed? Does VoluMill also open a pocket with trochoide motion? Perhaps you could upload a sample toolpath for me to backplot? [ 11-02-2007, 04:35 PM: Message edited by: Mic ]

Here is the time from Dell's fastest laptop at the moment. Dell Precision M6300 Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 2.8 GHz 4.0 GB of RAM Win XP Pro SP2 6 min. 58 sec.

Dell Dimension 9200 Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHz 2.0 GB of RAM Win XP Pro SP2 7 min. 7 sec. Have just got a new Dell Precison M6300 laptop with a Core 2 Extreme 2.8 GHz. Will return with a time from this one

I just heard from my reseller that they got a "production candidate" of MR2 today. So I guess that it's pretty close now.

I know magnesium can ignite and burns with very high tempatures. But can titanium also ignite?

Why not just use G43.4 ( RTCP ) This solves all problem's regarding correct setup position of the part and also feedrate as G43.4 always calculate the feed at the tooltip. SGI works together with G43.4 For indexing ( 3+2 ) you can use G68.2 I've tested these functions on a Makino MAG3EX and they work perfect. Best regards Mic

For 2D MasterCAM and EdgeCAM rules. For 3D PowerMILL, Tebis and hyperMILL are awsome. For 5X hyperMILL is the leader. Except Tebis I've tried them all and they all have some very nice function's. The best overall system ( 2D to 5X ) is clearly hyperMILL, but also the most expensive. My 2 cent's.

Hi Brett I'm very interested in trying your TNC post. Best regards Mic

Then perhaps you should have a look at the rotary axis funtion inside 2D Contour. I think this is the only way to get mcam to use the compensation ( G41/G42 ) Best regards Mic

It highly depends on your machine controller. If it has some sort of 3D tilted workplane function ( G68.2 on fanuc and CYL 19 on heidenhain ) If you controller and post supports this then it's no problem at all. After tilting the workplane the controller can do all normal 2D stuff. G2/G3, G41/G42 and also drilling cycles. Best regards Mic

Strange. Here in Denmark the M65 has a 256MB Quadro FX Go350M and the M90 either a 256MB Quadro FX 1500M or a 512MB FX 2500M. http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_11761.html The UG performance for the FX 2500 is 5 times higher than the FX 350. It looks like the M90 is a better choice. But if you say the M65 did a great job then I believe you. Best regards Mic