Anyone tried machining open cell seat foam? What cutter worked for you? I'm being rushed to create a prototype seat foam shape, no time for our molder to do the usual. I've seen videos and read technical articles telling me that others have had success, even without the messy step of freezing into a block of ice prior to machining. I'm just hoping to save my employer some money by using an appropriate cutter from the beginning. Thanks All.

SW has great mold tools and gives you import options to tweak for most file types, CATIA being the notable exception. It also has powerful import geometry cleanup tools. It can heal small gaps, fix self-intersecting geometry, etc. I know this well because our design team uses Siemens NX 7.5 which has a handy tool called "N Sided Surface" which quickly makes a model, but makes terrible geometry that will make Mastercam barf.

"I've never seen somebody get native CAD models of machines before. It's always been STL's. " Thermwood sent us a nearly complete step file of our five-axis 10' x 20' x 6'Z machine without hassle. For years, we've had 30' long patterns CMM'd at +/- .005, not bad for a router. All that without pouring a twelve-inch-thick concrete pad like we had to for our worthless DMS.

<--- Hoping that Verify in the new version will also take adavantage of multiple processors.

Wow. I just upgraded to the latest maintenance release and now my simulated holder in verify is the correct basic shape, it's just terribly fat and shows crashes that aren't there. I use a custom 'holder' file for backplot that works fine. I've tried everything above with no good results. Anyone?

A siren that goes off when high speed toolpath finishes regenerating. I tend to fall asleep after the first ten minutes...

Found it, modified milltoolsholder.mcx and it works great.

There's a default tool holder simulated when using verify with 5-axis multisurface toolpaths. It's got to be a file somewhere that I can replace with a more representative model of our router head. I'd sleep better if I could see just how close our spindle was getting to the work. Best of days,

I'm sitting here measuring/modeling my first batch of Iscar tools that just came in. I wouldn't mind a call.

Is there a trick to get Mastercam X2 to utilize the second cpu of a core2duo? I’ve set affinity but Windows Task Manager still shows a brick wall at 50% of CPU usage. Best of days,

I'm using a 10HP HSD but haven't had it long enough to testify on service life. One of the features that attracted me to the HSD was the ability to leave the housing in place and replace all the internals as one unit without having to retram. Talk about near-zero down time. It's also insanely quiet. Sorry you haven't had more responses, all the current owners I talked to prior to purchase were very impressed with it's stamina. If you haven't already, ask your salesman for a list people to call.

No, really boss. I'm not working on that part we needed yesterday because the computer's busy regenerating, or at least it was half an hour ago. Really.

Some of my toolpaths take hours to regenerate. Is there a setting that will cause a sound when regen is complete? I get lost in another project and don't notice that it's finished, or I keep looking to see if it is and don't get anything else done. Thanks, David