Tanks for the input guys. Eventually found the problem. An extra 50 was stored with the tool in the diameter in the tool library.

I kind of thought it was in control def also. But I changed it a few ways and it made no difference in my out put code. Still D68 instead of D18. So I then figured it must be done in the post. So I did a search of my post looking for all "50" to see where it might be adding 50 and I couldn't find a thing. Baffling

We have our first Hurco. I've got a generic Fanuc post I am trying to make work. Hurco is in ISNC mode thus able to read standard code. # 1 post change I need is for the code to output D18 in the program with the T18 tool when using comp. Currently is outputs D68 with T18. Can anyone tell me what I need to change in my post? Thank You

We had to pay $250 for a version of Cimco editor so a PC sitting next to a Mill could use it for file transferring. "note no hasp on this computer" So it is not free as a stand alone. When you install a new version of Mastercam it does come included and is one of 3 editor options you can select. Mastercam editor, Cimco Editor or Note pad

yes I to have the same issue. When it happens it will occur when I go to type a drafting note. I then have to force Mastercam to shut down in the task manager.

yes I to have the same issue. When it happens it will occur when I go to type a drafting note. I then have to force Mastercam to shut down in the task manager.

In regards to Spot drilling. This is really necessary for us. Because we are using long drills from start to finish. Unable to sacrifice another tool pod for pilot. Spot drill is keeping our position. Keep in mind our spot drill is 140 deg. Which is a greater angle then our Guhing drills. Thus when the drill makes contact with the material it is only cutting on the center and not the outer edges. CNCchipmaker I am really liking your macro suggestion. Although in my 25 years of machining I have never used or seen a macro in use. Kind of over my head how to test and implement this. Does this macro sample you wrote above get implemented into the post or is this Macro stored in the CNC control panel? Also would using something like this drastically increase the program size? Would for example drilling qty 400 21/64 holes be much more then just moving to X , Y position in a drill can cycle? We will try your Macro B test at the control soon. MDI #100=1 Thank You much

Thanks guys we do use Guhring drills. We only spot drill -.050 140 deg first to keep the drill centered well on position. We are Not spotting deep enough to chamfer the hole. We are using longer Guhring drills in order to get thru 3 inch die sets. Common carbide drill sizes we use are 13/64 , 17/64, 21/64, 23/64, 7/16, 31/64 and 17/32. We really can't sacrifice our 60 tool pod holder with duplicate drills. That being a short carbide drill for starting a hole and another tool pod holding a long carbide drill to get 3 inches plus deep. My goal is to continue using our longer drills from start to finish. But take it easy with the drill for the first 1 1/2 times dia depth that being no spindle thru coolant and slower speed and feed. Then accelerate thru once at 1 1/2 times deep, dwell for a brief moment to turn spindle thru coolant on, and increase speed and feed to normal. Perhaps what I am hoping for may not be possible. So I am certainly interested in hearing how others are drilling with carbide. Thanks again, Keep the comments coming. PS I should add our max spindle speed is 4000 rpm. So some of those smaller drills we cant drill per recommedations. But we are maintaining the chip load.

Mil -tfp-41 you have my curiosity with the points tool path. Never heard of this. Are you drawing points at different depths at a hole location or something? Unfortunately yes we are doing many holes, sometimes a die set may have qty 400 3/8-16 tapped holes for example. We are not apposed to having our post altered if what we want is possible. I am familiar with using a I,J,K in a G83 cycle to achieve a variable peck amount. But in addition to that we are wanting speed, feed and coolant type "spindle thru" to change in the middle of the drill cycle.

We been having trouble with tool life on our solid carbide drills “corners chipping”. Currently we turn spindle thru coolant on and push the drill thru with no pecking. The tool salesmen wants us to change our procedure. To something similar to this. Drill depth 1 ½ to 2X dia of drill with no spindle thru coolant but flood only and speed to be slower and feed to be slower. Once we reach the 1 ½ to 2X depth we want the spindle thru coolant on and speed and feed increase to normal. We believe the spindle thru coolant causes vibration at the drill point when starting a hole. Also wanting to start the drill at the material face less aggressively with less speed and feed. Is this possible to do? Is there a drill cycle that does something like this? What type of procedures are others using? We are drilling on a Johnford vertical machining center Fanuc control. Mild steel die sets often 3 inches thick. Also commonly 4140 and Tool steels anywhere from 1.250 to 3 inches. Yes we do spot drill first with a 140 deg carbide spotting drill. This 140 deg angle is larger then the drill point so the drill tip makes contact with the matl surface and not the drill edges. Appreciate any input. Thanks

Humm still thinking you may not be following my goal. I know you think so. sorry hard to explain without a pic. Not sure how it works but i tried to attach a .bmp to explain better. I did did dink around with your suggestion but no success. junk.bmp

I'm thinking your not maybe understanding my goal? The edges are all .125 it is where 3 edges intersect at the corner that i want rounded off to a .250 radius. So as an example if you extruded a 2 inch to make a solid 2 inch cube. Now created a .125 radius on all the corners. Your 3 corner intersection should be .125 also "unless you had mitered selected". Now the next step I want to do is make those 8 interesction points of the cube a .250 radius. Basically a round knob on all 8 corners of the cube that is .250R . The straight edges will remain .125R. I do appreicate the help.

I had actually already tried that. Doesn't give me what I want. You can't control the size of the radius it is adding.

No not quite what i am looking for. Wish I could add a picture to show. Imagine a square block with .125 radius all around the edges. But now you want to add a .250 Radius on the intersection corners only. Thanks

Darn it I cant find a function I used before a couple times but it has been at least a year since i have done it. It was either a surface or solid function. I have a square block drawn. It has .125 radius along all edges. But on the corners where the radius intersect I want a .250 radius. At the moment it is .125 like the edges. Can anyone direct me to the drawing function to round the intersection corners off to .250 ??? I've done it somewhere, some how before. Thanks

Are you using the V9 style or the X style of coolant, perhaps that is the difference? Not sure what you mean Mastercam X style coolant or Mastercam V9. I dont recall it changing. My issue is not related to any custom tools. Its standard tooling i am dealing with. when I copy a tool into another folder the software thinks it is already their. but you can not see it visually. Ok i may of run across a solution. I saved a copy of my main tool library as a name junk. That new tool library seems to be allowing me to copy new tools to it. So I might be able to save new copies of these tool librarys as a new name. Then move my original tool files out of that director then go back and rename my newly created junk library to my orginal name. A little more time will tell if this works?

My tool libraries have been updated with each release since Ver9. Have never had trouble in the past adding and modifying my libraries till now in MCX5. Very annoying. Cant even add a tap to my library. These are very extensive very long detailed tool libraries that a person would never want to spend days recreating from scratch new. My Machine/Control definations are being directed to the proper location. I can create programs using these libraries just fine. I just cant add new tools to the libraries. Although I can modify old tools. What is the solution? Surely dont want to carry over this issue into the next release of Mastercam. I would like to see how many people are able to copy a tool from one library into another library. What is the success rate. Mine thinks the new tool has been copied into the library. But it does not show up to view. If i try to copy the tool over again it gives me the error asking to overwrite it. But like i said it is not visually their. Any work around ideas?

My tool library has been updated from X4 and many versions previous yes. Time to get home today. I will read this over more carefully tomorrow and see what I can do. I noticed no one made a comment about what a .tools-5bup file is. A standard tool libarary extension should be .tools-5 should not have the bup. Mastercam created that file when I tried to copy a tap from one tool libaray to another. It gave me two tool libary files witht he same name but different file extensions. No the problem is not related to the filter being on. I wish it was that easy. Thanks

Is their a bug with Mill X5 ToolManager? I have been trying to copy a tool from one tool library to another and it will not show up. Two of us at work are having issues with it not working. It all started when we were trying to copy a metric tap from library to another for some metric jobs we have in process. After copying it, the software thinks it is their but visually it is not seen. If you go to copy it again it gives you a warning asking to overwrite the existing. Well sorry but their is no tool already their to be seen. Rebooted Mastercam and still no results. The strange thing is I now have a file in my tools folder that has a funky extension I have never seen. tools-5bup Yes a BUP on the end. What the hell is this file. It seems to have gotten created when copying a tool from one library to another. Anyone know what is going on? Thanks

Unless I am overlooking something Cuda in your suggestion. What the C/hook colrsurf does is change every single surface of your 3D model to a different color. The model may have 200 surfaces it will change all 200 surfaces to a different color in one command. It makes viewing the model more clariful. Helps find those possible tiny little surface patches and radius. I am not aware of a method to change 200 surfaces to a different color other then picking one at a time. I may be wrong and that is why I am posting for suggestions.

I will try to contact them. Thanks What better way to clarify a large imported surface model with dozens or hundreds of surface’s then to change all colors with a quick click. This works fantastic to visually find all those tight little radius that you miss. A asset just to determine what size radius cutters it may take to machine the particular part. Am I the only person out their using this C/hook? I was hoping Mastercam now had a function to change all surface colors in one command. That maybe I was over looking it. Guess not.

I've used a C/hook Colrsurf.dll for years that would change all the colors of your surfaces with one click. Always just dropped it in the C/hook folder and it worked. Well guess what? It is not working in X5. I miss that function always found myself using it often. Does anyone have solution?

Thanks - No I am not sure the error is space related. Using Windows XP. Not sure what you're suggesting to right click on. I tried right clicking the .bat file that includes the Dos commands and I see no "run as administrator" option So you got me thinking so I did a test. I created a junk folder that had a name with spaces. I put a file in the folder to transfer. The folder name was C:\junk my doucuments settings I ran this batch and got a error "Invalid number of parameters" cls xcopy “C:\junk my documents settings\%1.nc” Q:\Vol1\PROGRAMS For a test I took out the spaces to make it look like this and it copied the file to the network fine. C:\junkmydoucumentssettings cls xcopy C:\junkmydoucumentssettings\%1.nc Q:\Vol1\PROGRAMS What a pain.

Good ideas I guess I was not thinking outside the box. Been using Dos Shell up thur X4 and just had it in my mind to continue in X5. Yes Windows have a Dos Command prompt. I just added one to my quick launch toolbar but may delelte it. Because I created a windows hot key "Ctrl+alt+C" that will open now open Dos Command prompt. Problem solved. thanks Although I have a new problem with X5. My batch file that I use to copy programs from my harddrive to the network will not work. Yes I did modify the batch file path to direct it to the appropiate folders. The problem is related to the new file structure of X5. With the .NC file stored deep within C:\Documents and Settings\my.LEDFORDAD\My Documents\my mcamx5\Mill\NC a Dos batch file will not work if the file path has spaces. You suppose to be able to add quotes "" around the file path to get around this but I still haven't gotten it to work. copy “C:\Documents and Settings\my.LEDFORDAD\My Documents\my mcamx5\Mill\NC\%1."nc Q:\Vol1\PROGRAMS copy "C:\Documents and Settings\my.LEDFORDAD\My Documents\my mcamx5\Mill\NC\"%1.nc Q:\Vol1\PROGRAMS copy “C:\Documents and Settings\my.LEDFORDAD\My Documents\my mcamx5\Mill\NC\%1.nc” Q:\Vol1\PROGRAMS I currently only see 3 options for me. 1. Create a NC folder in a better location such as C:\NC and direct my mastercam config to store files their. 2. Try to Map a new drive letter to the .NC folder in C:\Documents and Settings\my.LEDFORDAD\My Documents\my mcamx5\Mill\NC then modify my batch file to that new mapped Drive. I did attempted this but while setting up a Map drive it would only show network info about printers and not a thing on my hard drive. If i must go this way. Calling in our outsude network administrator may be neccessary? 3. figure out how to get a Dos command to read a long file name with spaces. Using quotes " Any ideas I may be over looking?? thanks