Welcome to the Forum! What video card are you using? I've had this same issue with some of the computers in my class @ Greenville Tech. We had to switch from OpenGL to GDI and it worked great. Look for this under Settings/Configuration/Screen. Hope this helps! Glad to see some more South Carolinians in here too! Josh

Hey guys, FYI: CNN is doing a story on CNC Machining at Greenville Technical College here in SC in the near future. They're are filming tonight and there may be a familiar face there! I'll keep you posted

quote: was that Jammer Nah... those guys had all of their teeth!

quote: Maybe it is for South Carolina Not hardly... It's nice to see CNN spotlighting a southern company. I know several guys that work there and they're good guys. I wish I could say that about the owners! Talk about shady!

quote: Also since my machine goes out to 5 decimals, should I set up Mcam do do the same? Fo' Shizzle! Our Hardinge Super Precision Lathe goes out to 5 and I set the post up for it.

No problem man. Glad we could help! You'll find that this forum is a great resource... saved my bacon more times than I can count!

Hey Shawn, I usually do not have good luck creating complex surfaces from solids on 5X paths. I typically use edge curves to create my surfaces even if it's a surface/solid model. I usually get cleaner surfaces when I create them in MC. For the 5X paths being "smoother" there are several tricks you can do. One of the most effective I've used is the Point/Angle Generators. Say for instance I'm programming an impeller and I'm using a Swarf Toolpath. After creating the wall & floor surfaces in MC I'll select the wall surfaces and use the floor as a comp surface. Once my toolpath parameters are set (clearances, tolerance, stepover, etc.) I'll set my angle generator to 0.01 degrees. This means that for every 0.01 degrees MC will post a line/point to machine to. This will produce tons of code but will ultimately make your tool motion and surface look smoother. You must have a really fast control with a long look ahead (which in your case you do ) to take advantage of this feature. I'd suggest playing around with the Point/Angle Generators and see what kind of results you get. HTH Josh

Sorry... meant head-table. Mic is dead on. The Cycle 19 (Datum transformation), M128 (kinematics) and the probing cycles are awesome. If you get one with the Laser Tool Setter you'll be a "sack o' hell"! We bought the Heidehain Trunnion (table-table) post from In-house and after a little modification (mostly for personal taste and the ability to post out for the TNC530i and the TNC430i) it works like a charm. The only downfall about purchasing this post was the educational value. One of the main reasons I bought this post was to learn the coding for the Cycle 19 and M128 functions. Low and behold it's all in binary. I understand that they have proprietary info in there posts but I was dissapointed in not learning much.

It's DMG/Mori Seiki here in the states. One of our plants here in SC has several Deckel Maho head-head & table-table machines. They are very solid but may still be out of your price range. Again, if you go this route I'd stay with the Heidenhain TNC530i control.

Hey Fish, On the Tool List Section of X+ there is an output for the Manufacturer, Chuck and 2 user defined parameters. These are set on the tool parameters page. You have to manually input the data but once you save it to your tool library is will output on the X+ Tool List. HTH Josh

There are several advantages to having solids in MC. One of my most important, being able to use solid stock. If you do any work with castings or odd shaped materials/composites being able to draw/select a solid to use for your stock is a necessity. This enables you to see the actual solid being machined in verify. That's 1 of about 30 that I can think of.

quote: This is because you can't compare this machine with a Hermle. +1000 Sounds like you're set on a tight budget man. I'd go with a Haas. If you're going mediocre at least go with a machine with good support. VF3 with a trunnion sounds like you're best bet.

quote: I engrave all the time and was never aware of the engraving toolpath I personally have found no use for it. The above mentioned method is really very simple.

X+ for X4 is setup for Lathe. Let me read into it and I'll get back to you. Josh

We've got 2 Hermle Mills - a C40u and an older C600i - both with Heidenhain TNC controls (stay away from the Millplus IMO) and we couldn't be happier with them. The accuracy and rigidity are excellent and lots of horsepower/torque for a 18000 RPM Direct Drive spindle. If you could afford it I would definetly recommend a Hermle. In-House has a very solid post for the Heidenhain Trunnion Models too. HTH Josh

Parker... you've got mail

David, I've got the DMG/Heidenhain Post from IH but like Greg said... it's locked to the sim. We've got 2 seats and I can only run it on the 1 it was setup for. Wish I could help

FBM = Frustrating Barely-usable Machining

Welcome to the Forum Rex! There are several post processors out there that will post out the Canned Cycles properly... I do not have one . I have excepted the fact that in order to get ALL of the Canned Cycles to work correctly takes lots of post editing and I haven't had time to get it straight. I would contact the distributor (reseller) again and explain the exact issue you're having with the Canned Cycles. They should (and I stress the word SHOULD) have a post that will work correctly. If they don't the school may have to look to In House Solutions for a custom post but they will have to pay for it. I understand your frustration with the limited resources for the Lathe module. To quote my least favorite cliche... it is what it is. Hope this helps and good luck, Josh

We use MC for our Mazak SQT200MS Turning Center with no issues. Ours has live tooling with a sub-spindle and we're running parts that I programmed on MC this morning. Buy the .EIA option and you'll be set. FYI: With the exception of a few M Codes the code for the Mazak .EIA format is basically Fanuc. I used MP Master to create a post and it works great. HTH Josh

Vacuum Plate maybe?

Did you get it straightened out?

Bob, Are you using Inverse Feeds? Trunnion Brake Releases - M11 & M13?

quote: ProE is the most troublesome I agree 100%. Before X4 I would import Surface IGES files with Wireframe from ProE. That seemed to give me the best results. Make sure the system tolerance in ProE is set to 0.0001" for the accuracy settings.... I believe it defaults to .0012 HTH Josh

Hey everyone, Thanks to Ron & Mike for the interest but we've decided to do this in house. Here are a couple of pics so far.... Things are going along pretty good so far. We have the journals roughed in and should be finished in a day or so. At first this was intimidating and needed to be outsourced. After a 10th look we decided it would be good to have this capability in house.