quote: have figured out the WCS to get my multiple zero's. I just have to get my post to post the E offsets. I have done minor editing to my post before and just wondered if someone had an experience and could help me get the E's postedUsually the work offsets are handeled by the pwcs postblock. In MPFADAL1 and MPFADAL2, that postblock looks like this: code: pwcs # Work Offset setting if wcs_mode = two, # 'E' fixture offset mode [ sav_frc_wcs = force_wcs if sub_level, force_wcs = zero if workofs <> prv_workofs | (force_wcs & toolchng), [ g_wcs = workofs + 1 *g_wcs ] force_wcs = sav_frc_wcs !workofs ] To make that work with the post you are using, you'll need to define wcs_mode and change the g_wcs format statement from fmt G 4 g_wcs #WCS G address to fmt E 4 g_wcs #WCS G address depending on the post you are using. You might also be able to fiddle with the pwcs block in your post and get it to output E values instead. What post are you using?

I run it just fine on my Gateway Solo 9550, and it runs OK, if not stellar, on the HP Omnibook XE3's in my mobile training lab. What model number Sony are you working with? I can look up the specs and see if I can see what the problem is.

I'd say your best/cheapest bet going forward is to hook the printer up to a different computer and print over the network. Given that it won't work when attached to a print server, my guess is that it is one of those 'software' printers I mentioned earlier. Such printers can be quite troublesome when connected in-line with any security device, and the problem is systemec. i.e. I don't think that driver updates are gonna help. Paralell ports are designed to handle a single device. Becasue of that they don't have any way of seperating communication packets intended for different devices connected in-line with each other. The result is much like a party-line telephone shared amoung a bunch of rude people. Not much communicaiton, and lots of hate and discontent.

quote: As long as you don't mind trigging out the diameter you want by using the depth and angle..With the calculator, you still have to know the finish dia. If you know the finish dia, you can just lie about the size of the tool. Dosn't change the code any.

You might also want to investigate a new printer driver. Communicaiton errors with the printer shouldn't crash the computer. Corrupt the output and/or cause MasterCAM to behave as if the HASP has been removed, sure. But not crash the system.

quote: When doing the drilling on the second paramater pager were you put the depth you see a little Calcalter button go there. I don't much like the calculator option becasue it adds the calculated value to the depth every time you click it. You get the same results by checking Tip Compinsation, and you can check the value (or add to it by adjusting the 'breakthrough' amount) more easily.

Some printers - especially some of the newer low-cost inkjets - do all of the print job procesing on the computer they are attached to. Such printers need to communicate with thier controler software to operate at all. When MasterCAM is running, the HASP (becasue it is communicating with MasterCAM) will corrupt some of that communication. If the print controller software is running as a kernal mode driver (as some Epsons seem to do) and is poorly written, it could cause the driver to crash, which could bring the system to a halt. Suggustions: - If the printer is new enough to have one, use the USB connector instead of the paralell connector. This is the best and cheapest option. - If you cannot use USB, then on the 'Ports' page of the printer settings, make sure that 'Enable bidirectional support' is uncheked. This may keep the printer from operating at all. - If the paralell-only printer does not work with bidirectional support disabled, buy a better printer. One that does not need bi-directional support. - If a better printer is not an option, try connecting the printer to a different computer and print over the network. - If none of the above are options, purchase an additional parallel port and connect the printer to the new port. Or put the HASP there - whatever works. - Contact your reseller about a USB hasp instead of a paralell-port hasp.

It'll never be built. Objections, in no particular order: - A multi-terrawat power beam would be the most fantasticly destructive device ever built. No nation in it's right mind would ever even conceve of being on the wrong side of any entity that controlled such a device. Nor would they entertain the idea of any entity, no matter how chartered or by whom, having control of it. - Assuming that the above problem is somehow dealt with (a fundemntal change in human nature is all it would take) there is the ever-present NIMBY league that loves having power, but would prefer it be produced somewhere else. After all, who *really* wants to live near a facility that, should the focus drift, might accidentally burn a hole through the crust of the planet. - Then there are the climate effects. A power beam strong enough to punch through the atmosphere is gonna loose some heat along the way. Heat that will be absorbed by the atmosphere, generating all kinds of interesting and likely unpleasant weather. Global warming writ large, as it were. - Long-term plans in most of the industrial world are things that will take a couple of quarters to start showing a return. This will be decades in the making, and (given the NIMBYs, their lawyers, and the whole accidentally-vaporize-a-city liability issues) may *never* recover it's costs. Who's gonna underwite it? Taxpayers? The UN? - Automated consruction machenery that will convert raw ore (that it locates all on it's own) into precision parts on the far side of the moon with the control being handeled from earth, over a radio link with a couple of seconds of delay? Off of *what* shelf is this technology avalible, and what other magical bits are hiding there? There are a lot of fantastic things, like this one, that might become possible if the whole world could stop bickering with itself long enough to pull together and make it happen. I don't expect any of them to ever actually occur.

quote: I like to offset surfaces. The results depend heavily on the surfaces to offset. If they are not good and clean geometry they can cause more work in trimming or having to fill small gap that might occur.Be careful when offsetting surfaces. The offset direction is in the direction of the surface normal, so if the normals are not uniform, some of your surfaces will be offset the wrong way. If you have solids, a sheet solid with thickness is what I would try first.

quote: You like it there? sounds like a scary place to live after watching the news reports. I spent two weeks in Haifa in '94 after my ship finished helping the US Army leave Somalia. Haifa was a facinating and lovely city, set in an area that looks somewhat like Southern Californa. Haifa was one of the most interesting and enjoyable port-of-call I made while in the service.

Deep Freeze should be OK. At least I haven't run into any problems I could trace to it. Given that you are running Deep Freeze, I suspect it's a rights issue.

Try the root radius to 'Full Radius'. If you have all the other parameters correct, that should make the sprocket for you.

Win2000 and WinXP? Check to see if the problems go away when logged on as an administrator. If they do, make sure that the students have Modify access to the mcam9 directory. By default ordinary user accounts do not have enough access to that directory for MasterCAM to run correctly. If the problem is the same when logged on as an administrator, try renaming the mill9.cfg file (for mill) and the lathe9.cfg file (for lathe). MasterCAM will re-create these files using default values if they don't exist. Are you using any desktop security software like Fortress or Deep Freeze? Some of them can interfere with MasterCAM.

I'd not count on China producing slip-shod work forever. Thier quality will improve with time and practice, and it will still be cheaper to get stuff made there then it will be to get it made here. The one thing that China cannot overcome is lead time. No matter how fast and good they build stuff, it still has to cross the Pacific.

If you are a MasterCAM instructor in Californa or Nevada, keep an eye on Paton and Associates Training for our upcoming Instructor Ceritificaiton class to be held in January at our facility in Altadena. If you are just getting started with MasterCAM, or would like some additional instruction, we are holding our semi-annual MasterCAM/Techno class at our facility from December 16th to the 19th (Techno practice will be on the 20th in Los Angeles).

quote: I believe you'll need to set an average part diameter on the control.That is correct, and should work OK if the part size dosn't vary much from that average. I think you'll be better off using inverse time though.

Some laptops, built with mobile processors, can get good battery life. Others, built with desktop CPUs, get crappy life. The worst life is experenced by those buying 'thin and light' machines (read as 'very lightweight batteries) equipped with desktop CPUs. My oldish Solo 9550, equipped with a nice heavy battery and a PIII-M CPU, gets about 4 hours of web surfing/word processing/Inventor use, or 2.5+ of DVD or MasterCAM use. Of course, it's freaking enormous and weighs about 9 lbs...

If you go to Screen|Configure, select the Screen tab, and turn off Use OpenGL, you'll have more luck with your remote sessions.

Heeler: quote: One of the advantages the we have is that coming from catia V4 if we use DWG we get a 3d model, and if we use DXF we get a 2d of the draw print that they have created.The DXF format supports everything that the DWG format does. Any data in a DWG file in AutoCAD will be unchanged if you save it as a DXF and read it back in. DWG to DFX to DWG is one way to recover from certan kinds of corrupt DWG files, as it forces a complete re-write of the drawing database. If CATIA is generating 'flat' files from 3D solids when you save as DXF, it's doing it by projecting the 3D data all on it's own. I'll bet there is another way to get the flat curves you are looking for. Andy: quote: Some of my customers have old CAD programs that can only import dxf, and that is why I need to export.You customer will likely still have trouble importing them. The oldest DXF format that V9 supports is R13. R13 DXF files are very different from R12 DXF files. Different enough that, unless your applicaiton can read the DWG, it won't be able to make heads or tails of the DXF. That 'feature' was the cause of much hate and discontent when R13 first shipped. Support for 'legacy' systems is why AutoCAD retains R12 DXF output in AutoCAD 2004, despite having dropped R13 and R14 DWG and DXF support.

The DXF format, as near as I can figure, is something that's hanging on mainly out of inertia, having outlived any real usefulness it had. Kinda like IGES. Are there any applications that can work with an AutoCAD R13+ DXF file that cannot work with an AutoCAD R13+ DWG file? What advantage do you get from such DXF files that are not avalible from DWG files?

quote: if windows xp is the culprit wot measures you can take to avoid the slow processing of Cad data.........so that you can print faster through mastercam plot functionAssuming that: - This is a serial plotter - Win Drv is set to 'N' - MasterCAM's port/driver settings are correct - The serial cable is properly wired (i.e. if you are using CTS/RTS you'll need more pins connected correctly than if you are using XON/XOFF) - You are really, really sure the cable is correct. - Becasue you tested it with a breakout box/multi meter. - And you are certan that the breakput box/multi meter was being used correctly. - On the right pins and everything. - Really and truely. - After reading the directions and everything. - And you took all the rotary switch boxes out to the press and made tinfoil out of them, 'casue they ain't even worth using as door stops. Then I'd check to make sure that the baud rates, parity bits, and flow control settings in WinXP are the same as MasterCAM and are what the printer expects. Then I'd check the dip switches on the plotter or the plotter's control panel to make sure that the settings I think are correct really are correct. Then I'd check the cable again. With a breakout box. After smashing any rotary switche boxes I missed the first time. A bad/incorrectly wired cable (or a rotary switch box) will cause the plotter and the computer to spend lots and lots of time saying the digital equvilant of Huh? and What? and very little time actually sending useful information. That will look like slow processing of data, when it's actually slow transmission of data and rapid-fire 'huhuhuhuhuhuhuh' with the ocassional 'what'. That the cable worked with Win 9x/Win3.1/DOS means little about it's fittness with XP, becasue XP REALLY MEANS IT when it sets up the serial port. Win 9x/Win3.1/DOS don't. Doing AutoCAD support for a long time, I know of many sites that had serial cables that worked 'just fine' until they changed the OS/upgraded AutoCAD/Upgraded the OS/switched to Solaris/switched back to SunOS/plugged it into their Irix box or whathaveyou. Breakout boxes and/or properly applied multimeters are your best buddy at times like that. Note: If it *ain't* a serial device, ignore all the above. What make/model printer did you say this was again? It's important. [ 11-05-2003, 03:33 AM: Message edited by: Rick Damiani ]

quote: Are you saying that if only one session of MC is open (using "my" config file), this shouldn't happen?It shouldn't happen even if you have more than one session open, provided they are all using the same config file. However, any files that were created with a 'bad' operations file *will* retain those 'bad' settings, as will any of the toolpaths in that file. Remember that the ops library stores *default* values. Once those defaults are accepted (by not changing Job Setup, or by creating a toolpath) they become the current settings. Example: Joe is using V9.0, the initial release. Joe dosn't use Job Setup (or at least he dosn't *think* he's using it), just dives right in and starts contouring, pocketing, drilling, and having a grand old time. After the second shift rapids a drill 5" into the fixture ('cause T1 was a drill, T2 was a stub-length 1/2" EM about 7" shorter, and Joe didn't realize that his T1 op posted with that killer G43 H2 bit in it), you get to fix Joe's program. You open his MC9 file in your copy of V9.1SP2, which is using a version of DEFAULTS.OP9 that you have already fixed. First thing you do is go into Job Setup. When you get there, you notice that it's all screwed up. 'Add' is selected, it's adding 1 to all the H offsets and 40 to the D offsets. You fix it, regenerate the toolpaths, and shatter *another* drill because all of Joe's toolpaths have already 'accepted' Joe's offer to add 1 to H and 40 to D. As they now have settings of thier own, they don't have any further use for any default values you might wish to assign them. Note: Joe didn't have to have any toolpaths in his .MC9 file for *your* toolpaths on his .MC9 file to get all farged up. All you have to do to get farged-up toolpaths is open his file and not look at Job Setup until you hear a *bang* followed by lots of cussing drift over from the shop floor. Moral: ALWAYS check Job Setup before you do any toolpaths. quote: I should also note that: In ALL config files, 'number tools sequentially' is unchecked and dia settings are 'from tool.' The 'other' config file IS stored in a different location and called the same name (mill9.cfg). It was recently noticed that the reason this 'other' config file wouldn't work properly with moldplus is because it was originally created for V9 and was pointing to the V9 folder instead of the new V9.1 folder. Here are a number of suggustions and the like that might help. As with any advice, remember that it is often worth exactly what you paid for it: 1) Job Setup settings are not stored in the .CFG file. They are stored in the .OP9 file called by the .CFG file. Good .CFG on a network + bad .OP9 on a workstation = bad Job Setup, bad .MC9, and shattered drills showing up when you least expect it. 2) Multipule copies of MasterCAM in multipule directories leads to madness and damnation. Before installing a new copy of MasterCAM, rename the old MasterCAM directory and install the new copy fresh. Copy over anything you need from the old MasterCAM directory after you have a good install. Or just fix the new one (reccomended, as point releases and service packs often include new features that your 'old' OP9 and CFG files don't know about). The excelent set of add-ons avalible from this very site (on the patches page) is a great way to start, as nearly all of the gotchas have been gotten. 3) If you are going to use network-based CFG files, point the network-based CFG files to network-based support files so that if anything is screwed up, it's at least screwed up in a uniform way. That'll save lots of mad dashing from computer to computer trying to figure out what's wrong. 4) Maintain as few .CFG files as you possibly can. Having a seperate icon for each different machene/controller combination is one of those ideas that looks good on paper, but can be more than a little limiting in practice. Especially if you have to post a job written for one machine so it will run on a different one. 5) Try to 'normalize' your posts so they all support, as much as possible, all the various features in a uniform way. Drill cycles need special attention here. This will minimize the need for seperate configs for machines that are substantally similar (i.e. you may want a seperate config for the multi-axis mill-turn center, but you may not really need one for each of the different makes of 3 axis machines you have) 6) Consider using templates (kinda like Word or AutoCAD) rather than seperate configs. Yeah, I know that MasterCAM dosn't have templates. Dosn't mean you can't use 'em. You just got to be creative about it. To make a template, do this: - Select File|New - Fix Job Setup just the way you like for the particular machene/control the template is for. Don't forget to assign the post. - Set up any named views you might need for this particular machine/control combination. - If you have some 'standard' geometry that you'll always need to have for that machine (i.e. a tombstone for a horizontal, the trunion for a two-axis rotary, the chuck and tailstock for a lathe - whatever you'll need) go ahead and put it in there. - If you have a particular levels scheme you like to use, go ahead and name the levels, too. - Once you have it all set up, save it to a template directory with a useful name (i.e. HAAS HS1 - OCTOGON TOOMBSTONE.MC9). - After you save the file, right click on it in the Explorer and set it to Read Only. That way you can't overwrite it by accident. - When you need to generate programs for that machiene, select File|Open, open the template you created, and start contouring and pocketing and drilling and having a grand old time. Hope that helps a bit. Let me know how it all works out.

quote: Now would that boundry be just the wireframe of the desired surface?Generate the edges of the surfaces in quesiton (Create|Curve|One Edge) and squash them to they are flat (Xform|Squash) at a Z elevation above the surface. quote: Is this a good common practice (no check surfaces), or exclusive to this situation? thx Check surfaces are useful, except when they aren't. It costs very little to try them before you generate boundrys. If they ain't working for you, try a different approach. Use largish stepovers (.02-.05) for quicker finish toolpath calculation. Once you get what you want, tighten up the stepovers to the actual values you want to use and regen.

quote: The only thing "out of the ordinary" is that on the PC in question, there are multiple sessions of MC open and they are using different config files. What would cause these settings to get flipped? Job Setup's defaults come from the operation defaults file, usually DEFAULTS.OP9 for inch-mode. Different config files may be pointing to different versions of this file, or versions of it located in different places. quote: Where is MC getting the "40" from?Excelent question. For reasons known only to CNC Software, the OP9 file that shipped with V9.0 had 'Add' set, and was adding 1 to length offsets and 40 to diameter offsets - a near-certan crash if you didn't look at your code before you ran it. When you set it to 'From Tool' that dosn't change the values in the Add boxes, but it does make them ineffective. That's why they are both grey and wrong.

That they are futzing with baud rate tells me that it is a serial plotter they are trying to use. Is that correct? If so, the recent upgrade to XP is likely the culprit. Check the serial port settings in the Windows control panel and make sure they match what the plotter expects. If it *ain't* a serial plotter you are using, baud rates won't have any effect. Let us know what you are trying to use, and how you are trying to use it (i.e. Windows driver or MasterCAM internal).