steve (or anyone applicable) - i know discussing pricing is discouraged and hopefully this will fall into the realm of acceptable. i am looking into verification software, and have spoken with my reseller several times about this option. initially the person i spoke with, not being a MC user, didn't know what i was even asking about. she was going to look into it and get back to me. a couple of phones calls and a couple of days later i still don't have a price. could you provide the ballpark number you paid for this feature +/- $100 dollars? i need to put in some rough budget numbers today and i would prefer not to entirely guess. if you would prefer not and / or this is out of line with the forum, i apologize in advance. thanks k

watcher - thanks. did a search before posting but missed on the key words to find something useful. yours were on the mark. gcode - also thanks. better to see a little than being blind. it will have to do for the time being.

i'm running X2-MR2 and a bit new to it. i have recently been getting into the 4 & 5 axis toolpaths and discovered that the verify function for these toolpaths is an option which must be purchased separately (something my reseller failed to mention). so i am now in a position to discover options. of those out there utilizing more than 3 axes, what verification program are you using? or perhaps you are getting by with backplot only? ... the MC verify? as i am in the position to improve my software, are there other, better, and hopefully faster options than the MC verify? thanks k

rhino is an excellent program. i've used it for years with complex organic shapes. it has great surface creation and manipulation tools and is also good in translating files from other formats. i prefer it over solidworks in creation of 3D models and have had no problems with going to and from mastercam or surfcam. if you propose using rhino as a program to rework, alter and add to existing surfaces it should work well for you. however, with that said, if your entire end game is to create surfaces from point cloud data, i am not sure rhino is the program you are after. Rhino 4 has been recently released and they may have made moves forward in this context, but there are other programs available developed specifically for translating point cloud data into surfaces. you might look at Geomagic for such applications. while i have never used it, i know others using FaroArm scanner who swear by it.

many years ago we had a large amount of corian donated to us and some small drops ended up outside in full weather for over a year. didn't see any ill effects. for sanding the rep recommended a 3M product called Trizact. with wet sanding and some time you can get a very nice polished finish. machines easily but i seem to recall it being abrasive on the cutting edge. also pretty brittle and chips out on corners and small parts. if 6000 is your max rpm, that is the area you should be running; and you will be slow. your feeds can also be faster than aluminum. it is largely composed of Aluminium TriHydrate derived from bauxite, an ore from which aluminium is extracted and acrylic resin.

hmmmmm . . . . no bad mojo yet. you may be on to something. thanks

Mcammiller - did you make any progress on your crashing problem? today i am back to crashing when modifying toolpaths. anyone- is there an inherent problem with right clicking, copy and pasting toolpaths in the operations manager? . . . because that is what i am doing. the crash will occur at some point in reselecting geometry on the pasted toolpath. thanks k

thanks for the advice. everything appears to have been set correctly. currently doing exactly what i was doing yesterday . . . but no crashes as yet . . . WTF? only difference is closed and reopened MC. one peculiarity: for fear of crash, i have been saving my work frequently. on one instance, all toolpaths came up dirty. regenerated them quickly and easily, but strange nonetheless. k

Mcammiller - i doubt this makes you feel any better, but i share your frustration. until today i hadn't had any crashing problems. read your post this morning browsing subjects and now this afternoon; over five crashes in under an hour while trying to modify existing toolpaths with the same 'unhandled exception' error. i too would be interested in what this means, what has caused it, and how to fix / avoid it.

relatively new to the mastercam world and have been using X2 MR1. recently upgraded to MR2 and have noted the addition / change of some input windows to yellow. haven't picked up on any significance to the new color. is there a functionality here or is this just someone having fun with colors? thanks k

SNAKE . . SNAKE !! obviously still learning my way around. thanks

hmmmmm, sounds simple enough. unfortunately i can't seem to find the page you are referring to. are you referring to something under the settings menu? possibly under machine definition or control definition manager? there is also a tool manager under the toolpaths menu but no options for numbering, and i can't find anything under the system configurations to allow this either. thanks

I have been creating a tool library for the tools in my machine, assigning a tool number based on its location in the carousel. When I pull tools up from the library everything is fine except the tools are renumbered - 1 . . 2 . . 3 . . etc - as i select them. I then have to go back to the toolpath parameters and manually edit the number. Do I have a configuration set incorrectly somewhere or is this just the way it works? using X2 MR1 SP1 thanks

that is in X2 . . . posted before your second post . . . don't know if this is the case for X1. k

it is in backplot. click the double down arrow and then click info. k

so what do you do with an odd sized hole? do you use a range collet and / or circularly interpolate everything? seems like that may be difficult for very small holes. k

here, here.

i'll throw in one more positive - keyless is the way to go. i would agree with mcpgmr, i like the extra little twist the spanner provides.

I mill ren often for prototypes and models. It mills quickly with little tool wear, but as mentioned is a bit expensive. As you have probably seen it comes in a variety of densities. We generally use RenShape 440, but even the lower density holds detail pretty well - a bit more work to get a smooth painted surface if that is something you are after. HSS works fine.

I'm glad i came across this thread. I was considering posting a question about this but as a newbie I didn't want to bring up an issue that I felt might just be a problem with my system. I was looking at ridiculous regeneration times for a simple part and it took about a week going back and forth with mastercam technical help to discover what they eventually logged as a bug. I work with dual monitors and usually have multiple viewports open. What I / MC discovered is that when generating toolpaths with multiple viewports open . . . well, you may as well go on holiday. So what I have to do before doing any toolpathing is to remember to reduce down to one viewport (it can be across both screens; but it needs to be one viewport). Is this a problem anyone else faces? Occasionally I might forget this, or as mentioned by others, realize that I missed some parameter; and this is what would be my second question or complaint - Why can't I simply escape from the toolpath generation? After I hit that button, my computer is dead to me until it is finished crunching. I can reduce the screen and go to something else (which I assume effects the regeneration time) but bringing up MC to review any progress only brings 'the white screen of death,' leaving me to wonder in whiteness if all is going to plan. I've worked from multiple platforms and the escape button has always been a friend. Is mastercam not aware of this button? k

opps, i meant my other right mouse button . . . . i do use the left button - click and drag method - but it has occasionally not worked (three or four times in a month of usage). when this has happened in trying to figure out the problem, i have tried to window in 'open screen country' where there are no entities but still no window appears so i would say it isn't the autocurser interfering. k

i suspect, being a new user, that i am simply doing something wrong; but on several occasions i have not been able to right click and select items using a window on the graphics screen - the window box won't appear. i use dual monitors and generally have multiple viewports open. when this problem occurs the window box seems to work on a rotated or isometric view but in a top view, for example, a box will not appear. is this a known issue? does it have something to do with the graphics view? if i close mastercam and reopen the file, it works like i would expect. any ideas on this? thanks

my supervisor has been of the mind to keep vacuum hoses on the head in some fashion, but it strikes me as difficult to manage at best. i was thinking more in line with the solution that some are using - a filtration system pulling air to the back of the machine just to keep the air quality reasonable. my concern is, as mentioned by Tommy, how much CFM you would need to make it work. do you know the rating on your collection system Ployd? and how effective would you say it is? i don't expect to avoid sweeping, but was wondering if it keeps the finer airborne material moving out the door. thanks k

yes. i found it difficult to believe that this didn't exist. will have to pass this on to the fellow at training who didn't know about it (he admittedly wasn't a mastercam primary user.) thanks, once more k

interesting john. thanks. by using experience and the 'general idea' comment together are you saying you are making an educated guess based simply on the way the tool path appears in conjunction with part size? i've just converted from an old version of surfcam which did have a fairly accurate run time estimator. while i do like mastercam's interface better, i am greatly surprised that i haven't found a feature that even guesses at run time. thanks again k