As a Tool Maker, I've had to explain many times what I do. People understand machinist but not toolmaker. So to explain the difference I say Toolmakers are like engineers but we wash our hands BEFORE going for a leak. If nothing else I should get the "iron rings" wound-up now!

Hi Guys, Been having the same trouble with printing. Thought it was operator error as I've been running our qc shop lately. I've got an HP 820Cxi deskjet. The change of background colour to colour #1 got it to print wire frames just fine. Haven't had time to try surfaces. No crashes since SP1 was installed. Cheers paul toolmaker, cad guy, and now qa

Kind of got mine.... sitting on someone else's desk since last week sometime. Too busy to do more than open the box, bummer! The pad could be nicer.... maybe more beta testing was required.

Kathy The Catia is from outside and begging and pleading for them to translate rates right up there with asking about MCX a couple months ago. At least X seems to actually exist! Out one customer does send Iges with the Catia but I don't think many dogs would want to eat it for breakfast. Ugly and all over. There are a couple readers out there - Actify from Montreal and I'm trying to get at a demo from Datakit in France. Actify is good but I can't do anything with the geometry. I don't want to pay for a second translator as it cuts into the profit sharing! Paull

Thanks for the suggestion and lesson. We currently use the Catia reader from moldplus for the Catia V4 files. Works great for geometry but the drafting entities aren't supported. I could upgrade($) to the V5 translator but will MCX apparantly in the shipping process what would be the point. So, what options are going to be available for MCX and Catia V5? Will drafting entities finally be supported? Two of our customers are transitioning to V5 and I may need to panic soon.

Allan; Any idea what is going to happen with MCX and Catia V5? We've had the same problem for years, no drafting entities, with Moldplus and Catia V4. They now send iges(for now), catpart and catdrawing in V5. Thank God (I think) for iges at least I can look at the geometry.

Thanks Ken, Should make interesting reading (helpful even). The movie certainly highlighted improvements I'll use in the design end.

Just as an after thought, If you start using your CMM data, you have to be careful about what dimension you are actually using. On our machine, a "Point Compensation" tries to compensate for probe diametre and the direction of axis movement to give an accurate point on the theoretical edge of the feature. This is fine if your dealing with features running mostly along the machine axis. Curves and arcs become inaccurate. To fudge past this error I use "Point" which gives the XYZ for the centre of the probe not the outside edge. Then, once into MC, I put probe diametre circles around each point and use tangent lines one to the next to give my points for the spline creation. Defintly more time consuming but a whole lot more accurate. Think of this as a poor man's digitizer.

Laszlok; I suppose the format has a lot to do with what machine you're dealing with. Mitutoyo (at least ours)is as follows; A Line Number B Line # in CMM program C Name or type of feature D Number of points to create element or if from memory E X F Y G Z (X,Y,or Z may be zero if you are projecting!) H Diametre of feature, etc I Runout of feature Your CMM manual should have a breakdown for each type of output. Or just use some controlled trials and decipher from there. As mman10 said, adding lines or splines to the points is the ticket. Hope this helps.

I've been using an older Mitutoyo CMM and the ASCI to disc function to reverse engineer die steels and punches. Just dump the file to Excel and strip out the crap, save, and import to Mastercam with the ASCI converter. It's still just points but cheaper than a special converter.

I,ve had to machine a pile of UHMW plastics and found the best deburring tool off the machine to be a SHAVIV E100 hand deburring tool by VARGUS. Files and burrs usually just make another burr. This tool would be like an exacto knife but a whole lot more control (read-no lost fingers). Down spiral cutters would be a good thing too I think, use 'em in wood working just fine. Paull

Sorry not to respond as promised Fri... best laid plans and all that rot... Die Makers Handbook - Industrial press ISBN 0-8311-3132-2 as Kevangel said $28 NTMA Basic Die Making ISBN 0-07-046090-6 Great second choice! simplifies tooling and shows detail requirements but material is dated- wirecutting is mostly a new thing! Progressive Dies Principles and Practices of Design and Construction SME ISBN 0-87263-448-5 Decent background but not what you need, I think Techniques of Pressworking Sheet Metal Donald F. Eary ISBN 0-13-900696-6 again, decent background but not what you need, I think Have fun!

Hello Heavy Metal, I have a couple of books which may be of assistance. Die Makers Text - Jim Geary - TXu 159-277 Die MAkers Handbook - Gerry Arnold - A-694197 (both are Library of Congress #s) I have a few others at home and will repost with titles, etc.this afternoon. These two are the better I've seen for details of stamping tools and particularly what's important. How do I know? I'm a tool maker who uses MCam design for quotations and minor design in a stamping job shop. I also taught a few course at the local college on design. Figured it was time I put something back into the forum after lurking and sponging for so long. Later, Paul