Its possible it is another option to buy.

No I haven't tried M253, it is listed as G.I./S.G.I. Special Mode in the book I have. Is that just for 4th/5th axis contours? What does it do differently?

Same here, we use M251 for just about everything and M250 for a few 4th axis contouring toolpaths.

This is how it is explained in the manual I have. Apparently it is faster than M251, but the accuracy goes down. So it may be more useful in a roughing program that leaves adequate cleanup stock to overcome any inaccuracies.

Do you know what options you have turned on in your machine? You may have to contact Makino and let them know what you are trying to do. We have a pro 3 on our A55 but I am in a catia training class right now so I can't go down and look at it.

If you have a pro 5 control it should be listed at the top of the screen, it will be either M250, M251, M252, or M255. Not sure how it is for other pro controls, all of ours are pro 5. M250 (High-Accuracy Mode) M251 (High-Performance Mode) M252 (Ultra-High Accuracy Mode) M255 (Radical Mode)

Do you have super g.i. turned off? If it is enabled, depending on which one you have turned on, it adjusts the feed rates in curves and what not to turn out a better part. We have 3 A51's so I will check with our maintenance to see if there is a parameter that controls "look ahead".

If you are talking about machining the rib into a block, you should rough the rib til about .250" - .300" thick. Then start at the top and step down doing a rough pass then a finish pass, 4 to 1 I think is the amount. I will have to double check when I get to work, but I do quite a few parts that have .05" thick walls about an inch deep 6" long with a .5" endmill at 120ipm. So for your part you would start at the top of the rib and rough then finish with a step down of about .075" - .100" maybe even less at the top if your rib runs a little thick.

We have a couple here and I will check to see where we got them from tomorrow when others who know will be here. As far as costs I am not sure, although I have heard from my boss in the past that they were about $10,000 each. But he could have just been saying that so the operators would be more careful with them. edit: Talked to our maintenance guy and he confirmed the cost of the angle heads we use. They may be cheaper now, because we have used these heads for over 10 years. Here is the site for the manufacturer of the angle heads we use. www.madaula.com

Cool, I will give it a shot. Although we haven't went to 7.1 yet, so hopefully it works in 7.0.

So we don't need to have the optipath option to do this? It's great if that is the case!

My company switched to Mastercam when X came out so I have no idea how it used to be. My one wish is that CNC software would make a book or reference material for creating posts and make it available to its customers(with valid sims) without the need to go through their reseller. I also wish In-House would make a book on posts similar to their Mastercam training books. With all that said I am not sure how to participate in the poll as I am slowly delving into this stuff, and with all things that you are learning for the first time problems are to be expected. So I don't feel I should vote, other than saying that being new to all this it is confusing as he!!.

Not sure about your first issue, we've always started at the beginning of the tool so I am not sure how you would start in the middle of the toolpath. But for your second issue have you tried using signed moves? Like B-270.? I know in some machines a positive number will rotate the pallet one way while a negative number will cause it to rotate the opposite direction. I'm pretty sure we have tested this in our Makino's and it works, test it in MDI to be sure though.

Awesome, gonna try to free up my schedule so hopefully I will be able to make it. Do we get reference material from these classes as well?

Spade we already missed the first one this year as it was held earlier this month. I assume the next one will be in the same time period as last year which was in October.

What about those of us on the east cost Colin? I try to keep an eye on the Mastercam site to see when the next class is, but it seems to be on the back burner when it comes to updates.

You could also click on css and try changing the size of the icons as well. Also make sure you adjust the width or hide some columns all together to get it to the right length and set the page setup to landscape instead of portrait printing.

The only problem with that is local reseller. I have no major issue with them, although I did ask about a post class nearly a year ago and it seemed like they were a little hurt about me wanting to learn to edit our posts. I wish to learn this stuff, and would really like to travel to Connecticut for the basic post class offered by CNC but I am usually too busy when those classes are available. So having a book to go through that explained things would really help me a lot.

That is what aggravates me zoob, the engineer who messed with this stuff is no longer here and taking this stuff to our reseller is similar to pulling teeth, there have been a lot of people with their hand in the cookie jar that something may have been changed that is preventing that file from being created. I wish In-house would make a book on post processors much like their Mastercam courseware. I would definitely jump on that book. Posting this to make sure I have this set correctly, is there anywhere else that I may need to make a change to get that keep file? #Buffer 2, String buffer used to open NC file and add line numbers after processing complete wc2 : 1 #Initial count for write buffer 2 rc2 : 1 #Initial count for read buffer 2 size2 : 0 #Buffer 2 size sncline : "" #Buffer 2 fbuf 2 1 80 1 1 #Buffer 2 I'm still reading that file Keith, and no I haven't posted on the post development forum.

Well changing from 80 t0 2000 caused Mastercam to crash completely during the posting process.

Changing the parameter to keep file hasnt done anything. Any other ideas?

size2 = rbuf (2,0) #Get the number of NC lines in the NC file and set in size2 while rc2 <= size2, #While loop to read entire NC file as a buffer one line at a time That is what is in the post for size2. It is in the ppost$ Post process Postblock. Setting the fbuf2 parameter 2 to 1 to produce a keep file, did not make a keep file or at least we are unable to find it, currently searching the hard drive for it now.

I hope you are right g.

I'm not sure. This may or may not be what that error is describing. from the post: #Buffer 2, String buffer used to open NC file and add line numbers after processing complete wc2 : 1 #Initial count for write buffer 2 rc2 : 1 #Initial count for read buffer 2 size2 : 0 #Buffer 2 size sncline : "" #Buffer 2 fbuf 2 0 80 1 1 #Buffer 2

Here is the problem: Program posted out fine the other day with no error messages, programmer added a new toolpath and tried to repost program and got error messages. We went back through posting each toolpath separately until we found out which toolpaths were giving the errors. It turns out that it is two toolpaths that were posting fine the day before. Reading the error messages it kind of seems like there is a toolpath that is trying to post out a 4th-axis move or something of that nature, but this is a 3-axis machine definition, is this a bug in x5 where there may be a file on the programmer's c: drive that is causing this problem? It also appears that the output is correct, but the error messages are making us wonder otherwise. Here are the error messages we are getting. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <0> - Report created. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - Initialize posting log file 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - Using MP run version 14.00 and post components version 14.00 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - Initiate opening the post processor file(s). 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - I:\SOFTWARE\MASTERCAM\LHT_CNC_MACHINES\X5 MACHINES\FADAL 3 AXIS.PST 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - The post processor file has been successfully opened. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - Post version information (input): 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - UPDATEPOST Version 14. was used to modify this file. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - The file was modified by this product on 07 Jan 11 08:34:22 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - The post was written to run with Mastercam Version 14. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - The post product type is Mill. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - Initialization of pre-defined post variables, strings, postblocks was successful. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - Search for defined post variables, strings, postblocks was successful. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'dec_seq_right$' was re-initialized from 3. to 0. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'arcoutput$' was re-initialized from 1. to 0. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'arcoutputxz$' was re-initialized from 1. to 0. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'arcoutputyz$' was re-initialized from 1. to 0. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'larcoutput$' was re-initialized from 1. to 0. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'larctypexz$' was re-initialized from 1. to 0. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'larcoutputyz$' was re-initialized from 1. to 0. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'arccheck$' was re-initialized from 1. to 111. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'larccheck$' was re-initialized from 1. to 111. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'rotfeed4$' was re-initialized from 2. to 1. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'rotfeed5$' was re-initialized from 3. to 1. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'lrotfeed4$' was re-initialized from 2. to 1. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'lrotfeed5$' was re-initialized from 0. to 1. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'sub_level$' was re-initialized from 1. to 0. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - CONTROL DEFINITION - Post variable 'peckacel$' was re-initialized from 0. to 1. 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - RUN TIME - Data being read is longer than buffer record size. Buffer number: 2 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - RUN TIME - Data being read is longer than buffer record size. Buffer number: 2 22 Mar 2011 08:20:27 AM - <2> - Successful completion of posting process!