You can't go wrong with the Solidworks idea. Yes, you lost your older style tool paths, but the plus side is a great CAD app. that you can always add another machining package to in order to supplement what you don't get with MC. In other words, your not tied down using SW, you have lots of options. Consider this though: you'll probably have to stay on maintenance with both apps if you plan on keeping up with one or the other. X5 may not run in SW2012, or X6 may not run in 2011.

Why would anyone select drill for tool type when tapping?

No offense but a comp like that should never have to be set for best performance. Only use that setting to trouble shoot. Sounds like you have some conflicting software issues. I don't have WIN7 or X5 so I'm stretching a bit here. Try shutting off some apps, better yet all apps not required while running MC. Try older drivers and newer drivers for your video card. Even swap the card out if that's possible.

I used a fireGL v5600 for about 1 month with MC and SW. Performed flawlessly with both apps but it seemed slower than my 9800gt in verify. I gave it to my father in law and now wish I had it back. Don't know about the Radeon series though. These guys run specials quite often: http://stores.ebay.c...id=p4634.c0.m14

Waterline and SF Contour function in the same manner and do not perform well on shallow or flat surfaces. Perhaps try Surface finish Blend, 3d with the tool path set to spiral (as opposed to one way or zigzag). 2 chains required, the shape of the blend chains will influence the cutter path and the tool only cuts to the center of the chain so a chain offset by half the cutter may be required. A chain and a point works well. The chain you select first and the selection point will govern your start location for the tool path. I usually project the chaining geometry to a plane to simplify manipulation if required. If you need more help, upload/attach the file. Save the part as a version 10 and more peeps will help. Sounds like your trying to morph between two curves. The 5 axis gurus in here may be able to get better results, even with a 3 axis machine.

Expanding a bit on Jame's input here. I caught a manual lathe on fire once. Someone turned some magnesium and did not remove the chips from the bed. I put CAT 40 tool in the chuck to turn the nose OD down some, got some red as usual, then all of the sudden POW, one of the fastest fires you've ever seen. Que the banjos.

Guff, they are talking about 2 different apps here. The Mastercam for Solidworks is a machining add-on that runs inside of SW and uses the SW interface for drawing your parts. Kind of bitter sweet as it has a good feel to it and is a great modeling tool but quite a few of the traditional tool paths are removed. If your starting from scratch with a CAD/CAM package, this could be appealing. That's the app that cost $. The other app (your link) that is free merely exports a open SW part into MC. No big deal here anyway, as doing that adds more time to the import and quite a few the modeling commands used in SW will not merge into the MC history tree. IMO, and as others have stated, it works best to just save as a X-B in SW then import/open that file instead. Oops, G beat me here by a few minutes.

Opinion as requested. Eagle.pdf looks lame. I may be missing the point here but... As far as WORD goes, THIS WORKS: Set-up X, output as HTML, save it to the desktop (or wherever), open it with WORD and edit away. You can slug out an entire Row if you don't want to see duplicate tooling in the list (Bad Idea IMO), same with entire columns or just edit a single letter. Entire rows or columns will drag and drop as well or can be resized. Need to add more pics for the set-up other than the screen shot? Here ya go. You can also save it as a *.DOC. I'm using Opera as my browser, WORD 2003 as my editor. This isn't perfect but works decent. I guess from an operators stand point, the simple set up sheet works fine. As a programmer though, X+ gives me the fastest way to check Z depths, stock to leave, coolant or what ever. It's down and dirty fast and hasn't let me down yet. Way to go Gunther.

Temp solution? Try importing it as Surfaces to get your colors, then merge the solid file and change the faces you wish to correct.

Had to save that pic.

Try not to use checks with flow line. You do not need one for the part example you showed us. Zero stock on a check surface is definitely acceptable and I program quite a few of the other tool paths in this fashion. Go ahead and disable the warning as it's only valid for that session of Mastercam. The start point can be shifted to one of the four corners of the surfacing zone your cutting but you may not like the direction, climb versus conventional, or starting at the bottom instead of the top. Funky motion? Try setting depth limits, -.0002 to start with, below the top of the first surface your cutting. Also note that making that surface one piece will give you much cleaner results.

Perhaps renaming all the ops at the same time might help.

Here's the kicker .. look how far out of the holder the tool hanging.

Yup, just select the part as boundaries are not a requirement for waterline or SF contour if your machining around the entire part. Start with no filter and a step down around .05. Do not limit your depths at first either. Those 2 tool paths always pop quickly when the defaults are not monkey'd with. All tool paths suck? They sure do, until you learn how to use them correctly. Been there as well. I still have several sucky tool paths stumping me. Have a few cold ones, put on some headphones and try it again.

Cutting 58 to 62 rc parts all the time with the horizontal path and I've never experienced those kind of results. Simple enough to check the code though. I've never seen the Z's change throughout a Horizontal tool path regardless of tolerance, on the same plane that is. Perhaps some jack screws under the part with rubber sandwiched between the jack and the part to help dampen the vibes some.

What tool path, and what tool? Tool path tolerance = ? Even the finish across the top of the part is kind of nasty. Quite a few possibilities here but IMO, it looks like something is loose. Tool holders in the spindle or the machine itself. Put a indicator in the spindle, touch something in the Y axis, zero it out, then push /pull on the head, both directions and watch the indicator. Leave it set in Y and push /pull on the table. Repeat for X and Z as well. Is the top of the part wavy, as in large scallops? Check spindle squareness as well. It looks like your cutter may not be perpendicular to the Z axis center line.

Direction control allows much greater positioning in your approach or exit, which is great for getting into tight places or avoiding areas you don't want to clip as you start the tool path. Direction control also will not continue past the edge of a part if the tool stays down, like in Zigzag or spiral cutting methods. Gap settings primary function is to move the tool over Gaps, valleys and holes in the model and keep the tool down. They are applied to both edges of a face relative to the cut direction , will continue though out the entire tool path and are not nearly as flexible for positioning the cutter as the direction control nor was this setting intended for positioning. Using gap settings can also crud up a cutter path and adds cycle time.

I use it regularly for temp files. Used it one time to clean the REG in XP and it hosed my system. Can't say it often enough, back it up.

Good you found it. If ya need some code, just say hey.

Yes, with out eyeballing the geo, it's hard to say what's taking place. Sounds like a swept surface would also work in this scenario.

Parallel tool paths and steep walls do not get along. No matter what you do, your tool path can and usually does fall off the edge by your step over. If it's set to .006, you can be off by that amount. Like Colin says, tweak your settings. One way around this would be to change the cut direction by 90.DEG. That can be just as nasty though because the tool bangs into the wall and leaves a nasty finish with out any type of rad in the corners to ease the tool into the steep surfaces. You also don't have enough of a radius in the surface corners to allow a smooth entry and exit away from the wall at with a 90. DEG. and you'll end up with a lot of sharp corners in your tool path. Also not good. IMO, It looks like your tool / ball radius is simply too large to accommodate the height differences between those two surfaces. IE: it doesn't fit. and your always going to left with at least .062 (give or take according to the height differences of the surfaces), worth of non clean up in that corner. Just for kicks, program that with a .004 dia. BNE and .001 step over and see what pops.

Hmmm, slows my comp to a crawl. Seems to be a major graphics issue, staggering images and lag, when panning or zooming. I can't find a location for system settings options or anything related to it in the help files or FAQ. As it's a FREE open source app, I'll stay neutral on recommending it for now.

Just checked out the Inkscape homepage and saw this: "Inkscape befriends G-code. October 10, 2010 Not many people remember this, perhaps, but one of the first extensions ever written for Inkscape was an assistant tool for designing guitar fingerboards, written by Aaron Spike. Over time more people found even more interesting uses for Inkscape. We already reported on Egg-bot recently, but another very interesting project made its way to upstream collection of extensions just few days ago. Since revision 9818 Inkscape comes with GCodetools — a plug-in that prepares and converts paths from Inkscape to G-code using biarc interpolation. From now on you will be able to use default Inkscape for all kinds of fun things like cutting, engraving etc. This feature will be available in the next version, 0.49. Until that you can either use unstable builds or just download the extension and install it for your current copy of 0.48. http://inkscape.org/ I'll download the the free app, yes FREE, and take a look. Thanks for the tip SMRK. gcodetools link: http://www.cnc-club.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=35#p101

Go to the cadjunky website. There's a video there showing how to import images into Solidworks and do some tracing. He brings in a guitar, then traces the pick guard to get his drawing. Probably similar tools in Inventor as well. Added the link to youtube:

"Perhaps because you are using a tap for helicoils?" Good catch McLaren. The no go would almost drop in the hole.