8 months of Mastercam, over 90% of my programs run good right out of the gate. The remainder usually require tweaking of some type for irregular tool shapes, or feeds and speeds related to excessive tool length/ low rigidity in set-up. Yes, there's the occasional programmer error. Anybody in here who says they get it right 100% of the time, is long overdue a visit from Murphy's law enforcement crew.

We used several approaches, one piece runs, one part at a time with multiple parts, multiple parts on a tombstone, all faces tooled up and holding parts. Pneumatic fixturing. Tombstones with a top plate. Angle plates where the gussets are machined to hold parts. This is where the Horizontals start to shine. Never used a probe either and it still worked good. Program calling, well that's a matter of having a operator that can read numbers and letters and can use the keypad. Sub programs get a good work out in these scenarios. Nobody here has mentioned compound angles yet? Horizontals truly are the next logical progression in a growth oriented shop.

Nosserov, I would look at some of the available tombstone designs out there, then make it yourself as a first project for the horizontal. As for the one off parts, some good examples are large castings such as engine blocks, trans housings, pumps, you name it. I worked in a shop where 90% of the horizontals were doing this type of work. One main advantage in this scenario would be number of tools in the magazine and a multi pallet changer which helps to keep one part in the oven at all times and allows you to leave multiple jobs set-up at the same time. Got a night shift? Have the nubs run the simple work while the other shift runs the more detailed work.

I've had that problem also with alot of geometry on multiple levels. I usually end up rotating just 1 level at a time.

Like Greg said, for the top, I would use a 3d contour following the lines at intersect using the smallest possible emill, then sneak it in until the Z gets close, then rotate to the next angle and repeat. It should come out acceptable. For the bottom rad, your going to half to stand it up in a second set-up. Hard to tell from the picture how deep that is, or the RAD size. My first thought would be to grab a ID groove tool from the lathe and pick it out. Watch out for clearance at the top of the part, it looks like a edge extends over the geometry your trying to cut. EDM would probably take longer/cost more.

We used em to burn out taps in engine blocks. 3.5 to 5." being the norm. They do work good.

Great, now I have to go to work with all that gibberish in my head. I'll try and flush it out with some Thin Lizzy.

Some splines I've tried that with will never convert. They just twist too much I quess.

I've also read somewhere that reselecting the machine def everytime you start a new file is a good practice.

Drac, thanks for the offer. No problem on the delayed response. I always read the forum within a few days just to see if there are any related topics or new post that interest me. Any help is good. Besides, my employer does not pay me to do this and won't support my educational requirements, so F 'EM, I'll find the info when it suits my time frame. Besides that, I don't want them to think that this is where to go for FREE tech/ engineering services. I consider most of the peeps here to be a good bunch of guys who like what they do, and taking advantage of that experience, for their monetary gains, isn't high on my list of good moral attributes. (Yes , I had a rough night and woke up pi#$ed off.) FTP Site.... I can download all the files I want, but when I Try to upload, it never works, so I gave up on that. Usually when I need to upload a file, I'm already in Panic mode, and get ticked off even faster when It doesn't work. Thanks for lending an ear. MCM

I've done some very simular work with pop can dies. I just projected them on to the dome surface, then use 3d contour to establish the path. Set my Z depth to -.016, and they all came out nice. I used a .125 ball and measured the width of the letters after machining and they all checked good.

Fishing net.....

Thanks, I did'nt want to go with the # for fear of losing any tapping output. I see the line that gcode is talking about and will try that 1st.

Just an opinion, but for general machining of parts that don't require alot of stock removal, I prefer the Haas. With the very user friendly controls and easy access to the work area in the machine (V series), we get up and running fairly quickly. We also have a Makino S56 that absolutely runs circles around the Haas, at 4 times the cost though, and is a pain in the butt to set-up because money wasn't spent on control options and tooling. I can't stand the Mazak controls.

How can I REMOVE or OMIT ridgid tapping from my post? It's a MPMASTER. I see ptap$ section and need to output for g84 without the sm28 or e$. Thanks, MCM

It's does have a 800mhz bus and uses ddr2, pc3200.

Here's a link to the pics. The bad thing about messing with the cut tolerances is that I don't have the luxury of walking over to the stock rack, grabbing some new material, and starting over again. Gotta get it right the first time. I'll just overkill the tolerances for now. http://www.emastercam.com/ubb/ultimatebb.p...9938;p=1#000016 There is a shoulder on both sides of this part that I need to stay off of for now. I've tried setting the shoulder as the check. I then set the stock to leave on check surfaces at .001, .01, .10. I also tried just offsetting the check surface by different values. All of the above did nothing but create a bunch of monkey business with the cutter path. It shouldn't have to be this hard. Click on a surface, stay off that surface, period. I hope X3 has both containments and checks for all cutter paths

You draw that with a crayon?

I guess I have to scratch that PC off my wish list. I thought it had the 8000mhz bus and used ddr2. My bad.

I take it that xw6200 has a single ZEON in it? You should be able to put a second cpu in it. With a 800mhz bus and PCI video it really shouldn't be too shabby. I like those machines and have had those on my wish list for a while. Sorry to hear its slowing things down.

Heh, I keep the broken, burnt PARTS on a nearby mantle as a reference.

Flowline be da path.

I use a old Valenite handbook and a trig cheat sheet, and just a few of the slide rules you get from the insert manufacturers. Good for a few formulas and insert terminology. MHB is a must. Wish I could still get those. Also kept nearby are the phone numbers for the local pizza joints.

Files at work, srry for the lack of info, I'll check it when I get there.

I've selected a vertical surface as a check, aprx. 90. deg., adjacent to the surface that I'm machining. With .01 stock to leave on both the check and the drive, I'm getting a toolpath that machines over the top of my check. How can I totally keep my tool away from the check, both top and sides? Question 2. I have quite abit of spline geometry in this part. The surfaces look nice and radiused but my machining looks faceted after machining, like the points on the spline, not in backplot or verify,. What do I need to do the eliminate or reduce the facets? Tolerance control? Thanks for the help, MCM.