I don't think it's the card. Test it by pulling the card out and using the onboard graphics. Make sure you have up to date drivers for both the card and onboard video. If that does not help, try shutting off all other apps 1st, then fire up MC. 10 minutes is insane. I'm up and running on a turdy computer with on board grapics in under 45 seconds with 24 processes running in the background.

In many ways, it is a like a game, for BIG kids. I've been at this for about 7 months now, and my approach to learning this has been the "School of hard knocks" technique. I read the forum daily. Very rarely do I online game anymore. It's not enough to just crank out something that works, you have to take some time and mess with the options, try different toolpaths, evolve and hone those skills. Even if your not doing a particular type of work, mess with something new. When a job does come along that requires advanced skills, you'll be the Hero. 2 weeks? Hmmm, OK, you'll pop some holes in a part and do some simple milling, but if your any good at programming at the controls, you will still run circles around Mastercam for the first month or so. AND btw, if you can't read G-code and program at the machine, your that much further behind. I'll trust a guy with 7 years at the control and one year of Mastercam, over a guy with 7 years of Mastercam and one year on a machine.

How do you set up a containment with Finish Flowline? I only see check surfaces there.

I have no experience with containment boundaries or check surfaces as this is my first real surfacing project but I have found that the more variables I monkey with, the more trouble I create for myself. If I would have just left the default setting at Direct, I could have saved a lot of aggravation. I will have to set up some type of check surface here sooner or later as there are sharp corners in this project that I have to stay away from.

Small enough to fit on a cell phone. XP power toys has a resizing utlity that works great for this.

Thanks for the input. Glad to hear that large gap settings don't mess with the geometry. Must have been a glitch. I switched to direct (from smooth), then regen'ed. Looked good so I reset the gap to .50 and it worked, I then reset all my surfaces that way and the tool motion, (retract) came out perfect. This also eliminated some goofy moves at the ends of the surfaces. I have both solids and surfaces in this part. Some of the solids kept giving me an invalid arc error and I ended up re-creating the surfaces, which was a bummer because the original solid surfaces seem to look more accurate (neater / tighter) than anything I create in MC.

I've had to increase my gap settings on several surfaces up to 6.75" in order to get the tool to stay down. Will this alter the geometry of the surfaces?

Mayby this will help. http://www.emastercam.com/cgi-bin/ultimate...ic;f=1;t=030034 The coolant issues with MC is nuts. How such a low level feature can get so mucked up is beyond me. We need a Thread just for coolant topics.

Thanks, Got it.

How far from the bridge are you?

"With dynamic comp the distance from machine home to centre of rotation is stored in the parameters allowing you to have the origin anywhere you want it. On a machine with this feature there is no real need to programme from centre of rotation." On large Horizontals, where part accuracy is a must (camshafts, in-line bores, etc.), we always had to warm up the machine to get accuracy within .001 tir. This was in a air conditioned shop with both new and older Mazaks. This usually involved tweaking the X axis wpc a few tenths at a time through out the day. I don't know if changing the dynamic comp in the parameters several times a day would be any quicker, maybe even more of a hassle. Heh, I've seen more than a few Operators that couldn't comprehend how to adjust for CL of rot locations and just kept getting further away from it on each succession of parts. Mayby dynamic is the way to go, locking out the parameters so the noobs don't screw up too badly.

This is what I've found: Just dont know where the coolant tab is located. Mach def manager, general parameters? Sorry for being blind today. "If you are using the version 9 style coolant (“Support coolant using coolant value in post-processor” selected in the general machine parameter’s coolant commands tab)" Thanks to Paul Decelles @ CNC for this. 1. Make a back up of your mill_inch.defaults file 2. Rename your mill_inch.defaults to mill_inch.mcx 3. Open the mill_inch.mcx in Mastercam 4. Go in to the Machine Group properties >> edit the machine definition >> general parameters >> coolant tab >>and set it to support coolant using coolant value in post processor. 5. While your there you can go into the defaults and set them to coolant "ON" 6. Close the file 7. rename the mill_inch.mcx back to mill_inch defaults.

Version X from tool, using tools step peck and coolant. But I never want to touch any of those settings again, just force the coolant to come on at G43 Z, off at g28 Z in the post.

I am soooooo tired of messing with the coolant settings. How can I modify a mpmaster post to out put coolant for all tools at The g43 Z block, and cancle it at the g28 Z block, for ever, locked, never to be messed with again ?

Heh, I knew it was right in front of my face. I'm in over my head and overwhelmed on a part I shouldn't be touching and it's frustrating the hell out of me. Can't think straight. Here, the weathers good in Mich, have a cold one.

No subgroups , but I found it. Status bar, next to the gview tab, there is tab that switches between 2d and 3d. Duh, thanks for the help though.

Ok, what did I screw up now? I can't create lines in ISO view, any c-plane, at any Z value other than Z0. It's probably right in front of my face.

kazmir44, how much for one of them there acetylyn torch set-ups? Can ya throw in the goggles?

Files look good guys. Thanks for the help, MCM.

Yup, sure is.

I have to reboot to check mail, It's on a different drive. Will let ya know tomorrow.

Jim?

I was there since late 2000. Never saw Watson in that area and it may have been before my time there. Oakwood Tool & Die was big in there, with multiple buildings. Watson has a shop on Pennsylvania Rd. now and a few others located around town. Thad, check out how the Rhino helped with that .igs in the other post.

WOAH! Brought these into Rhino 1st, then saved as .3dm. Into MC they went and this is what I got. A HUGE improvement. Gotta learn Rhino now as my son helped me with these. High school cad class too, not too shabby.

Yup, that's the one, Universal Dr.. 7 years there. Walt Industries, didn't they make some Harley parts for awhile? I applied there once, never heard back from them. I think there dead now though. That whole industrial complex is looking grim.