Im doing a funnel shape with surface fin contour with a ball end mill. The problem im having is that it keeps making tons of z retract moves. I would like it to just spiral down from top to bottom without lifting up a million times. Any suggestions?

I always get the operations but it takes out the groups. I do click yes when it promps for the groups. Sometimes it even gives me duplicate toolpaths. Doesnt seem to work like it should.....for me anyway. Think i will start going with the deleting the geo and merging.

Ya drilling copper is no fun

quote: I dont drill alot of copper these days, but I am using OSG long series solid carbide drills on my Integrex. The drills are 30x diameter (or 20x are available too). I pilot drill 1/4" deep with a standard length OSG solid carbide drill, then bring the 20x or 30x drill in and just plow it thru. It works incredibly well in steel and seems quite quick. I do alot of deep 1/4" holes and 3/8" holes. =] HTH Steel is another story. Copper is very gummy and heats up the drill super quick. Breaking the chip is a problem so im forced to use small pecks and come up all the way out of the hole and back in again. What type of steel are you cutting?

Randy @ SFI..... Copper.....1/4 hole.....4 inches deep... Using cobalt 135 deg split point. rpm 1400 Feed 8.0 Any suggestions on tooling or better feed and speed would be appreciated Thanks

ShefferCNC... Tried that and it is already at mcam....i changed it anyway and its still a no go

htm01.......This worked perfect and is saving me loads of time.... Thanks

quote: First drill with the short hole say Z-1.25", then change to the long drill and use a R-1.23 in the G83 line. The tool will rapid down to Z-1.23, but the drill will not come out of the hole till the G80. Thats the problem.....I need it to come out of the hole after every peck. I know how to put it in manually but i just thought there would be a better way. Thanks all

When i right click on a file (its a step file) and select open with and then go to mcam it says not valid win32 application. Also The mcam icon is not right...it is just a little white box. When i first went to do this mcam was not in the list of programs to use. So i had to browse. Then i checked the always use this program to open these file types. I would like to just click on the file and have it open in mcam but currently i have to open mcam first.... Any suggestions

Watcher....?????

Watcher, Yes i have cimco 5

ok how do i do that Its a haas control

Ok, I have to drill a deep hole and i want to use a short drill first and then go in and get the rest with the long drill. but i dont want to cut air with the long drill where the short drill already cut. Also when the long drill is running i need it to peck and retract out of the hole. Will mcam put out code for this and if not what would the gcode look like? Thanks

So do you have to start out with a tapered hole or od?

quote: now the boss wants the feeds and speeds set in the CAD room and these are not to be change What prompted your boss to try to implement this. What was wrong with the way it was being done? At the machine tweeks must be done. Thats just the way it is. I'd leave if i was forced to try and do that. Its just going to waste time.

cool, Thanks i will try it

Is it possible to do a pipe thread with a single or multi tooth thread mill with mastercam?

if its a 2 inch cutter i put the outside dim to 2.001 and the inside to 2.0 That does the trick for me

newchsmcam... It really depends on what you are planning on doing with the machine. Production or not. Steel or alum. These things matter when it comes to the Haas machines.

got a screen shot of what that looks like?

Instead of using the f9 key to see the zero off xyz i have seen some use a little square box. Dont know what it would be called but i would like to know how to activate it. Thanks

quote: I gave up on the WCS and ended up just moving the part and starting a new file for each setup. you should give him another try

I dont use an extension so thats what it is then. Not a big deal Thanks

I am trying to get the colors to show in the editor. I checked the color syntax highlighting in the misc tab in the windows options window and no colors show. Anyone know whats going on?

In the cut depths i had it at z-.135 and i was using a 3/32 ball em. After talking to cparish i added the dia of em to depth making it -.2285 total and that got me very close. Then i just kept adding .0001 to the depth until i got it to be at z-.1348 which was close enough for me. I would still like to know why it does not just go to the depth that it is told to go to. By the way i was using abs in cut depths.