Are Both parts the same overall depth, and what is the overall depth? From your explanation it sounds like the 'standard pocket' one is being stepped down .3 each step and the dynamic mill is stepping down .8? Am I understanding that correctly? Anyhow.. I havent tried doing a side by side comparision but it seems to me it would be very dependent on the geometry of the part, fixturing, etc .. all things being equal I would think it would depend on the amount of force beign generated by each toolpath, this could change dramatically based on width of cut in the dynamic mill path as much as in the standard pocketing toolpath. Just thinking about it I would think a path .3 deep and .5 wide would create a lot more force than a path with a constant depth of cut of .8 and a width of cut of .05 - .075

Ok so .. make your sine wave in mastercam save as DXF and import into solidworks.. And as for the original question no idea how to do this in solidworks .. kind of doubt there is an easy way without and add on

Looks like pips suggestion would work great just chain the lowest geometry and the use a transform toolpath on it..

Have run mulltiple Mazaks for a while now.. the amount of 'play' for lack of a better term that Mazak allows when determining a radius is determined by a parameter.. it is ridiculously large.. I know on one of our mazaks running r instead of i,j,k you could VISIBLY see the out of round.. Swap to i,j,k or figure out the parameter and tweak it.. Personally I would just swap to i,j,k we have swapped all of ours to i,j,k since then we have stopped cutting egg shaped holes..

We have a job with 2-56 threads in 13-8 that we threadmill never could get them to tap to save our.. well anyhow.. We use Vardex threadmills and use thier free app to choose the threadmill and generate the code.. as well as feeds and speeds.. on that particular job we are getting 1000 holes or so out of one threadmill never have a broken tap either.. I beleive that job is a class 3 thread as well.. based on my experience in 13-8, 15-5 and 17-4 I would say definitly look into Vardex for threads .. Just checked it out for a 4-40 thread btw and should be about 9664 RPM thats about 210 SFM Helical lead in at about .88 IPM Followed by the actual threadmill passes at 6.28IPM We generally use two passes one at 70% of thread depth and one at finish since we get more consistent results that way and longer tool life.. Usually we see a bit of wear in the first few parts as the tool 'wears in' and then it settles in and cuts consistently for days..

The newer benchmark.. its on one of the pages of the benchmark thread.. but for easier reference.. here it is.. http://www.emasterca...380#entry744866 Heres the link to my system and the benchmarks I got with it in case thats what you were looking for.. never did post the solidboxx scores though since its not mine its one of the other programmers I work with not mine.. http://www.emastercam.com/board/index.php?showtopic=25855&st=1480#entry810947

omg .. great.. that would have been reaaaaallly helpful about 10 minutes ago lol.. I will have to make a note of that one.. thanks!

I have one.. How about a undo view button.. Once again working on a complicated part.. have rotated through about 5 different angles to get the view looking down the profile I need to cut.. get called away and when I return hit the top view button forgetting to save the view.. Hit undo.. and remove some geometry .. doesnt effect view whatsoever (of course I knew that but always seem to hit undo anyhow) So my suggestion.. make a undo view change option from the view menu.. so you can always go back to your last view or for that matter the last few views ie recent views list.. Just a thought but I know I would have used this option a lot of times over the last few years..

I find having a relieved shank and only leaving about .05 to .100 length of flute reduces tool pressure and chatter a lot. Once the tool is relieved ramp down about .025 / .030 and adjust surface footage down till you find the right balance between speed and surface finish. This has worked for me doing slots and pockets as deep as 10 times diameter, though sometimes they take longer than I would like.. would be nice if engineers would always make inside corner radii as large as possible - seems the aerospace ones love to choose pretty arbitrary sizes with no thought on if its possible to make the parts or not.. makes things challenging though and challenging keeps things interesting..

Thats prob due to the fact that Mastercam seems to only use one core per toolpath.. only way to use more is to regen multiple toolpaths at once.. although if your like me most likely you are only working on one at a time so therefore only re-genning one at a time. From the sound of it based on what some of the beta guys have been saying X7 will have true multi-processor support which should speed things up a lot for people with multiple processor systems.

The tapping function probably requires you to use g63 and g64 for rigid tapping.. never ran the mazak lathes though so cant be sure

Well, guess this all depends on how comfortable you are with building your own pc.. There is no doubt that a solidboxx is a great rig.. that said at work we were having an argument about this very topic.. My rig was built from parts and we also got a solidboxx .. the solid boxx cost about 40 percent more overall and has similiar specs.. Mine beats it in running the mastercam benchmark (the newer one) by about 40 seconds.. definitly not a huge difference but .. We have had both systems for about 6 months and neither one has had any problems.. For my own money I would build my own, but then again I have been building computers for a long time.. The one thing I would say though about all these comments about SolidBoxx like 'they just work' and 'they have great support' is that for the 40 percent more the SolidBoxx cost, for every two you bought that you put together yourself you could just about build a third as a backup.. If you arent comfortable building your own system though SolidBoxx is about the best your going to get..

I have been running mine overclocked to 4.7Ghz since mid October and so far I haven't had any real problems with it.. I have had some crashes of X6 but im pretty sure, though they are annoying, hiccups once in a while are just something that has to be expected regardless the computer / processor. All in all using it for X6 and Solidworks I haven't been able to find anything to complain about.. just solid performance

Heres my post with my benchmarks.. http://www.emastercam.com/board/index.php?showtopic=25855&st=1480#entry810947 Seems things are looking up in the next version.. its def the stock model that slowed mine down.. My system is as follows.. System Specs.. Mastercam X6 MU2 Asus Maximus V Extreme MB core i7 - 3770k ivy Bridge 3.5GHz overclocked to 4.7GHz 32GB G.Skill 1600Mhz Ram AMD FirePro W8000 w/4GB 256 GB Vertex4 SSD 3TB Seagate 7200rpm Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit

You sure you went through and made everything .0001? that seems ridiculously fast considering my OC'd system took over 7 minutes.. then again maybe im just jealous..

Sure, Heres the link to the original post with the newer benchmark file.. http://www.emastercam.com/board/index.php?showtopic=25855&st=1380#entry744866 The link is in that post.. basically its the same file with a couple more intense toolpaths and a stock model thrown in ..

I don't know if it helps anyone but if anyone wondered and is interested.. The reason to scale it to a 1 inch diameter is simply based on math.. Anything drawn with a 1 inch diameter can be easily scaled by multiplying any size given as 'diameter' on the tool info page.. For example, If you specify its .25 diameter .25 x 1 = .25 If you specify its 5 inch diameter 5 x 1 = 5 This allows you to draw one single point threadmill tool as shown above.. and scale it for use over and over again any time you need to use that type of tool.. If you draw it to scale it will only work at the one and only size you drew it at.. scaling will not work and will be totally messed up.. because.. If you drew it .5 diameter and you specify its .25 you would have mastercam internally do the math as .5 x .25 = .125 which isn't correct.. I haven't done extensive testing of this to prove it out.. but as someone that used to do a lot of computer programming in the past it seems logical that this is the reasoning.. All that being said.. as with a lot of things in Mastercam the ability to draw scalable tool is really cool.. and in a lot of places very useful, on the other hand most likely a complex one off port tool would have absolutely no reason to be scaled.. so IMO its a matter of knowing whats available and using the best option for your given situation

Very nice.. pretty much the same system I have but with the quadro where I have the AMD video card.. Have you had a chance to try the 'new' benchmark file yet? I would be interested to see the difference between the two given mine is overclocked to 4.7Ghz On the original benchmark looks like I come out about with about a 2.5 second difference .. would like to see how much of a difference it makes with something that takes a lot longer to process..

Cant beleive I forgot this one.. important that all new machinists learn it.. make sure if you ever need to grind aluminum.. make sure your using the aluminum magnet!

I haven't ever been able to get this working using control comp.. best I have ever been able to get (and I have messed with it a LOT) is a perpendicular entry which tends to snap expensive threadmills.. I guess it must be because most people use Fanuc controls using wear comp rather than control comp so thats the bigger market sector, unfortunately I work in a shop with tons of legacy programs written for Mazaks using control comp.. so its pretty much impossible to get them to change and i'm stuck with control comp as my only real option Anyhow.. hopefully im wrong and someone will point out how to make a helical entry using control comp. Till then I will keep using the vardex threadmill software that creates control comp'd gcode and pasteing it in via manual entry ..

From the menu choose Settings - > Configuration (or choose Alt-F8) Then at the bottom for configuration you can switch from metric config to english or vice versa.. When you switch configs it will ask you if you want to scale the part .. Alternatively you could scale your part by 25.4 to get it into inches

The biggest thing I am always telling the newer guys and seem to have to kind of beat into thier heads is the following.. Use the shortest tool possible for the job your doing, have the least extension possible and verify minimal runout on tools, this will maximize rigidity to increase tool life and accuracy. Probably the simplest and cheapest way to drastically reduce cycle times while increasing tool life. It seems like the natural thing is to want to leave a ton of extra extension to avoid operator 'heart attack' when the machines rapids down to position, however since this lowers the rigidity considerably its a terrbile idea..

I guess im the odd one out on this, but I do pretty much everything in IPM, its all well and good to think optimal cutting conditions for the tool will always be optimal cutting conditions at the machine, but based on tool extension, setup rigidity etc. sometimes thats just not possible and I like the ability to adjust RPM and Feedrate independent of one another (without reprogramming), to me this is often the fastest way to find the 'sweet spot' for eliminating chatter without drastically increasing cut times.. Besides to get my original feedrate I always start at 'optimal' conditions recommended by the manufacturer (or based on experience in a given type of operation ie highspeed machining) and I never really thought of the conversion process of ipt to ipm as being that big of a deal really.

Thought I would add the relevant sections from the MPmaster post I already modified for this.. essentially this makes the post include the G63 and G64 in the places shown in the code above.. ptap$ #Canned Tap Cycle pdrlcommonb #RH/LH based on spindle direction if rigid_tap, pbld, n$, *sm29, *speed, e$ #Rigid Tapping if use_pitch = 0, [ pcan1, pbld, n$, *sgdrlref, *sgdrill, pdrlxy, pfzout, pcout, pindexdrl, prdrlout, [if peck1$, *peck1$], *feed, strcantext, e$ ] else, [ if metvals, pitch = n_tap_thds$ # Tap pitch (mm per thread) else, pitch = 1/n_tap_thds$ # Tap pitch (inches per thread) "G63" , e$ pcan1, pbld, n$, *sgdrlref, *sgdrill, pdrlxy, pfzout, pcout, pindexdrl, prdrlout, [if peck1$, *peck1$], *pitch, !feed, strcantext, e$ ] pcom_movea pcanceldc$ #Cancel canned drill cycle result = newfs (three, zinc) if drillref = 0, zabs = initht_a #Make the initht the modal Z value else, zabs = refht_a prv_zia = zabs !zabs ps_inc_calc prv_gcode$ = zero if cool_zmove = yes$ & (nextop$=1003 | (nextop$=1011 & t$<>abs(nexttool))), coolant$ = zero pcan if drillcyc$ = 3, "G64", e$ if drillcyc$ <> 8, pcan1, pbld, n$, "G80", scoolant, strcantext, e$ pbld, n$, sgfeed, e$ pcan2

I beleive the rigid tap codes are G63 (tapping mode) to turn it on G64 (cutting mode) to turn it off we have a bunch of Mazak 640 controls and our code looks like this.. FYI, if the G64 is not before the G80 it will alarm out.. (TAP 1/4-20 X .8 DEEP) (1/4-20 TAP) T22 M6 G0G17G90G54X-.4881Y.4473S500M3 G43H22Z2.M8T18 G95 G63 G98G84Z-.8R.1F.05 X-1.9714Y-.8402 G64 G80M9 M5 G91G28Z0. G28Y0. M01