You can decrease some of your cycle time by changing the back feedreate from 100 to 500. I use .05 for my micro lift.

If I try to renumber a tool and save that back to my tool library it will corrupt my library in X7. Also if i write a program and try to go back and change the tool number it will post the old tool number. I have to delete the operation and program the tool path with the new number. I was told this problem should be fixed with the MU1 update.

Only time will tell.

I contacted your re-seller, not to say you were bashing them but to let them know you had some issues that might not have been handled.

Tyler, They know very well about the issue. As stated from the CNC Software guy in his e-mail back on Jan. 4th that the issue doesn't seem to exist in X7. As we all know X7 wasn't being released in Jan. We've always choosen to stay a year behind any new releases so most of the bug's can hopefully be resolved.

I have found the problem to this file. In X6, the Stock to leave for walls and floors is set to .025. Somehow X6 does not like that value or there is a bug with setting a stock to leave. I set the value to zero and it finally generated the toolpath. There may be a value that it will take but they will have to play around with the setting or not use stock to leave at all. Like I mentioned, in X7 there is no problem with stock to leave and has been fixed.

Aaron, I thought it was logical to wait over a year before we tried updating to X6 in order to avoid any software bug's. We use a Catia translator that will only let you use it in one version of Mastercam,. Which means when we have issue's we can't just open up an earlier version of Mastercam and proceed. Yes, I know we can have the Catia solid converted to Step or Iges file's but then that requires us to send it back to the design department. I don't know who is callling our local reseller and telling them I'm on here bashing them but they are wrong. My post are being directed to Cnc Software. The average multi car cup team has an average of 50-100 cars in rotation through out the year not counting the newer designed chassis and parts being put into rotation so when we have downtime in the Machine Shop it limit's our ability to keep up with the larger Sprint Cup teams. I've used Mastercam off and on since the late 90's and have alway's had good result's but as of late it's been a dissapointment to be told " yeah we know we have a problem just wait till X7 is releaed" or be a beta tester. We don't have time to be guinea pig's.

Michael Waltrip Racing- Cornelius,NC

Mike not sure of the last name. The first guy that was contacted was Tom Phanthavong and I have an e-mail that he sent back to your local retailer in this area Barefoot Cnc.

could you provide a sample

No. Because one of there inside tech guy's has already seen the problem first hand. The tool path generation problem was in OptiRough. There solution is to update to X7 and keep paying $xxxx a year in maintenance fee's.

MWR15 - I just hid your post because of the negativity. I get that you're disappointed but maybe you can be a bit more constructive your post? Feel free to post where you feel X6 let you down compared to X5

Ok Tyler. Simple we program a part using X5 with no problem's. Update to X6 with same part that generates toolpath's in X5 and it will not generate in X6!!! Your company's solution is to update to X7. Why would a company take a risk on updating to your newer version when your previuos version (X6) DOESN'T PERFORM? Seem's to me it's a waste to pay maintenance fee's to be able to have newer version's that don't work. In the real world it's all about turn around time to customer's and they could care less we have faulty software.

Depending on the shape of the area you are milling you may need to turn on the trochodial motion option.

When programing a rapid point above the part I always tell them to stop atleast 2in above zero. It has saved me a plenty of tool's over the years.

We just updated to X6 and now I wish we would have stayed with X5. Were having issues with the opticore toolpath locking up during the tool path calculation.