Oh and if you were a machinist you would have known this - only joking

Little Trick of the Trade: Go to Screen - Surf Disp - Back Colour yes that is ColoUr and set it to Black. (Normals may have to be corrected though)and set Show Back to Y Regards Karl

The way to do this Kathy is surprisingly easy. Chain the arc -Then under multi passes specify 1 Rough cut at 0.0, 1 Fin pass at 0.0 then Machine finish passes at final depth and Keep Tool Down. -- And the the Trick or so as to speak - go to your Lead in/out parameters and specify - Enter at first depth only and Exit at last depth cut only. Hope this Helps Karl

If you speak nicely to the Webmaster he will let you know the cost of the V6 chook from In House Solutions called Mill Drill for V6. If I remember right, it had the option to do Helical cuts in both formats long and short hand and with a bottom to top option, with lead in options and multi cuts. Tapered helix options were not supported. V6 ah they were the days...........

The Other method Ver 8 is in the Tool Paremeter page bottom right "Canned Text" Eg:Mpfan users would get these options 1. "Stop" 2. "Ostop" 3. "Bld on" 4. "bLd off" 5. "M5" 6. "M6" 7. "M7" 8. "M8" 9. "M9" 10. "M10"

Jace, The reason for the 100% of the CPU is much the same in Version 7 as in 8. The reason as best as I can explain it, "being that I'm not a programmer" is portions of mastercam ie: the dialog boxes are running as a true windows app, but there is also some old code in there which and I'm not sure of the term that is used here but instead of showing no resources being used its being asked are you using any resources kind of a reverse method so the cpu usage shows off the scale because its asking "are you moving the mouse yet"?. Your system seems adequate you could check to see if your data base alloacations are set low. Karl

Hi Jim, Could you email me an example and I would gladly try and help. I am a newly appointed MasterCam Reseller situated in Stirling, Please find my details below, don't hesitate to call if you have any questions. CALEDONIAN CADCAM LTD "Your Northern CADCAM Solution" Cell: (07733) 086-376 Phone: (01324) 820-525 Fax: (01324) 829-830 E-mail: [email protected] Web: http://www.mastercam.co.uk

If you would rather the CHook in the menu you can modify the Mill7.txt or Mill8.txt. Remember ***Always BACK up your file first though*** E.G.: [Trim Surface] menu 1 {"Trim or Extend surface: ", "To &curves","To &plane", "To s&urfaces", "&Flat bndy", "Sp&lit", "U&ntrim", "&Remove bndy", "", "&Moldplus*", "&Extend"}; For a Chook to function though you have to place a * at the end of the chook name to indicate it's a chook also the & can be placed in front of any letter you wish to use as a Hot Key. This Places the Moldplus Chook in the CREATE>> SURFACE >>TRIM/EXTEND menu.

Dave's suggestion to us the High feed would be a more accurate way of modifying the feed rates for your cutter path as it looks at volume and angle change for it's calculations. The area you noted in the job set up will change feed rates on any arc movement regardless.

If you are a Level 3 Beta Site make sure you try the new functions in the Surface Finish Contour - Options to Add Cuts to shallow areas or Remove cuts in Shallow Areas. )