No, don’t change from variable pocket coding. Keep it!! It’s a big time and money saver especially in a single parts shop. No more renumbering tools in MC for every job. No more limit to only 30 toolnumber. No more toolnumbersharing among tools with a huge risk of mistakes. Faster toolchange and chip to chip time. Possibility for unique toolnumbers for all tools ever used in that machine or even in whole shop. For me its 250 tools. Heidenhain always know in witch pocket your tool is, never fails. That open up for faster programming with imported operations that always has right toolnumber or FBMdrill with a toolllibrary with right Tnumbers. Those programs are producing in only seconds from when you started programing in MC. Old programs or your workmates program from other machines are easy started again with right toolnumbers. When programming a tool not in pocket the machine will always change to tool 0 and then it’s for you to put missing tool in the spindle and press start again, after job done Machine stops and wait for you to remove the tool. Then program goes on with the other tools to the end of program. You are into exception in the toolllist and its there for example if you have a very wide tool that takes up more than one place, the neighbor pocket must be free and tool must be assigned to that place only. You are not supposed to make them all exceptions. Please read "Mazak tool numbering question" thread here nearby about people wanting these possibilities you see as a problem. Good luck. /frostfritt

My suggestion is to get the ToolLibmaker.zip file from our ftpserver. Inside the excelfile there is a inputsheet to write in your toolsuppliers or your personal tooldata and cutdata. There is outputsheets as well. Its for saveing the textfile you import to Mastercam that become your new toolibrary. Example: You have mm drills from dia 1 to dia 13 in step of 0.1. that is 130 drilltools, Personal I use six different materials. 130tools x 6 materials is 780 tools individually calculated and separated in 6 libs. 780 tools done in 15 minutes. Then you have the other tooltypes to do the same with. Lets say one of the new libfiles need some adjustments after a tryout. Open the excel again and make that adjustments, save txt, import to MC and try again. 130 tools massedited in 5 min. I think its nice to know that all drill length is right when FBMdrill pic a drill from your 130 drill library. Copy around tools to a favorit mixed toollibrary is easyest done in Mastercam. Help.txt inside the file. Another suggestion for you to "massedit" is to use a material in Mastercam. Make changes at one place in the material and let MC recalculate the tools. The tools above support that. /Frostfritt

You can do it with the toollibmaker found on our FTP server. No need for any db or sql skills, end up with tools-5 or tooldb files. Support both mm and inch. Works with X4 and X5. You need excel 2010. Mastercam_forum/Tools/ToolLibmaker.zip /frostfritt

0 BEGIN PGM KOD MM P 1 Q1 = 3 ; Start with tool 3 2 Q2 = 10 ; End with tool 10 3 Q3 = 1 : Radius measurement 1=yes 0=no 4 LBL 1 5 TOOL DEF Q1 6 TOOL CALL Q1 Z S1000 7 L M6 8 FN 9: IF +Q3 EQU +1 GOTO LBL 2 9 ;Put your length measeurement cycle here. 10 LBL 2 11 FN 9: IF +Q3 EQU +0 GOTO LBL 3 12 ;Put your Radius measeurement cycle here. 13 LBL 3 14 Q1 = Q1 + 1 15 FN 10: IF +Q1 NE +Q2 GOTO LBL 1 16 FN 9: IF +Q1 EQU +Q2 GOTO LBL 1 17 END PGM KOD MM P Something like this I think... /frostfritt

ftp://mastercam-cadcam.com/Mastercam_forum/Tools/ToolLibmaker.zip login: mastercam sn: swiss ..and please, give me some feedback on this. Thanks. /frostfritt

rocheey1, Did You opened the ToolLibmaker.zip file from our ftpserver? Inside the excelfile there is a inputsheet for you to write in your toolsuppliers or your personal tooldata and cutdata. There is outputsheets as well. Its for you to save the textfile you need to import your new lib to your Mastercam. Example: You have mm drills from dia 1 to dia 13 in step of 0.1. that is 130 drilltools, Personal I use six different materials. 130tools x 6 materials is 780 tools individually calculated and separated in 6 libs. 780 tools done in 15 minutes. Then you have the other tooltypes to do the same with. Lets say one of the new libfiles need some adjustments after a tryout. Open the excel again and make that adjustments, save txt, import to MC and try again. 130 tools massedited in 5 min. I think its nice to know that drill length is right when FBMdrill pic a drill from your 130 drill library. Help.txt inside the file. /frostfritt

Hi, Write in your toolsuppliers tooldata at the inputsheet, save the outputsheet as txt and import that in your mastercam. Then you have a new toollibrary with individually calculated cutdata. Support both mm and inch. Works with X4 and X5. You need excel 2010. Mastercam_forum/Tools/ToolLibmaker.zip /frostfritt

I have saved my toollibrarymaker excelfile at our FTP server. Write in your toolsuppliers tooldata at the inputsheet, save the outputsheet as txt and import that in your mastercam. Then you have a new toollibrary with individually calculated cutdata. Support both mm and inch. Works with X4 and X5. You need excel 2010. Mastercam_forum/Tools/ToolLibmaker.zip /frostfritt

When the first operation comes in with a diffrent name than the others it cause dual posting I haveing problem with dualpostingsbug In System Configuration > Toolpath Manager > NC File, I have “User defined name” checked. Its for making my ncfilename allways the same for my cnc to find it. When import operations the first operation imported in the file if there will be no orther operations before will not post to correct nc file. They others do. That’s the reason for the dual post. When running right NC in cnc later there will be no drill op first thing and cnc goes directly to tap for example. This bug is a painful everydaybug that has been there since X3. I have been on qc about it since X3 and after all mu. It have been up in this forum several time. CNC 00066086 and CNC 00070939. /frostfritt

try Settings System Config Toolpaths make sure " Lock Feedrates" is UNCHECKED /frostfritt

Bob, Try to add a stock to leave and regenerat again. That work for me. /frostfritt

We had this problem too. Be shure that cimco editor are closed down, then you have your sim free to use again. /frostfritt

JParis /John If my problem is to open my 400 meg file, I will get better hardware. If my problem is that my Cam software don’t do the job I can replace that like I did with surfcam. If my problem is that my support, reseller sounds more like a seller than a helper, I can replace him and get another on that office. If my problem is a painful bug or lack of functionality I have QC. If I feel need to discuss that, or another issues with other users and CNC, I have this great forum that REALLY IS a place for that discussions. Users have been out there on a rough market and seen what this software goes for. It’s important to bring feedback back here so we can together build a strong MC. We don’t do this for give some resellers a hard time. If my problem is a smarta.. like JParis/John that crack down on those discussions and make them impossible.. Then I don’t know… This is a Forum for licensed Mastercam users and if you should be here, please behave. Please JParis John, read the forum guidelines and stick to them. If you have problem with those or some topics here it’s better for you to go back to your clients and do your job. EOD /frostfritt

I did run SurfCam and Mastercam parallel for a while. I have no experience of the latest versions of SC and no at all 5 axis but here are my thoughts. SC has its 2D/3D Truemill for years and that is way best on the market and no one come close to that. http://www.surfware.com/truemill_technology.aspx You get weary much CAM for the money if you buy Surfcam. The price is good. Even other toolpath are better than MC and some MCX5 news have been in SC for years. SC is easier to get start with the first time, You are up and run with nearly no skills. You have to do a lot of configuration in MC to get it to work and there is a lot of user traps to learn how to avoid. 3D toolpath is better in SC but easier and faster to program in MC. Importance of basics like WCS handling and operation importing has always been obvious for SC (Surfware)since first day. CNC just woke up on that but priority on bugs like cnc00066086 and cnc 00070939 seems to be still low. CNC still don’t understand importance of several instances of MC open or multiopen MCX files for work with different projects on different machines simultaneously. At SC you can for example copy and paste operations between to open instances. At my years in SurfCam it seems that Surfware was full focused on their truemill and forget about the rest for example file conversion and handling with solids. MC is good at file conversion, Thank you Pite Rimkus! That was the reason to my switch to MC. After a little longer learning curve you can do more with Mastercam. So I say Go for Mastercam! /Frostfritt