You can create a 3 point arc and use Edit>trim/break>close arc to turn any arc into a full circle.

Change solids to surfaces so that you can move them and put tool paths on surfaces. You can only move a solid if you have the solid option.

tooljockey works for Fraisa. He also has about 10 yrs of using mastercam building molds and more than 20 years of machineing. Steve use to work this area but Brian took over a few years ago.

Hey Brian I got your phone message, I guess you must really miss Steve. silhouette boundary > activate solid selection > (deselect) solid body so that only solid face is active. Works for me.

Thanks Gunther, the snapshot is a great addition to an already great chook.

I think that just causes excessive tool wear.

What I have found to work when a toolpath hangs is to open internet explorer and bounce around opening different web pages. That will almost always get the toolpath processing again.

You want to take about an 1.8" step over any less and insert life goes down. If it chips an insert you will hear it. Inserts are cheap rotate them at start of a long cut. You can't tell if they are dull buy looking at them. Like TR said use the book settings for best results. If you are using coolant make sure you flood it well and have a good vacuum system to remove the steam. Air blast works best.

I've been using them since they came out in beta and have not had any gouges. Switched from using sandvik cutters to Mitsubishi 2" AJX for Core roughing and 3/4" AJX for Rest roughing. I have seen cutting times for roughing out P-20 cavity and core blocks drop from 5 hours per block down to 30 min. per block. The high speed finishing paths do a great job on hardened steel. Processing times are not that much different. I still use a mix of new and old cutter pathes when cutting electrodes.

The loop is caused by the way Hurco has there home position set to a different corner then everyone else. Not sure but I think this is what we had to change to get it to work. Set the swg18 variable to 1 for Boss's left handed coordinate system # on G18 plane - G17 and G19 have a right handed coodinate system. This will # cause G2 to be outout as G3 and G3 to be output as G2 only when G18 encountered.

Always remove your hasp when updating mastercam. We have been using 64bit for almost 2 years no problems

I've been running Hurcos for 20 years. 2 knee mills > 20yrs old 1 BMC 20 > 10+yrs 1 BMC 40 > 10+yrs 1 VMC 30 > 6+yrs 1 VMX 30 1yr old 1 SNC 64 makino All have the dual screen Ultimax controlers Programing options > DXF & 3D Conversational programing is very easy to learn less than a day for most. Any shape you can program for a 3axis mill with mastercam you can cut it in a hurco without buying the 3D option. The 3D option is only for conversational programing. You can rotate about Z or X or translate a contour in Y. You can't program a constant radius that does not lie in the X,Y, or Z plane. That is what mastercam is for. We do all our holes using conversational. Very fast you have alot of control to change anything in just seconds. Peck,depth,retract,location,add holes,add tools and alot more. Plus the best thing is you can see anything you program on the graphics screen in any of the 4 standard views. Hurcos are capable of taking some hard crashes with no more damage than a little pride. The Makino could not handle a small crash without at least tipping the spindle or table. Are hurcos the best built machine out there. NO but you can be cutting parts without much training or an offline programing system the day the machine is first powered up. You can switch between NC and conversational and not loose your part or tool setup. You can turn the machine off and back on and not loose anything. If your still kunfuzed goodluck in the laundry business.

Dual Xeon 64bit here no problem

In your operation manager there is a button with a G1 on it, that is for posting nc programs.

beej, 80% width and climb using the new highspeed roughing toolpaths works great with the AJX. We bought a 2" dia. cutter and in P-20 I cut using .051 DOC > 150 IPM > 745 RPM > .051 Chipload > 6" overhang from the Spindle. It cut for an hour and I did not have to rotate the inserts. It is a much better cutter then any sandvik cutter we have.

Custom toolbars work great. Just put everything you use into toolbars that are more than half the length of your screen and they will no longer scramble on you. I have two full length bars and no longer have a problem.

Use create Silhouette boundary then put a boundary surface on that. Or trim the flattened surface to the silhouette. Or create curves all edges on the surface before flattening and trim to that. It would be nice to have a flatten trimed surface.dll but there are way to get what you want without it.

We got a new AJX cutter from Mitsubishi http://www.mitsubishicarbide.com/mmus/en/whatsnew 2"dia. cutting P-20 745rpm .051 depth .051 chip 153ipm using Mastercams new highspeed roughing program. Also had 6" spindle to cut overhang. I was cutting on the low side of the recomended. Mitsubsihi gives speeds and feeds info on this cutter on steel up to 55RC. Don't see the our Sandvik cutters getting a lot more use.

I don't use anything on the RMB and you don't have to hunt after you learn where you put everything. I only have toolbuttons that I use. I have 2 Dell 20 inch UltraSharps, it's the only way to go. Carl

1600 x 1200 resolution so I can get all those buttons on the toolbar. Just curious how many software developers at CNC are under 45 and can still read the newspaper without glasses. If we wait long enough they will see or (not see) why this is so important to us. Bigger please. Carl

In system configuration/cad settings there is an entity attributes manager where you can set color and level to different entity types. I don't think you can set the level by the color. Carl

We got a new VMX30 about 4 months ago, it has the 10,000 rpm spindle. The spindle is cooled by the coolant system around the spindle so if cutting without flush the spindle gets a little warm. This spindle is also belt driven and gets kinda loud at full speed. I would take a trip to Indy if they have one on their floor with a 15,000 spindle in it. Most hard milling and graphite we try to keep in our makino SNC64. The machine movements are much improved over our other hurcos. The best thing about a hurco is their conversational programing. We don't have to program everything in mastercam because everyone in the shop can program holes, 2D, and even simple 3D. Then if we have to run gcode it will do that too. If you are just going to cut hard steel and graphite you might be disappointed. But if you need an all around mill there great for the price. Carl [ 02-28-2006, 08:13 PM: Message edited by: Carl Hessig from Nypro Kentucky ]

Years Carl

Makino has a new high speed graphite/steel mill the E33. If your building molds your making electrodes, either copper or graphite and the 40,000 rpm spindle would be nice for that. Also would be great for hard milling. It looks to be more rigid then their SNC64 which is what we have. Makino makes good machines which need lots of Gcode to run and Mastercam is good at making that. If your just looking for something for general machining the S33 would do the job as long as the price and machine size fits your needs. Welcome to the forum! Carl

Here is a link to RobbJack's guidelines: http://www.robbjack.com/html/tech.html Not sure what coating your using but I would suggest TiALN or ALTIN for steel that hard. Some other good brands are OSG and Fraisa. I even tried Garr's new DieMold endmills recently with good results. To get your feeds & speeds use the tool manufacture's information to start with and go up from there. And note that all tools are not the same so try different brands. Carl