have you guys tried this? I talked to the IT guy for the company i used to work for the other day and he said this is a pretty sweet add-on for 7. It has alot more function then just right clicking and changing the compatibility mode that comes with the basic 7 pro install. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-p...igure-bios.aspx

thankyou emastercam.com - most definately the #1 mastercam site around. thankyou for all the help and info over the yrs.

Sweet!! thankyou sir?? Very cool tool, were finally making the transition and will be getting away from version 9 very soon.

------------------------------------------ dang $45 is goin rate? I feel cheap being direct labor, but I like being home everynite. --------------------------------------------- We have tried many contracting houses and see all these phat resumes, but the guys cant produce. I been doin this for 11 yrs, I and can build anything, do alot of F-35 stuff and some F-22 - I luv titanium and 13/8 - we cut tons of it. Where is profab going wrong on hiring??? I dont hire i make code, thats what i do, but I get stuck redoing what has been screwed up by others. I just wanna work with some talent, thats all. I came out of witchita because i was bored. This place gets some really good complex work. We got several differnt of types of 5 axis machines and other machine centers to program for. Maybe the fact im in midwest, is that why were not getting all this talent that is supposedly out there??? hmmmmmm

I know there is good contract help out there, unfortunately we have not had the pleasure to get them. its pretty bad when you go thru 11 in a yr that make over $35 bucks an hr, we tried a couple yrs ago also and had same results. Where are are the good contract guys at the have 3,4,5 axis experiece and cut anything ???? I know of some that were paid $45 an hr and hard cut a square with hoels in it here without screwing up. We need some good help here, if anyone knows any programmer that can hit the floor maken code with no trouble in a big shop, send them out way.

lol thats sounds kinda like what im dealing with here - we have FIRED!!! 11 contract guys in the last yr and one engineering manager. Good help is realyl hard to find these days. I have yet to ever see a programmer worth a sh$$ with no machine experience. WE have given up and are now giving machinst from the floor a shot in programming. Cant be no worse then the contract people.

Aw man, /noL with /M1 does work - We had seat getting stuck. People crashen I guess is causing some of the licenses to stick. Our network is fast and solid here, heck it travels at 1G , I just think they licensing softare needs to get alittle more powerful and user friendly. Catia and Vericut run solid. Im totally down for the transition from 9 to X, Its been an experience seeing the software change from the 1st beta release to MR2. I like the 5 axis addins for sure. Starting to look like some very highend software now. Maybe they wont get us UG or Catia maching package now. I dont know, I think mastercam can do anything, but the higher up people know more then me i guess and dont agree.

Hello all, long time since I got on here, Its mad crazy here in this shop. Havent had much chance to breath. Been thru 10 contract programmers in the last 10 months and just about got everything redone that they destroyed. Good help is hard to find for sure. Now to my question We run the net hasp here and I havent had any problems with any of the switches for lath, level 3, soldis, verify 5x and multiaxes options. I cant get /noL and /M1 to work together. Up here we use all the 5 axis seats or level 3 and down below in the oil field area they use the lathe and level 1. Has anyone else seen this problem? Im hoping to start getn everything moved here to X in the next few weeks. So im tryen to get the little things lined out. thankyou and I hope everyone is having a great day )

Sweet, the old one didn;t allow you to use splines, just arcs. That will save alot of time - thanks man - we just purchased a laser tracker that runs with the verisurf software, very cool toy and some sweet lookn software.

what I have gone to using is photo 20/20. I activate the software, run the verify, then just push print screen, now this lets me window only what I want. Now I just save what I wanted as a .jpg. now to save on ink I like to go into paint real quick and invert the colors, then I just copy and paste into my word document. I wish I new how to post a pic and I would show the sweet template I have been using for the last 6yrs. Im all about detailed documentaion and there is nothn better for a machinist then a picture of what they are tryen to make.

This shop im currently still uses smartcam I have it on my box and still get stuck with haven to use it, so if anyone needs some converted, I would be glad to help - I been a die hard mastercam sice 1995, but when I migrated here all of there stuff was in smartcam, so I had to learn smartcam also - Its frustaten stuff, mastercam makes everything so much easier then smartcam

Jay, I sent you an email requesting a mailing address, so I can send you a money order. count me in for $10.00 - this site does rock, i got throwed into programming at a early age and I have learned alot of great things off this site about machining and mastercam. I thank everyone who posts and helps take care of this site - YOU ALL ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For those situations I go to the operations page and right click then go to toolpaths then down to manual entry - Thats where I do all my text or special instructions if need be - For my M00's and stuff like the I use trhe canned text option inside the operation, this is asscoiated with the .txt file that should be with ur post - You can do alot of self editing to this file to get it the way you want

We are vericuts users here, i know its expensive and its even pricey to be on their maintance program, but the stuff is just awesome. We have head/head, nutator, and table/table 5 axis machines here and it just real handy. alot of the stuff we do is big and expenseive and we only get one try on it - the auto difference option is just great also

i use the wcs all the time on 4 and 5 axis part, no matter how big they are or complicated - I found if you associate your cordinate system with an entity, there should be no troubles. I've had files with 8-10 different cord systems all sorts of jacked up with the world and no probelm - I do every part I program, no matter how many ops or how much tooling is required to build on the same cam file - I have to, all this new work coming out with these young engineers revs up all the time - to much hasle putn a new model on individual cam files.

i have had the same problem here - one of our cinci 5x supoorts G84 and the otehr don't. What I did was edit the ptap function in the post to write cycle out long hand ptap # Canned Tap Cycle pdrillref # depth = abs #(refht-depth) # retr = abs #(depth+initht) if mi2 = 0, drillref, *x, *y, e *frplunge, *depth, e "M4", e "G01", *zr, *frplunge, e "M3", e "G0", "F99.999", e seems to work fine - I guess they were to cheap to buy tapping on some of our machines - even our 4million dollar 5x with 2 3spindle heads -

I don't don't have the engraving package here, I just go create,next menu, Letters, and define how I want my text to be. When you put it on your drawing it will be lines and arcs. Ths way you can use to drive a contour. This is how I mark all the tooling I build here. Just turn cutter comp off and drive the letter you create using centerline. I usually use a .250" ballnose or .250" 90 deg spot drill here. Just depends on what I'm doin or how I feel that day. the same process cen be used with other tool also. Just depends what type of work you are tryen to do.

we do mostly aero space - since aircraft industry has been suckn though we have got into - oil field, and more government work. ______________________________________________ I do 3,4, and 5 axis programming - mostly 4 axis, but most of my cornet work is 5 axis. _________________________________________________ I run the machines sometimes here, but they prefer programmers to stay up stairs. Before I worked here though I setup and ran machines + programming. My first to shops I worked at I did more conventional work more than anything. Last 6 yrs though has been CNC machines and programming. _______________________ We have over 28 CNC machines + one laser and waterjet machine. Now there is only 4 of us laying down code. All of us can program for any machine here 3,4,5 axis.

Mastercam is the way to go - The shop I'm currently working for was using smartcam and camax only two years ago. When I decided to take the job here, they bought a seat of mastercam mill level 3 with solids, (because thats the only this this guy will use ), but after one year of seeing how mastercam worked and how much quicker the programming was done with better quality they bought two more seats. smartcam is not used any more, and now were moving mastercam into the 5x area, so far so good there also. Here we have, laser, waterjet, lots of 3x machines, regular 4x horzontals, and one with ratary C on it, and a couple different types of 5 axis machines. Mastercam works for them all. Mastercam has alot a bang for the buck in my opinion, make them buy it man!!!!!

This week is goin to be a couple outbd closure ribs for Boeing - looks like there is going to be some 5 axis stuff - woohoo

Mine installed fine also, but I didn't fin any info on what changed from SP1 to SP2. Usaully there is a document or something that explains what took place. Did I miss it some where?

Thank you fellas for the input - I need to play with it a little more, but do have toolpath actually created now. I need to make some boudaries, and do some tweaking, but I think I'll be able to do what I want now. Yup Jean, I was gonna scale the bear to 24" in length and attempt to make this thing. It would of been alot easier if I had an iges, but this using a cad file thing should work fine. I do have one more question. Is it possible to shell a solid using a .stl? If so that owuld work great in creating some good surfaces. I was planning on putting this thing on a rotary add on one of our 5 axis machines and do the thing in one op.

Hello everyone out there in mastercam land - I got a dilema and was wondering if anyone had the answers i need or be able to convert a file for me. I have posted a .stl file in the unspecified downloads folder called bear-25k.stl - if ya open it up you'll see its a pretty cool .stl on a bear. My problem is, I need to make some tool path on that thing and have no surfaces. I have brought the .stl in my student version of solid works and its shaded and looks great, but have no way to get an iges with surfaces from the .stl file. If anyone one could help me out on this I would really appreciate it. It would be cool if mastercam could just machine the .stl file, but I don't think it supports that, if it does I have no clue how - I know when you do typical surfacing there an option to check to cad file, nothing saying I can machine a .stl file all by its self. I wish our seat of vericut supported model exporting or i could get and iges out of there, but its way to much money for that option. I hope when things pick up here I'll be able to get a seat of solidworks so I can open up stuff like this .stl and get a good iges for mastercam. Well I better get back to the grind, hope everyone is haven a good day

Thank you all the great ideas on creating vector lines, and Tri-Tech5-axis that c-hook worked sweet, as long as I got arcs at the face of my part thats the way to go, there was one area of my part thats on a curve and has splines, In that area I will use some of the the other techniques mentioned. I would of never thought of creating my vector lines by how you guys mentioned, alot easier than theway i way I was doin it. Again thank you all for the input

Hello everyone - First thing I got to say is that I really enjoy this forum, I check it every day. I'm 25 yrs old and been using mastercam mill level 3/solids for the last 7 yrs and it never fells that I learn something new every day, whether its off here or on my own at work. I would like to thank all of those that contribute on here, there has been some really good stuff that has helped me out alot on different issues I've had problems with. One question I do have at the moment is there any good or easy way to create vector lines and points for multi axis drilling. This part I'm working on right now is goin to be ran across our rambouti 5x nutator head machine and It has holes every where, but no vector lines came with the model. Does anyone have a quick method of creating these? If so I would really appreciate the input 9.1 SP1 Mill Level 3/ solids