Old school 2D-remachining path all the way.

And unless you do aerospace, military, etc work, where they get anal about your tap chamfer size/angle, just spot the hole a little deeper in the first place so that you'll have a chamfer when the hole is done. No need to chamfer later, unless your spot drill isn't big enough.

If you happen to use a 120 degree spot drill, you can use the web app that I made to calculate your spot depth.  http://spot-calc.thadseaver.com 

You mean like this?

11 minutes ago, Thad said:

I did the same as oceancnc, with the help of this forum. It was probably 8-10 years ago though and I'm not sure if I still have it. I'll look through my stuff.

Oops, sorry, I just remembered it was for a Mazak with a laser tool setter.

On 2/10/2014 at 4:42 PM, oceancnc said:

If you are still interested, I rewrote the renishaw macro O9852.nc

so your wear offset is the difference between the size entered in the tool table and actual measured size. I.E. .500 endmill measures .498, offset will have a value of -.002 instead of .498

12 hours ago, Claytonic said:

I'm interested! But 5 years late.

I did the same as oceancnc, with the help of this forum. It was probably 8-10 years ago though and I'm not sure if I still have it. I'll look through my stuff.

15 hours ago, Metallic said:

Have you all submitted bug reports to CNC Software when these issues crop up?

I've been using MC since 2002. I've submitted bugs to QC, typically with sample files and documentation on how to replicate the bug. I don't remember exactly how many bugs I've submitted but I'd bet my paycheck it's between 5-12. The QC guys were always professional and pleasant to deal with and always gave me a bug# to track it. In fact, all of my correspondence with ANYONE from CNC Software has always been pleasant.  That being said, I don't recall a single one of those bugs ever being fixed.

17 minutes ago, Corey Hampshire said:

Also, when I go to 2020 from 2019, can I just copy my config file to the 2020 folder?

I don't believe it's ever OK to just copy your old .config file. New features are added to the config file and copying an older version that doesn't have those features built into it is very likely a disaster waiting to happen.

23 hours ago, gcode said:

I HATE HATE HATE what has been done to the Trim function though

What changed?

It works fine in X9.

3 hours ago, Matthew Hajicek™ - Conventus said:

Who you calling an old tool?!

If the shoe fits...

3 hours ago, SlaveCam said:

I wouldn't miss the dynamite button...

2 hours ago, gcode said:

True.. I have been using MC for nearly 20 years now and have never used that button even once.

I use it quite frequently. Almost every time I make a change to a detail. Since I'm a tooling guy, most of my changes come around after the detail has been heat treated and now needs to be hard cut (with all different tooling that I originally used). I move the original geometry to the "old" level and import the new geometry, then blow the dynamite. I don't need the old tools cluttering up my file.

Eh, seems like a lot of fluff to me.

I didn't realize maximum and minimum depth could be so complicated.

Realistically speaking, could such a(n) (accurate) list even be created? It's unlikely.

Generally speaking, V? can't run on Win?... but with addon ??? and registry hack ??? along with VM ??? running with a simulated ??? and hacked ??? it can.

Who can say, really?

...and here I thought it sucked if I scrapped a part and had to go to the stock rack and saw cut another piece of D2. 

Bob, I've got nothing constructive to add, but wanted to say hi and it's good to see you around these parts again. I was just thinking about you the other day.

24 minutes ago, So not a Guru said:

4 posts and he's already selling his services. Hmm

...and 2 of them are selling his services.

***Removed false information

Thanks for the dynamic option, Old Bear! 

1 hour ago, Dave228 said:

Hello,

I finally took the plunge and learned how to use the Active Reports Designer that comes with mastercam to create custom setup sheets which are nicely integrated with Mastercam and much more powerful. Contact me if you want a custom setup sheet created. It wont be free, but it wont be ridiculous either.

Contact me to discuss project

[email protected]

Great idea! Maybe I should start charging people for the help that I give here at the forum. 

1 hour ago, JB7280 said:

off topic, but what kinda code is that???  Never seen it before.

Good question. Kinda looks like something that's generated inside the bowels of MC before being turned into something that's actually usable by a CNC machine.

6 minutes ago, Roger said:

The enable peek just isn't there

It looks like you didn't get that far. Did you click "Settings" in the Performance section?

Deep drawing is a quite a sizable topic to be hashed out here in a discussion forum. 

As you've seen, forming that in one hit, you're very likely to get wrinkles and tears in the part. It's usually done in multiple dies, starting with a shallow draw and getting deeper with each die. See pic for example. As you can see, the outer edge of the blank gets deformed as it's drawn so the outer edge of the final part will need a trim die to finish cutting the shape and punch the holes in those tabs.

There's so much more to this, but a book would have to written to convey it all. My recommendation is to send it out to a die shop who does this kind of work.

55 minutes ago, Programinator said:

I have done exactly what Thad is saying with the ops libraries.  But i got sick of going through the import process and searching for the correct toolpaths i needed to import even though i had them labeled good like Thad's examples.  Once you get all the toolpaths for all the different scenarios it can get into the 500 - 1000 toolpaths if not more.

So what i did was design and code a window that sits in the levels manager with buttons and drop-down menus to automatically import what i need.  I also made it for different materials so i dont have to mess around with changing tools or speeds and feeds.  I pick to material i want, pick the operations i need and BOOM its imported at the red arrow and i just pick geometry.....Done!   I just click and in seconds what i need is imported.  I also use same window for doing other common everyday tasks as you can see in the pictures.

It took many hours of work and coding but i'm so glad i did it.

{Images cropped for brevity}

Holy sh!t! 

1 hour ago, Metallic said:

Well dang, Thad, I had never even thought of that! That is a great productivity tip. I will probably save 80% in productivity just by implementing that technique. The legwork will be there, but this summer I should have time to work through it.

Another tip for the contour parameters...even though you may have separate ops saved for the various options (2D, remachine, ramp, etc) within contour, go into each option and set each type's parameters the way you like them, then disable the option. To clarify, say you have a plain old 2D contour op saved. What if, after you import it, you want to change it to contour-ramp? When you select ramp from the drop down, all of your settings for ramp should be set already. Same with remachine, etc. Every contour operation in your library should be saved so that you can change contour types and those parameters are already setup. Does that make sense. I'm not sure if I'm describing that clear.

99% of the time, when I want to do what you're asking, I select the top hole (at the pocket floor Z level) for my geometry, set top of stock to incremental 0, and my depth to incremental -.5. 

If you use standard level names, make a CSV file of your level names, then import the names into your MC file by right click in the levels manager->Get Named Levels.