Mick, for your file get problem, it wasn't the applet in the control panel I was thinking of. It was the CNC RegEdit utility from the mastercam V9.1 folder via windows start button/all programs. There is a setting in there for "file get". I used this to solve a customers pc crashing when clicking on "file Get".

Well it was video related. I got V9.1 working again. I clicked on the Nvidia tray icon, going to "performance and Quality Settings" and clicking on "Restore Driver Defaults". Apparently some of the settings got changed somewhere along the line. I assumed re-installing the drivers would automatically go to default settings but apparently not.

Mick, sorry for the hi-jack. I thought our problems might be related. Well, I loaded it again on the laptop and the problem looks and "feels" like a video driver issue. White cursor cross hairs flicker in the graphics area. Cross hairs don't swith to arrow pointer when hovering over menu items. Have to click menu items twice to get them to work, and then they are slow. Draw an arc and it does't show on screen, but screen statistics says there is one arc. The F9 doesn't show the brown cross hairs. The escape key doesn't work at all. Disabled open GL in screen configure, but same problems. Tried to install newest video driver from Nvidia, but it says not compatable with OEM hardware, use Dell drivers. Downloaded current driver from Dell, but it installed as the same version I already had. Dell website is dated 12/7/2007, but it loads as 11/16/2007 6.14.11.5683 Are there any other settings within V9 for video? Been so long I only remember disabling open GL.

Jay, I have tried unistalling all versions of mcam. Deleted left over folders. Deleted specific files in the windowssystem 32 folder (one of the tech tips). Deleted CNC software folder from the registry. Tried installing X3 first, then V9.1. I have also repeated the above process trying V9.1 first and then X3. I have tried the tech tip with the applet in the control panel, tried the driver thing too. The laptop is a Dell Latitude D820 Core-2 T7400 2.16 GHz, 2Gb ram, with a low end Nvidia NVS120M video card, but it gets the job done (eventually). As another test, I just loaded V9.1 on my home computer that already had X4 on it and V9.1 is working just fine. Didn't have to use any of the tricks. I haven't tried V9.1 on the laptop since loading X4. Maybe I will try it again since we have a long weekend.

quote: Uninstall then reinstall V9 G, I have tried that many times. I have tried at least 2 other possible tech fixes from the boys at CNC tech with no luck on this laptop. These tech tips seem to work on some PC's, but not others. Guru,HM, As dealers we still need to support our V9 customers which is why I would like to get it working on my laptop again. PITA running from my desk to the class room to do tech support.

I have a similar problem on my laptop at work. V9 will open but locks/freezes as soon as I try to do anything with it. No alarms. The problem started when loaded X3 or maybe MU1. V9.1 ran fine with X2/MR2. I also have V9.1 (MR0105), X3MU1, and X4 on the desktop computer in the class room, and all three versions work fine. I haven't been able to nail down what is causing the problem on the laptop. (Running standard XP_Pro/SP3 on both computers)

quote: It might be a good idea to actually read the X4 demo licensing agreement. I agree G. All users should read and comply with the license agreement when installing the HLE, or any other version of software for that matter. What can be done with a piece of software may not be allowed within the terms of the license agreement. A person might notice that there is other documentation on the HLE DVD in addition to what is stated in the license agreement.

quote: the demo version is so the operator on the floor can open up the file and view the program if he needs to. Saves him bothering the programmers and he gets a better understanding of how the block is processed. HLE will open your mcx files that were created on your industrial seats. So yes you can use the HLE on the shopfloor so the guys can view the tool path motion in both back plot and verify. They can view (and manually edit) the g-code program with notepad or some other editor. HTH

Greg, Give me a call tomorrow at Shopware. We are your Mastercam dealer and can help you with your tech questions. BTW, I talked to Dave S. today about an art alarm you guys were getting. If you get a chance please Zip to go that file you are having trouble with and email it to me at Shopware so I can have a look at it.

Hey Mike, you just gave me a clue. I have had intermittent crashes with dynamic xform and dynamic planes. Now that you mention it I think they were all native Solidworks files. I will have to try out your tip.

I was getting the bad RC alarm on the student computers here at Shopware when I first loaded X4. Our computers are networked and I had to log in as administrator to regeister the dll. It wouldn't let me register when logged in as a "user". I also had to give "users" full permissions to the mcamx folder because students were getting many alarms when trying to select tools. HTH

One is the R value and one is the Q value in the line of code that reads G76 P010060 R20 Q20 Can't remember off hand which one is which.

Yes, you can get FBM to use a 140 deg drill. I just did it using the following procedure: Start by creating your own tool library using tool path/tool manager. Create only the tools you want to use for the job. Create your 140 deg drill and make sure you don't have a 118 drill of the same size in this library. Add your tap into this library also. After setting up the library, call up an FBD operation and go to the tools category, re-direct it to the library you just created, turn off all other tooling search options so it can only use your library. Next go to hole mapping, right click, add a new diameter and link it to your tap for that size hole. Then hit the detect button and it will find your 140 deg tool.

Had a case where someone copied his X3 post into X4. Face mill depth cuts would not work at all. Had him run the post through updatepost.dll and now depth cuts are working fine in face mill. Might be something else to try if you are still having trouble.

Whats wrong with it? I used a .250 x 118 drill and it comes up with .0751 as the extra depth. This is correct assuming you left the tip width at zero.

That message comes up in X3 also.

I just tried your settings here using X4, and it gave me depth cuts in both metric and inch.

I just programmed up a washer type part with 4 ops and a cutoff op. I transformed it 3 more times. Backplot shows the tool crashing through the part, but verify looks good, and the output gcode looks good in X3/MU1. Using X4 the backplot is still crashing through the part, verify is a complete disaster, but the output gcode looks good to me.

AFAIK it is not available yet.

Guys, this is a known bug. Goldorak has the work around in this thread quote: tip comp is a listed bug [Wink] i simply click the green check , them return add tip comp , this is annoying but it works

This is a binned post and is being modified by the appropriate source as we speak.

Only way I can think of is to create a series of smaller chains and use one chain per face operation at a specific depth.

Works fine here. The only time I have seen the depth field greyed out is when someone has done a geometry drag and drop in the operations manager and answered "yes" to the retain depths prompt.

Another thing that really helps speed things up is to run cc cleaner or a similar cleanup utility. Then do a defrag. I had a few of the classroom computers that couldn't open the project curve butterfly sample file. They would just lock up. After running cc cleaner, the butterfly file opened in 2 seconds.

I have had a few machines that take off in unexpected ways when it sees an arc larger than 99.9 inches. Be attentive with feed hold and rapid reduce on the first part! (Mazak Vari-axis 630, Matrix control for one)