The stock advance problem in X6 was reported to CNC Software by several users and dealers almost as soon as it was released.

Neither. This thread is all about toolpath regeneration times at .0001 tolerance.

0:52 Dell Vostro 460 Intel I5-2400 3.1 GHz 4 GB Ram 7200 rpm HD Win 7 Pro 64-bit Quadro 600 Just got 3 of these Vostros for our classroom. Replaced our last old Pentium D820s.

Hey that worked! ...... remove the s and b from solidworks 2012 customize keyboard window as shown in pics below:

In stand alone Mastercam you can use the S key to step forward and the B key to step backwards during backplot. This doesn't work in the Solidworks product. I really miss that feature. Is there a way to do this with keys so we are not forced to use the mouse?

JP, These errors show up even on a first time install on a pc that has never had Mastercam installed. I got new pcs in the classroom and noticed this right away after installing X6 from the web download.

Just happened on two computers here in the classroom I tried everything mentioned in the thread. For us the only way we got it back was by leaving the mastercam window full size, move the general selection bar and some of the tool bars down near the bottom of the graphics window, start a line command then the auto cursor bar showed up in the middle of the screen, then re-dock everything where it belongs. Basically Voo-Doo magic.

Yes it does work with mill level 3. The 3 min 25 seconds was done with the 3D benchmark file which is a mill level 3 file. Again just to clarify, I would never recommend a celeron for an experienced mastercam user or for real work. I am just saying there are newbies out there that don't have the money to buy a new pc. If they already have the E1200 celeron cpu or better they can START to learn mastercam with it. All of us (including me) like to post our fastest times with our highest end hardware. I thought it would be interesting to go the low end just to see what it could do. Like I said before I was bored that day and just playing around.

3 Min 25 seconds Students new to Mastercam often ask what are the minimum specs for a computer that will run Mastercam. The performance of this low end build surprised me. It seemed to perform as well as (maybe better than) an old P4 single core I once used. Playing around just for laughs: Intel Celeron E1200 CPU, 512K Cache, 1.60 GHz, 800 MHz FSB MSI G31 Motherboard 2Gb ram from my junk drawer Geforce 310 video card Windows7 64-bit I slapped this together from spare parts laying around my garage. It was a boring Sunday afternoon. I didn't expect it to handle Win 7 or Mastercam but it did. Boot up was a little slow, but 2D stuff seemed to be working OK. Backplot and verify were acceptable but a little slow with the on-board G31 graphics. I threw in a $30 geforce 310 card and verify ran 3 times faster. I would still never recommend a Celeron as a new build for a Mastercam rig but if you already have this type of computer and you just want to start learning how to use Mastercam at home then you are ready to go.

I see this 3 or 4 times a year in the class room. A student will get this alarm but escape has not worked for me. I have always had to do ctrl-alt-del and re-start mcam. I have not been able to reproduce the problem on my own. I don't know what sequence of key strokes make it happen. It has usually happened here on the first day of a class when someone is not very familiar with Mastercam. I think they are in the middle of some command and don't know they are, then they initiate another commmand, and another, and another, etc.

Jay, When I teach evenings at the local college we do one night a week for 16 weeks which covers Intro (2D drawing), and Basic Mill. Each night is 2 hours lecture and 2 hours lab. So that is about 64 hours. Lab time is when I go around and help students on an individual basis. We also offer a Mastercam II class which covers 3D drawing and 3D toolpath cycles. Same time frame for this class. We also just got a 5ax bolt on unit for the Haas super mini-mill. The raw block is 2" square and that allows a max tool length of about 3-1/2" tip to spindle face. We just got it and will be developing a curriculum for it this coming summer. I am going to start out with a sample that just covers 3+2 so students can grasp planes and rotational directions. After that we haven't decided what will be next yet.

The overwrite and tool library/applet setting are both known issues. The overwrite problem is only in Windows 7-64, XP will still ask if it is OK to overwrite.

OK, now I remember what transpired. Customer had already installed X5 before I got there and it was getting entry point alarm and missing xml lite alarm on start up. I fixed it like JP said, did an uninstall, deleted the 3 leftover folders, deleted the two cnc software folders from the registry (under HKEY CURRENT USER and HKEY LOCAL MACHINE), and then re-booted the pc. I re-installed X5 and it fired up without the entry point alarm but it still had the missing xml lite alarm, but the software would still run. Then I installed MU1 and it fired up with the missing xml lite warning again but the software wouldn't run. Then I noticed it was on XP/SP2 so I updated to XP/SP3, started mastercam, no alarms, running fine ever since.

I only ran into it one time. I was able to get rid of the alarm but I don't remember exactly what I did to fix it. I remember it was an old P4 single core still on Windows XP/SP2. It may have fixed itself with a windows update to XP/SP3.

Does this help?

Go to settings/configuration and remove the check mark from the "lock feedrates" option.

If you re-size the window too small the toolbar icons will re-position themselves. Also changing windows screen resolution could change the layout of the icons.

The last time I checked in X5 the 3D HST cycles supported check surfaces only for Raster, Spiral, Radial, and Waterline. All others treat checks as drives.

Works fine here (X6).

Confirmed. In X5 I selected a closed chain to represent my chuck jaws on the stock setup page. I then did a rough toolpath across the od of the part and got a collision alarm as expected. I did the same thing in X6 and got the toolpath allocation alarm, OK'd through it and did not get a collision alarm when roughing. Went back to stock setup and it says jaws not defined.

Try turning off your anti-virus. I have proven on my pc that Microsoft Security Essentials causes a long delay (45 secs or more) before cimco will open.

Playing with overthickness and bitagency settings in the pencil path as mentioned usually takes care of it. However I have seen where surface finish pencil just wont do certain spots. In these cases I have switched to the HST pencil path and for some reason it has created complete tool path. Not sure why.

The PH Horn catalog is probably where I would start looking.

I have usually gone with RH tools mainly because of large quantity production runs with very short cycle times. Single point threading would normally require a RH tool and would take too long to reverse spindle if the other tools were LH. I have run some flimsy entry level lathes that did benefit from LH tools to have the cutting forces go towards the machine bed. A rigid good quality brand lathe shouldn't require LH tools.