Solidworks, especially in the last few years, is EXTREMELY good at fixing garbage IGES files. Fortunately for me, most of my customers are competent enough to realize that creating a solid in Pro/E, and then sending it out to a machine shop (if we can call your faux "shop" that) as an IGES file, is a complete abomination. Then again, none of my customers are clueless enough to hire a fraud like Jonny Bonkers, so clearly the incompetence starts at the top and trickles down.

*Hijack* Holy moly Pete, that's quite a part you've got there in your sig line! */Hijack*

quote: HSMWorks told me they hit too many limitations running inside of Mastercam and that's why they felt they had no choice other than to create their own CAM package. Sure Jon. Weren't you working for HSMWorks? quote: "I'm committed to working with HSMWorks to doing just that. Shouldn't be too hard because their head of US operations and I see things in almost the exact same way and because HSMWorks is interested in what I have to say and wants to work with me." - Jon Banquer - "Who I'm working with to deliver what truly will be the next generation of CAM: www.hsmworks.com" -Jon Banquer- "I understand why your shop did not go with HSMWorks. We have a lot of work to do." -Jon Banquer- ......oh wait...... quote: Jon is not affiliated with HSMWorks ApS in any way and that we cannot control what people are writing on the web. Anybody can get evaluation licenses of HSMWorks and test it themselves. I hope this clarifies any doubt. - HSMWorks ApS -

Epic waste of time and money. Go to PracticalMachinist.com and search for mfg.com, and mfgquote. Or, for the really juicy stuff: http://mfgforum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3

Wicked! Man, that machine looks a lot bigger with people next to it. I see an MMC system in the left side of that first picture. What machine/how many pallets is that one?

quote: Because pop-up dialog boxes aren't the way to go. They obsure the part model and constantly have to be dragged and moved. I like the idea of centeralized control in a CADCAM application which doesn't obsure the part model. Jon, if the pop-up box wasn't there, you'd complain because you can't see enough of the info on a single page. Don't you remember last month's Jihad, about how great the Solidcam user interface is? How can it be so great Jon? It has more pop up boxes than Mastercam. "The difference is how much better the interface in SolidCAM is and how much better the CAD and selection tools are because of SolidWorks."-Jon Banquer, Aug 13th Poor Jonny Press Release, can't even keep his own complaints in order. No wonder you can't remember who you're logged in as, or what you're lying about.

Dave, let's see some picture of that beauty!

Thanks REX. I just finished doing that right before your reply. The toolpaths look OK, and everything is verifying fine, but still no tools in the tool list when entering the toolpath parameters?

Anybody seen this? And more importantly, any idea how to save this file? I merged some geometry from another file, and then when I tried to create a contour toolpath, nothing would happen. So I restarted X4, and this is what it did to my file: When I click the toolpath parameters of any operation, there are no tools. This job was only one machine group and about 10 toolpath groups. Now it's just 10 machine groups with the wrong machine definition, and the machine group properties below all of the operations. Bear in mind, this job already has 30 tools worth of work put into it. Really not something I want to go back and do all over again. Anybody know a quick way to turn all of those machine groups back into toolpath groups? It also changed all of them to the stock MPFAN machine definition, when it was originally my own MPMaster def.

Eric, I knew it was him when he made the first post as "Pelican" a few weeks before, asking about open pockets. The way he said, "Our other CAM can blah blah blah...", it just oozed Banquer. Then of course, when everybody jumped in to help him, and completely solved his "problem", he never came back to thank anyone. He didn't actually care about open pockets. He had just watched a video of some other CAM software selecting an open pocket, and thought in his little pea brain, "Mastercam can't do that, so I'll go start a topic about it so I can use other people's info as ammo for my jihad blog." It didn't work, and Banquer again proved that he has virtually no working knowledge of even the most basic functions of Mastercam.

Well, if you saw the type of "complex" parts he makes, and then you combine that with the fact that he works in a not-for-profit internal shop at a huge publicly traded corporation that clearly has no competent oversight in this area (Using IGES files, VMCs that throw tools, two releases behind on MC), it's no surprise that this is his longest stint of machine shop employment to date. This part is a real doozy....might need to get a MAM72-63V in here, and call Michael Whitten......

I personally like the stuff that comes with each update. Especially when it comes in a big shiny box (Which X4 didn't). When you pay your $1500 to Solidworks, you get a 10 cent DVD case, a copy of the invoice, and a disc that's already out of date. At least with Mastercam you feel like you're getting something for your money, even if it does work out to a $1000 unusably small mouse pad, and $500 dollar "What's New" booklet.

Whoa! Good info, Watcher. I watched the whole video on that website, and I had no idea the structure was a weldment. Like a Haas Mini Mill on steroids!

The stuff you're going to find the most frustrating is.......well, just about everything. Everything is still there, it's just in different places now. Just hang in there though. Every ounce of frustration now, will amount to a pound of reward later. I fired up 9.1 the other day on an old computer to find some old tool parameters, and it felt like BobCAD.

I just got an email promotion today from Dell, with 15% off any of their Precision workstations from the Dell Outlet. When I clicked the link in the email, it took me to a list of Precision T3400 units that have been refurb-ed and certified, for $1109 bucks. Granted, it's nothing like the system Ron mentioned above, but for $1109, you get a system with a Quadro FX1700 card ($500 on it's own), and XP Pro or Vista Business. Seems like a pretty good deal to me. http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/t...s=28&l=en&s=dfb Precision T3400 (System Identifier: EWTM8F83) * Precision Workstation T3400 Mini-Tower: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (3.00GHz/1333MHz/6MB L2) 525W * Genuine Windows XP Pro with Vista Business License System Price : $1,109.00 Operating System Genuine Windows XP Pro with Vista Business LicenseMemory 4 GB DDR2 ECC SDRAM 800MHz Dual Ranked (2 DIMMs)Hard Disk Drive 160 GB SATA 3.0Gb/s and 8MB DataBurst CacheVideo Dual 512MB PCIe x16 nVidia Quadro FX 1700, Dual Monitor DVI CapableMedia Bay 16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capabilityCertified Refurbished Certified RefurbishedBase Precision Workstation T3400 Mini-Tower: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (3.00GHz/1333MHz/6MB L2) 525WHardware Upgrade 1394 Controller Card USB Multimedia Keyboard Mini-Tower Chassis Configuration w/ 1394 Card Internal Speaker USB Optical two button mouseSoftware Upgrade Windows Live 32BIT Operating System CD

I bought a cheapo Quadro FX370 at Fry's for like $130, and the performance is outstanding in X4 and Solidworks. No complaints on that front. It's woefully inadequate for gaming though.

quote: Getting the image of the guy that plaed Dr. Benton on ER when he was in the movie "Coming To America" with Eddie Murphy. Jerry Curl just dripping all down the couch after they sat there. Just letcha' SOULLLLLLLL GLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktl6L3ZwvL4

Ahhh, thanks Dave. The logo.png was just in the X4 folder, which would explain why I couldn't find it. All dialed in now.

Ok, two more things: -Where do I put a copy of my logo.png to make it show up in the tool list? Right now I'm getting some German instructions, but I don't know what they are telling me. -Is there a way to make the tool list display the tools in the order they are used?

Thanks Dave. Surprisingly, that's exactly what I had already done. I copied the lang.dll from the eapprentice download, and pasted into the X+ folder. I didn't exit Mastercam first though. Looks great now, except the "Z Max" column is HUGE when it goes to html, no matter how small I make it before hand (unless I shrink it completely so it doesn't show up). Now that I think of it, the Z Max column isn't important to me anyways, just the Z Min. I really like Active Reports, but X+ is much better for the way we do things. Great addition to Mastercam!

I downloaded the X4 version from eapprentice, and couldn't find the .exe to install. So I downloaded from Dave's link, and everything is working fine, except it's in German. How do I change everything over to english?

Edit > Simplify

I've never seen a code for the cover coolant. They just want you to leave it on all the time. It turns off automatically during a tool change, tool measurement, probing, pallet change, or door open. When you're in the coolant soft keys, there isn't one that says, "Cover Coolant Auto". Only "Cover Coolant On".

Dave, just curious, is this a Variaxis 500?

quote: Also note on our News and Events page that we have released VoluMill 3.0, which includes VoluMill for 3-axis roughing, and several enhancements to our 2-axis product.Damnit! I had a big chunk of change all set aside to buy the fancy In-House Variaxis post in a few months, and now you throw this at me. The 3 axis roughing product looks outstanding.