thats the one. so i guess i have to use alt-t everytime i start a new file? or everytime i start a new session of mastercam?

not that one. i mean the one in the toolpath config page. there is the switch to have the generated toolpaths showing all the time or not showing at all.

Where did they hid the repaint toolpath button in X9? i can not for the life of me find it and i can't seem to find anything on here either so i am asking the all mighty furum members for some help. this is driving me crazy. i don't like all those extra lines on my screen when i don't need too. Thanks

you could get a haas table with a stand alone control box and either control it with spare M codes or just put pause in program and then press button on haas control to index to next rotation then continue program. not expensive but not cheap either. but they are a good stand alone system.

don't use silicone use a marine sealant. the chemicals in silicone will rust the machine. use SICAFLEX marine sealant. it is made for underwater sealing and will not cause rust. it stays soft and flexible and is made to live underwater. so it lasts forever. it is what the machine builders use when they build the machines.

what rpm do you have? I would spin it around 40000rpm and .001" per tooth feed. that is router speeds. hope you done have too many pockets to cut. and make sure to hook up a shop vac for the dust if its in a regular cnc.

I have a job in house that we do 5-6 times a year. 6 part numbers very similar just change drill and tap to drill and c-bore kind of changes. we do 100 pieces of each when we run them. at first I did them old school with inserts and then finish with 4 flute carbide. cycle time was 4.5 hours to cycle through all 5 operations. but that was the way the boss did the job at his old company. cost us 1 edge per cycle on all the insert cutters in machine. next time we ran the job I was asked to see if I could speed it up any. so I only faced top and bottom with inserts and then I did the rest with 1/2" 4 flute carbide 3x long. 10% step over 3500rpm and 35 ipm. dropped the cycle down to 1.5 hours. the next time I made some more tweeks and changed to 5 flute OSG variable geometry 1/2" endmills still 3x long. but I changed to 7.5% step over and bumped the rpms to 4500 and the feed up to 90ipm. with that I was getting 15 part tool life and cycle time was down to 35 minuntes for the same 1 part through the whole cycle. I can not find any job in my shop on my machines that I don't save both time and tool cost by going to HSM. my boss just loves it. last time we ran the job we got a signed purchase order to keep parts in stock for the custumer. so we ran 4 times the order and put 3 in stock. well guess what? after we were done we paid for the whole lot, all 4 ordered, when they took the first order. so the next 3 orders are pure profit. the boss loved me for that one.

G187 controls both smoothness and rounding. P is smoothness and E is rounding. so it looks like this G187 P(1,2 or 3) E(.0001 to .200). at the end of the tool path you put in G187 and it clears any overrides you put in at begining

I finally got it. I forgot that I was not able to get 1/4" super extra long and had to get 6mm. after trying every switch in swarf tool path 1 at a time and nothing I remembered about the 6mm endmills. so I put everything back to how it was at first and changed tool size and reposted. and guess what? it was perfect. I guess swarf tool path does not like slamming into 90 degree corners with 1/8" radius in corner. as soon as I changed it to 6mm endmill all was fine. this was the first time ever I used swarf tool path and I love it. the boss loves it too. I saved 45 minutes on each part compared to how I had it programed before. now I just need to learn more about it and what I can and cannot do with this tool path.

how do I force feed rate on every line on a 5-axis swarf cut? I am using the generic has 5-axis post. I am thinking there is a switch in the post to turn that on but for the life of me I can't find it. also what do I set my max feed rate for inverse time to on this post? 999.99 or do I put it higher? I found reference to setting it to 99999.99 but I think it is giving me an error(331) in back plot on the control. thanks for the help

doesn't the control look the tool as on the left of the cut line or the right of the cut line relative to toolpath direction? therefore if you are chaining an inside cut going counter clockwise it would not matter if it is pointing up or down. it would still be G41 left cutter comp. now if you cut one counter clockwise and the other clockwise then they would change. but I could be wrong as I have not cut much work with a right angle head on a HBM. but I have cut with a right angle head on the left and the right which I would think would be the same as top and bottom.

I invested in a good one just a couple of years ago now. I got the NOGA universal mag base. I also got the NOGA flex arm for in a drill chuck. it has the best 1 knob adjustment ever. and you don't have to over tighten it to lock in in place. best money I ever spent. and not all that expensive either.

worst I saw was on one our larger Matsuuras. operator had to skim the new aluminum subplate. put in an 8" Hertel facemill and proceeded to hit the spindle forward button. but I guess you all can guess what happened next. last programmed spindle speed was 15k. 8" Hertel is only rated for 5k. all 8 inserts let go. every single one of them went through the sheet metal and bounced through the shop. 1 of them went through the exterior wall. through the garbage dumpster. and was found embedded in the steering wheel of the owners BMW. He got in his car at lunch and grabbed the steering to drive away and he found it. it had gone right through the car door and stopped in his steering wheel. the operator was the luckiest guy in the world. lucky it was on the biggest, therefore tallest, machine in the shop, and the spindle was at home position, so they flew right over his head. the flying inserts made a real nice sound bouncing through the shop. no one was hurt or even hit by any pieces. luckily. that was the worst I have seen.

are you using the same program to send and receive the programs? if not are your comm setttings the same? they need to be set correctly for it to send at all. if your program sends but you get errors at the control or the machine puts out an error when you run it then your program needs fixing. but if it will not even send then it is a setting issue in your communication program.

what about solid carbide feed mills? I have had really good results with the Kennametal feed mills. in the harder materials they last a long time. in softer stuff not so much.

that is your retract plan for a drilling cycle. so your drill will rapid to 10" above your part, then rapid to 3" and start drilling from there until it gets to -22" in your part.

I just finished a couple of 99.9% pure copper. I was running OSG Blizzard 3 flute 3/8" endmills. I was running at 12000rpm and 216ipm at 12.5% step over at 1" depth of cut. I ran 200 pieces at 20mins each and never changed the endmill. I think you can use the dynamic tool paths on anything. they are great time savers and tooling savers too. my boss loves it.

I have a job in house right now that is like that. drawing says one thing cad model says something else. on the drawing it says only dimensions on print are critical. all dimensions not on print are to be taken from model. but the model does not match print. not even close. what do you do then? I was told how did you get a model that does not match the print? um you gave it to me. totally lost. does not accept any responsibility at all. we ended up scrapping one part and having to remake it on their dime. had to change the model to match the print and remake it. we can never win.

I made one for our HAAS VM-6 to mount out chick vises. I used 2" 6061 aluminum plate. I put it on our boring mill and skimmed back side. then flipped it over and drilled and tapped and reamed all my mounting holes. then drilled and c-bored and reamed 6 holes for dowels. once we had it mounted and bolted down, I took a lite skim cut to true the top and that was it. now I can remove and reinstall and every vise is within .001". you wont be sorry for taking the time to do it right.

do a google search for bend allowance. that will explain it for you. but basically what you want is the length of the part long the middle of the thickness of the material. if you look at the length of the part along the inside and outside edges of the part you will see that they are not the same. so you need to offset the inside or outside of the part by half the thickness of your material. that will be the length of your blank before bending. there is a formula you will find online that will calculate it based on bend radius and the length of each leg of the bend. have fun. it is easy once you figure it out.

my shop tried it a few years ago and most of the stuff we bid on were false ads. we contacted the buyer direct and ask if they got our quote and how we did and we it would be awarded and they told us either they did not get our quote or they did not even place the request for quote on there. we never won any bids and never got any work from there. and just for poops and giggles we put in a bid that would have under cut anyone and everyone no matter how you quote it or even if you got material for free and you gave it away and still nothing. total waste of our time and money. we even made a few pieces to get any accurate price and cut it by half and still nothing. we were still highest bidder. as far as we could tell the rfq's on there were fakes and no one ever got any work from there. one of our local screw machine shops even tried bidding on some high volume screw machine parts and even they could not get anything. total scam as far as I see it. only people making money if MFG.com. and im not making any of this up. I did all the quotes and saw all the results and I was the one making the calls to buyers. nothing.

we just got a price on a new Matsuura 5 axis and the delivery is not any better than on the Haas. we got a quote of 5-6 months depending on the boat. and we were second in line for that model.

I need to do that when ever I put probing routine in my programs. the probing sub programs call up g103 p1 to cancel read ahead and when you run your program without canceling it they error out and will not run properly. so I put the g103 p0 after I call my probing and all runs fine.

you are looking for G103. type in G103 p1 and you get 1 line of code look ahead. t cancel type in g103 p0. sets it to unlimited.

I think its time to change coolant. only time I have seen it that bad is when coolant was no good. must be terrible coolant. your concentration must be way off and causing rust, causing your table to lift and pop the bolts. I put a coat of way lube on the table then bolt down the sub plate. and have real good coolant, and never had or seen that happen in 15 years. if the top of your table looks like that just imagine what it looks like under the way covers. that is caused by your coolant ph level being out off and the aluminum and cast table are causing a galvanic reaction, causing that rust looking stuff. not good. clean the machine real good, even under way covers, change coolant, maintain ph in coolant and the problem should go away.