OR words to that effect. I admit that I am troubled by the talk of war. Memories flood back, unexpectedly... more powerful than I would like. I have lay bare a bit of my inner self and this act makes me unsure. If I had to change jobs today I would have to face my old dilema.... do I risk saying I am a Vet and that I served in Vietnam. I wonder if saying the same on this forum has damage me. I wonder how many other Combat veterans there are on this forum.... that have kept silent for the same reason.

Feeling patrotic, proudly serving your country. These issues get lost when you are the one getting shot at, survival becomes the only item on the menu. I can still remember the smell of the jungle, dirt, gunpower, sweat.... death. The odor that fills the air from the body parts of a person that moments before stood near you.... But then again, I can still hear, "Baby killers" shouted by the demonstrators. The deepest, longest lasting memory.... Being blamed for the conflict in Vietnam by the Nation I fought for... its people and its government. When this war begins and the battles or conflicts become prolonged, will the Nations interest and support wane? Will this generation of soldiers face hardships when the get home? I hope not.

As a Vietnam vet my view on this is twisted. My vision is clouded by the lies during the 60-70-80-90's. The situation in the mid-east seems to change every few years... for a while the Shaw of Iran is out best bud, even though he was cruel to his own folks, even Sadam stood in our light of acceptance.... when he "served" our purpose. To the residents of the mid-east..."I understand your confusion." The United States does not seem to have a "steady" policy toward other nations (third world) It does appear when viewed from outside the US that our policies seems to change depending on who can give the biggest bribe or benifit.... not on the policies and principals that we claim to have founded our nation....... We talk out of both sides of our mouth, at times I am embarrased to be an American. Sadam, perhaps must go. A single 50 cal from half a mile would have been less fuss.

Hey Steve.... mine is 2-'50. Hope that doesn't make me the eldest. Been thinking about retirement a lot more lately!

I have a Novamill and a Novaturn. My best advice..."Stay away". I have had several problems with the machines, get lots of promises to update software etc. The novamill came with a damaged lexan shield, this almost 1 year to replace and the replacement arrived broken. The working envelope is small and only 2 T-slots on mill bed (toward one side). We were going to purchase 6-12 machines for teaching laboratories, but have changed plans. I did a search on web for desk top CNC's and found almost all of them lacking. We are going to use Haas, Milltronics, or someone elses small frame machine. Advantage.... working space, tool changes, standard tool holders, local support, posts available...ect. The Haas minimill for 30K is 4 or 5 times the machine the novamill is. If you are still determined togo the desk top route see web page for good comparisons.

I was just old enought to get draftd during the height of our conflict in Vietnam 1968, remembering that the "ideal" draft age was 18. I remember the day I registered for the draft, back in the old county draft board days..... way before the lotery...... anyway the day I registered with the draft board I was #5 on the list. I ask what that meant.... (stupid, sheltered, unworldly farm lad). They said it would be 1-6 weeks before I would be drafted! Thought about becoming Canadian, but felt it was my obligation to serve. In retrospect, those that moved to Canada got the better deal. During the Regan years he cut college financial aid for all veterans..... down to zero.... automatically disquallified... removed vetrans preference for federal jobs, and smiled as he gave us the finger. This left a lasting impression. The situation has only improved slightly, the VA is waiting for most of us that were sprayed with agent orange to dye off before accepting responsibility. If they were honest now the country couldn't afford the expense.....don't know how many times I have felt "Doing the right thing by serving my country" has screwed me. I used to quip that I had been killed in Nam.... just waiting around to dye! Sorry for the soap box whine..... some days things just get to me.

Bullines... would that be endothermic or exothermic? Maybe both followed by blue smoke that smells of ozone!

Another machine that falls into the same price/performance range is Milltronics. I would like Kitamura, but the $$$ keep me away. Both Haas and Milltronics support education discounts, although the conversations about Milltronics are few compaired to Haas.... most of the content has been positive. web page

Mike as it stands right now we us Solidworks, Pro-E, unigraphics for almost all drawings/modeling . We do mostly solid modeling, analize stress, motions etc. Sometimes, we actually make the part then we turn to Mastercam. Next year the sophmore level class will go from concept to manufacture with a small 2-part injection mold... probably modeled in Solidworks or Unigraphics..... As silly as it sounds we have very little in the way of formal training for any of the modeling packages we use. The students are given an assignment, go to one of the computer labs and basically beg anyone with knowledge to help them learn........ I really want to see this change but most of the senior profs have not CAD or CAM skills so this is a slow row to hoe! Just started making/asking/forcing one grad student to provide solidworks training sessions for all students in my 200 level course.... maybe it will catch on!

Duh, just re-read your post. If you want to get 1>1 on screen.... just hold an ruler up to the screen and approximate the length using pageup-pagedown till it looks about right.....

I have output 1-1 stuff. Main menu>Screen>next menu>Plot - Once in there you can change parms, etc., to get 1>1 output. give it a try.

Thanks Jim... it finally makes sense. You'd think the machine tool builders would see the value in marketing full featured machines. Having the features built into the control but hidden (turned off) seems short sighted to me.... the few extra bucks they make by turning them on or the money spent inventing way to keep the "machine owners" from turning the features on; is surely lost.... When everyone complains about how worthless this or that machine is! Now I get it.....

Thanks, I think i'm getting it now. If you look at option packages, there are things like coordinate rotation/scaling, helical interpolation, thread milling, etc. I know these things can be done in MC. What seems confusing is..... the difference in "upgrading" to control to be able to do this operations at the "control" vs. not upgrading the control with the options and doing the operations inside Mastercam..... maybe I'm not getting it!

Maybe my question was a little too sketchy. In general there are lots of available machine options/add-ons. If most of the programing is done with Mastercam vs. at the control is it necessary to have all the control add-ons to get the functionality. Rigid tapping may have been a poor example - so you are saying no matter where you program control or MC if the option/add-on isn't purchased it isn't available?

If you have a program with say "rigid tap", do the tool path, post it and then send it to the machine...... will every control "react" to this G-code in a predictable way? I'm really trying to understand machine control options vs. Mastercam. If I program it, can I run the code even though the machine control "option" may not have been purchased? Trying to spec out a new machine and all the options packages..... well, it confuses me. This should be simple, but do these machine options affect programing at the control only or do the affect control programing and imported code?

We have a Denford, actually 2... a novamill and novaturn. They look nice sitting on the table, but I would not recommmend them. Support from Denford USA has been unacceptable, they were supposed to replace DOS based control software as per contract but kept dragging their feet... finally got an early version of their Windows mill software with a promise to replace when their "final version" is ready (still waiting, BTW they have not provided Win software for my lathe yet). That was almost 2 years ago. The sales guy occasionally sends an email asking if we are ready to buy more machines. Support is bad, I thought they may be working out of a garage somewhere in Ohio. Maybe other have had better experiences with Denford, but I'm not likely to buy another! Try this site Desktop CNC

I did a web search and found them in Clearwater Florida. I'm guessing it's like a lot of things, shiney new box, inviting ads and hype.... and then you open the box and find the truth........ doesn't do what it claims... they way it claims. Maybe not an outright lie....but it feels like it just the same!

Just trying to get to 50 posts...... not. Your casting is probably a Magnesium alloy... although some of the properties of Magnesium are retained the alloying process has probably changed the chemical properties of the material. It is certaintly not as reactive, and depending on the alloy it could be difficult to ignite. Without knowing the alloy caution is always the best choice.

Should be Mg + 2(H2O) = Mg(OH)2 + 2H + Heat of reaction

To balance Bullines formula...... Mg + HH0 = Mg(OH*OH) + 2H The hydrogen molecule is the devel in the mix... add a little oxygen from the room and Kaboom (course a heat/spark source is required) and don't under estimate static electricity as a spark source.

24th corps patch....... kind of rare. web page

Duh! I guess I can't spell.... thing should be THINK

Happy vets day to all my fellow Vietnam brothers , and those that have served in other conflicts. As with every Veterans Day.... since I became a vet, I'm working. I thing only vets should have Vetrans day off! ( I was 5th SF under the command of 24th Corps... Da Nang... spent most of my 2yrs in I corp with a few trips south... Parrots beak region to help some Big Red 1 boys)

You can find it on the MC patches or addins page, also on Rhino page. Works great.... be sure to get the right one for your op sys.

I use raster-vector frequently. I find it pretty easy and powerful. I pull logo's from web pages, do jpegs, etc. So far no problems....