With all due respect, I am pretty sure that I'm getting the best end of the deal not buying from these clowns again. Service isn't the only ball they dropped. Options are either go with Millenium or fly someone from Japan, which I confirmed with several independents. When you run the only game in town you get to treat customers like garbage.

Like the service manager for Millenium? I did, nothing.

Northeast. Service was through Millenium. As I said it was a used (very clean) machine, and the issues that needed service were of the standard everyday maintenance issues. Not chasing electrical gremlins or anything like that. Both techs that have serviced the machine could not operate it at all, one even had to ask me to jog the machine.

FWIW I have had nothing but issues with Mits service and support of the SX10 we purchased used. Service in your area may consist of more competent individuals, but I had issues dealing with the head office as well. I'm shopping for a new machine to replace the one on my floor, Mit's is not on my list at all.

It's going be to difficult to get a true comparison between the two as finding people that actually make use of each softwares capability is going to be tricky. Most folks are comfortable with one environment, and are used to it's ecosystem. They might change jobs, but are by and large going to be hired based on their experience in the system that they are familiar in. Most larger companies won't ditch their investment in a particular system unless it's *really* burned them, as the cost of switching goes well beyond just the software itself. Most folks are only going to know one system, and that's why all they have is an opinion. Talk to people that do the kind of work that you do, find out what they use and why. Sometimes it's that one software was a better deal, sometimes it's that one had the one feature that *they* couldn't live without. Sometimes it's an industry specific thing.

Not going to reasonably happen. 4340 is going to harden like hell at the cut in the case of laser. Assuming you could find someone with a powerful enough machine, I'd guess that the HAZ would be pretty deep. I don't know of any 5 axis machines is the power range that would be needed, so you'd have a "significant" draft, holding .010 off finish won't happen over the entire face. We have issue here with ~.08-.104 4340 getting hard enough to rip the threads off a tap when they insist on lasering the holes. The poor edge finish beats up carbide if you try to use that to clean it out. It's not something I would start with if I wanted to wind up with nice gear teeth. Your options are pretty much tilting head waterjet, Wire EDM, or just machine from barstock if available.

Because a taper mill does not describe the shape accurately. I believe the end mill in question has a taper leading from the cutter dia to the shank dia. It's this taper that is trying to be modeled. To the OP, I just make the shoulder dia such that it extends into the actual flute area. Doesn't work when you need every last little bit out of the cutter though.

Currently you can smoke in most areas of the our shop (nowhere in the office). Exceptions are the powder coat room, deburring, and the machine shop/toolroom. The toolroom is a personal option, but none of us in there smoke. We have a fairly open policy, but it's also with the understanding that abuse will lead to it being taken away. Personally I could give a #@$!, I quit 8 or 9 years ago, and as long as someone isn't blowing smoke in my face it doesn't effect me much.

Maybe look at your 3D Connexion drivers, or try removing it and the drivers completely. Sometimes you can get some bizzare interactions between certain things and USB. Strip back as much as possible and then add till you get the problem back.

For bent parts, solidworks will do almost everything you need. It will not "unemboss", or "unstamp" complex contoured geometry, although there are several add ins that will do just that. One thing to remember is that just as important as the software is it's setup and config. Different bending tools will have different results making the same or similar bends. Different materials will also effect things. No matter what anyone tells you there is always adjustments needed to what the software spits out. As for converting a solid to sheetmetal in SW, I do it all the time. Funky embosses or whatnot will break it, but with some creativity you can get around it. Delete the problem faces back to a simple surface, then thicken back to get a sheet with thickness. Then apply the conversion to sheet metal. Be careful when doing this that the thickened sheet matches the geometry you want, you can get into trouble with curved bent edges.

It depends on many factors, but a lot depends on how accurate you want the final result to be, and what radius the bends are at. Vanilla Solidworks has functions that fold/unfold models, and allow you to chose different bend radii and other material properties that govern the behavior of a bend. Then there are fancier add on modules that let you go further, unfolding more complex geometry and flattening more complex 3d forms. If it's a simple box part, you can take a test strip of a known length, and then bend it with the tooling you will use, then measure the resultant "L" on the outside to see how material will react and then draw the appropriate shape.

This is exactly the problem I mentioned in another thread. I know you mean well but PLEASE STOP. You don't know. CNC software didn't tell you, and if they did, you aren't supposed to pass it on. In the absence of actual info from the company producing the software, you put the only piece of info on this board about why it was pulled. Stop adding to a train of misinformation (however well intended).

"got an example of this? We test, We submit, We suggest, thats it. We have no influence on what gets fixed. " No, they build expectations in the users who aren't able to see it. I never said anything about influencing what gets fixed.

"kudos to CNC for pulling X6 for repairs, just wish they would have put a notice with a "slight" explanation on their website." This +100. They spend an awful lot of time preparing people and sending out press releases to dealers about the software coming. Roll out events, etc etc. That's great but taking care of customers means keeping them informed about the good and the bad. I have a bunch of folks waiting on me for upgrades to other software which cannot proceed without MCAM. I can't tell them anything because no one communicates what that actual status of the product is. The only thing I can do is due diligence trying to get the software to misbehave before I move it into full rotation. I thought the beta testers were supposed to do this? With all due respect to the help given by some of the beta testers, you guys probably would do more help actually keeping quiet about things. It may be in your best intentions, but you make comments on a public forum that build expectations. You have to consider that you are the ONLY source of info and how people might interpret this.

Sort of, each high speed path will use one core independently. Only high speed paths though, and no way to use multiple cores for one path. Provides an advantage when you have multiple high speed paths that need regeneration.

Not super familiar with the alloy but would it be possible to normalize and then re heat treat to relieve the stress?

We are an SW shop, and I have used it for ~10 years. I do all my tool design in Solidworks, I can't be bothered using MC's geometry creation to draw something unless it's exceptionally simple. There are things that SW can do that MC can't (as far as I know) such as relating features between parts in an assembly. SW can have features dependent on features in another part, IE clear holes in one part are related to the position of tap holes in another. Move the tapped hole and the clear hole moves with it. Likewise I use a lot of the mold tools in SW in a similar way. Making a cavity (I know you can use boolean ops in MC) in SW which is dependent on the shape of the original part, and will change if you change the original geometry. While these things can be worked around, as with most stuff it's a matter of time, which of course is a matter of money.

I use dynamic X form on almost every part I import from SW. MCX5, Win7. No issue whatsoever, graphics card is a Quadro 600.

Thanks, much appreciated!

To anyone running both, can X5 open native 2011 .SLDPRT files?

I run X4MU3 on a Parallels VM at times. Works well.

+1 on the bent pins. CF cards have a LOT of tiny pins, and these do wear out. I've had a lot of issues with crappy USB card readers going long before the cards themselves. If you can read and format the card on a PC, and verify that you have files there, it's probably on the other end.

Bah, it took out the bracketed ctrl's. Make that ctrl-c and ctrl-v

I just select what I want, hit -C, go to the new sketch, part whatever and -V.

Save before verify, and check drill points.