I always program my 5 axis parts as solids so guess I am doing the impossible huh? I'm glad to hear you can use solids. Can you tell me how solids work with the 5-axis toolpaths as compared to surfaces? Do you have to deal with cut directions and normals?

if you really don't need 5 axis motion, Surface Finish Blend is a great path in many of these scenarios. For the most part I can get away with 3-axis toolpaths but the parts I deal with have a lot of small detail down in deep pockets up againt walls and the only what to get down in there with a small tool is by tilting the tool and that means 5-axis.

Which is better for multiaxis toolpaths solids or surfaces? I don't have a solids package so I'm forced to use surface models generated from iges files. When I use a 5-axis flowline the cut directions are all mixed up and the toolpath displays an error. My models are so complicated I can't manually select each surface and adjust the cut direction. I'm thinking that a solid model would not have this problem?

Does anyone know who leases 5-axis CNC milling machines? We are in Texas.

Thanks that did it worked great!

make sure your surface normals are correct Can I check them in MC?

I have been playing around with the multiaxis features in Mastercam X but I ran into a problem with trimmed revolved surfaces. The tool just ignores them and cuts right through. When I replace the revolve surfaces with nurbs surfaces everything works fine. The 3D part was converted from an iges file and it comes in as trimmed revolved surfaces. So does the multi axis feature require only nurbs? Do solids work better? Correction: It doesn't like trimmed surfaces of any kind.

Hom much has Mastercam X4 5-axis improved over Mastercam X? Is it worth upgrading?

Seriously though, you need to give a much more detailed explanation of the type of parts you're making (size, shape, tolerance) and the volumes they are going to be made in for anybody to give a good recommendation. The type of parts I program are prototype parts for chain saws and other yard care products. I make everything from aluminum crankcases to carb adapters from a variety of different materials. Tolerance are not bad because they are prototypes and anything critical is done on the manual machines. The engineers do like good finish quality and these parts have lot of small pockets that are deep with tiny radii and it's difficult to get small endmills down in those deep pockests and avoid walls. A 5-axis has become a must. As far as shapes go these parts have a lot of sculptured 3D surfaces and are as odd shaped as it gets. They don't lend themselves to simple programming. Hope that helps.

The shop I program at is looking into buying a 5-axis Milling machine to do very complex parts. We currently have Mastercam X MR1 SP2. I have never used the multiaxis feartures so I don't know how good they are. Can someone recomend a good 5-axis preferably with it's own software?