I do not understand the sentence "I apologize of the raffale of my question this morning I am inspired". It is the word "raffale" which confuse me. As for your "double program" problem, that seems to be a post processor problem. I have not seen that problem before, and I have worked with a lot of wire post processors, so you should contact your local Mastercam dealer. Christian, post processor developer for CIMCO Integration, the Danish Mastercam reseller.

While CNC Software discourages the use of non-Intel processors for Mastercam, our experience is, that the AMD Athlon and Thunderbird processors work like a bliss. Anyone have 1 GHz PIII yet? I doubt that, since it is not for sale yet, but it might compare to a 850 MHz AMD Thunderbird in performance with Mastercam. We just bought three PC's with 850 MHz AMD Thunderbird processors for our own use (one of them slated for my use ), and they are cheaper than the fastest Intel PC's available (about 3/4 the cost IIRC). Christian Raebild, post processor developer and support technician for CIMCO Integration, the Danish Mastercam reseller.

Dave Thompson has the right answer, to a degree. On more recent PC's, the SSI_ACT variable has to be set to higher values. 100-255 on 200-400 MHz PII and PIII PC's seems to be my experience (from a few PC's, and the reports I have received from others). I do not know of anyone, who has made an Activator sim work on a PC faster than 400 MHz. You must remember, that all three values must be the same. Christian Raebild, post processor developer and support technician for CIMCO Integration, the Danish Mastercam reseller.

When updating with Uptxt8.dll, beware the drilling cycles! Some of the drilling variables come out with different values in version 8, having been changed from incremental to absolute values or vice versa. This problem seems practically nonexistent with Fanuc and Okuma style posts, while Heidenhain post tend to go haywire (in my experience). One pervasive change is this: The variable fr held the correct feedrate when the driliiung cycle was reached in v7, but in v8 it holds teh value -2 (for feedrate unchanged). If the post processor uses the fr variable in drilling cycles, you will wish to change it to the frplunge variable (and remeber to check the format statement). Christian Raebild, post technician for CIMCO Integration, the danish Mastercam reseller.

MC 7.3? No such bird, you must mean MC 7.2c. As for your printing problem, if you are using Windows NT with SP5 or SP6, Windows 98 or Windows 2000, then it is probably your printer driver that is giving you trouble. Try downloading the latest driver for your OS. That has helped a number of our customers. Christian, from CIMCO Integration, the danish Mastercam reseller.

I have seen the same problem, but have not reported it so far, as I have not been able to determine a reproducible sequence demonstrating it. My experience so far is, that this problem only occurs, if you change post processors, and either your post processor path or your MC8 paths include one or more spaces in the directory names. However, the problem does not occur every time those conditions are met, so there must be more to it than that. So, returning to the old DOS style 8 character directory names should resolve the problem . Hopefully, the problem will be tracked down and resolved for version 8.1. Maybe it has, I have not seen the problem occur in version 8.1 beta 2 or beta 3, but then, I have not had much time to test those betas. Christian, post processor developer for CIMCO Integration, the danish Mastercam reseller.

The 'fr' variable is only one of the problems introduced by the changes in the drilling NCI data. This feedrate problem can be solved by replacing the 'fr' variable with the 'frplunge' variable in the drilling cycles in the post processor. You may also need to change the format statement for the 'frplunge' variable. If you cannot do the change yourself, you should contact you Mastercam reseller. Or I could make the change, but I would need your post processor, in order to make a quote.

Overwrite the MFC42.DLL file found in your Mcam8 directory with the latest version. Thas has solved the problem at a number of our customers. Christian, Support and Post technician at CIMCO Integration, the Danish Mastercam reseller.

Babelfish translates that message as: ------------------------------------ if you speaks French enters in conctact with me its would please to me to be able to exchange I am on mastercam 7 wire and mastercam mill 8 mercy with the pleasure of speaks itself bye!! ------------------------------------ Babelfish has become better, but it is still far from perfect...

I have made post processors, which will do what you desire:-). However, that is going to cost you some money (I do not have the price list on hand here at home):-(. Best regards Christian, post developer, from CIMCO Integration, the Danish Mastercam reseller.

Oops, I believe I forgot to report that bug to CNC Software. I have seen the same problem a number of times, and I believe I have identified the cause of the problem. If I have correctly identified the cause of the problem, the problen is, that the working directory (or working directories) is/are reset to the root of the working drive (the N: drive on the PC I use at the office), unless the directory and file names comply with the DOS 8.3 format. Christian Raebild, from CIMCO Integration, the Danish Mastercam dealer. PS: Will the administrators of this forum forward this message to Mastercam Support, or must I do that manually, when I get to work tomorrow? [This message has been edited by craebild (edited 10-11-2000).]

There seems to have occurred a misunderstanding about pricing somewhere. The cimmc-pro translator can be bought for a one-time price (but IIRC that is more than US$ 125), but you will have to check the relevant homepage for more information (I do not remember the price). Most of our customers use IGES to transfer files from Pro/E to Mastercam, in my experience, that works well. Christian Raebild CIMCO Integration, the danish Mastercam dealer

Have you tried to give a negative finish allowance? That sometimes works. If that does not work, I would suggest, that you offset the relevant surfaces. You may have to edit the surface normals first.

With respect to the RAM allocations, in my experience, the database and toolpath allocations should be set to tousands of "binary-straight' figures for best perfomance, i.e. one of the values 4000, 8000, 16000, 32000, 64000, 128000, etc. Also, even formmakers rarely need database allocations above 32000, the toolpath allocation should often be much higher than the database allocation.

Have you updated the post with the Uptxt8.dll C-Hook? What type of control is the post for?

We have delivered several post processors for 5 axis laser machines, including some with weird structures (i.e. asymmetrical heads and offset axes).

Mainly doing 4 axis mill-turn and 5 axis milling posts, but I am also doing phone support :[ and 2½-3 axis posts . I work for CIMCO Integration, the Danish Mastercam reseller.

We have a working a post processor for Charmilles Wire EDM machines with Fanuc controls. Charmilles machines with Charmilles controls are lots of trouble, though. Christian Raebild