I'm not familiar with that model the Fadals usually have a CNC88 control. Drip feeding is no trouble, Just type DNC at the manual promt and away you go. The machine is always listening to the serial port so you can even have DNC as your first line of code and the machine will go into DNC mode automatically. The machines are somewhat strange in that home "HO" is in the middle of travel X and Y and all the way up in Z. I've only run one sporadically so I cant comment on how good the machine is or not. Allan

The handshake method will depend on your cable type. The fine folks over at Cimco have a cable guide here: Cable Guide The baud rate setting can also be confirmed at the Fadal by going into manual mode type HO [enter] then type SETP [enter] I think its on the second page. The settings you have don't conform to the standards in my opinion, usually you will see: stop bit 2 parity even 7 data bits 9600 baud rate or stop bit 1 parity none 8 data bits 9600 baud rate The other settings: flow control This is the flow control type either software hardware or none (I've only ever seen none used on a very old Dynapath) enable dtr enable rts These show up in software handshake you should not have to change the default setting (used to start the transmission from the PC when the control does not send a XON to start transmission) check parity Leave it off xon charactor xoff character These settings allow you to change the control characters (characters sent buy the control and PC (but not viewable) to conduct software flow control) HTH Allan

There is no sync command, it's all about where you start from in Z. To do a double start thread you start 1 pitch away in Z from the first cut. Allan

quote: What choice do I have but to move the old geo to a different level, and bring in the new geo place it, just so my paths don't go dirty, just so I can see what they did with what geo they made with. Rick, have you tried the change recognition in the file menu? It should save you some steps.

John, since I don't work for CNC software, perhaps that is a question you should ask them. [email protected] Hey, I have a 25Mb UG file and when I open it in Mastercam it is 400Mb what gives?

In a John Lennon voice: I'm not saying that Mastercam is better or more popular than other software, I'm just saying As for your files growing huge, parametric surfaces will do this when translated around they leave copies of the trims blanked in the original position. This tends to make the files grow huge quick. Where does your geometry originate?

Hey; we could have the kind of troubles that powermill users have, here's a quote from their forum: quote: I am running a dual 64 bit Opteron with 64 bit XP Pro. Nvidia Quadro FX graphics card SATA RAID drives 10 gig of ram I am getting the "PowerMILL has almost run out of memory. It may crash or become unstable. Break has been set." I am working on a large project with alot of pattern machining. I am only doing 3 pattern cuts at a time. I then empty the patterns, delete the tools paths and the NC programs and also empty the trash can after every set of 3 cuts. I do about 4 or 5 sets of cuts like this and PowerMILL craps out. It did this when I only had 4 gig of ram. So we thought we needed to add more ram, so we did. Windows reports that I now have over 10 gig of physical ram. Adding more RAM didn't help a DAMB thing Evil or Very Mad What gives here? Confused 10 Gigs 'o' RAM is not enough.

On a fanuc: G71 = canned roughing cycle no good for threading G70 = canned finishing cycle no good for threading G76 = canned threading cycle G32 = box style threading cycle (no support for taper thread) and you need to program the retract and rapid to front of part. G92 = Box threading cycle (no support for taper thread) returns to start position and remains modal untill canceled by a G01 or G00 depth cuts are just X values. Fanuc should support the E for feed rate, the E value is good to 6 decimal places (usefull for threads where accuracy is important like 18TPI E.055555) If the E gives an alarm use an F in it's place. Hope that helps Allan

JZR; You'll want to use the NestingAR_Designer.exe that you'll find in your C:mcamxnestingreports folder it will allow you to customize how the report comes out. I just checked and there is a field for SHEET-NC-FILE. Allan

Simon, call into In House Solutions the Mastercam dealer for your area 519-658-1471 and ask for support. Snehal would be happy to help. Allan

Could be done in the post something like: code: plinout #Output to NC of linear movement - feed if (nextx$ <> x$) & (nexty$ = y$) & (cutpos2$ = 1 | cutpos2$ = 4), subout = 1 if (nextx$ = x$) & (nexty$ <> y$) & (cutpos2$ = 1 | cutpos2$ = 4), subout = 1 pcan1, pbld, n$, sgfeed, sgplane, `sgcode, sgabsinc, pccdia, pxout, pyout, pzout, pcout, `feed, strcantext, scoolant, e$ if subout$ <> 0, subout$ = 0 clearsub That should do it for simple moves where the leadout is parallel to x or y. It will however affect your ability to use subprograms.

So if I toolpath a line and extend the contour, I will expect 3 moves total, One for the lead in (joined with any extend I apply) one for the line and one for the lead out (joined with any extend I apply). These moves are seperate because in the NCI the first has start of contour information and the last has end of contour information. This is the way it is. If you want to force one move extend the geometry and use no lead in/out. The filter not only creates arcs where possible it also filters out co-linear moves, try breaking your line into many pieces with the filter on youll get three moves with it off youll get two plus however many pieces that you broke your line into.

Check that again, turning on the filter joins all co-linear moves. When using the extend contour option and a tangent lead in I get one lead in line move.

Turn your filter on; the only extra co-linear moves you will get are the lead in moves. They will not change that because that is where the comp occurs. It is not broken, there is nothing to fix IMHO. Allan

The tools I've seen are coolant pressure operated something like engraving tool Allan

You can easily run 300' of serial cable from your multi port hardware. If you already have DNC Max you just need to add 3 more ports to it. The problem with Grecko boxes are that they are expensive and do not give you any benifits, plus they run off of a floppy disk. Allan

1986 called they want your Grecko box back. Seriously, to get into the 21st century, you will want Cimco DNC Max, some multiport hardware (no need for switchbox) and some cable. Allan

The F address is limited to 3 decimal places on a Fanuc. The E supports 5 decimal places better for cutting threads like a 18TPI where you would get a less than perfect pitch using the F. If your machine truly does not support an E for thread feed rates then search in the post for stre in relation to feed and change it to strf. The mplmaster post has a switch in the post to allow for the change without changing the stre stuff. HTH Allan

Analyze, surfaces, set norms, pick all surfaces, done. This set your surface normals to the current construction plane.

You can scale the geometry and regen there should be no need to reselect anything. You could use a G Code editor, like Cimco edit and using the math functions scale the G Code file as an alternative Allan

Last time I saw that was on a Win 2000 OS. I thought it was just that guy's PC. Are you by chance running Win2K? Allan

I have seen this behavior before; Click in the box and use your arrow down/up key and you will be able to change the value. HTH Allan

That switch should do it for you. Here is the section that sets the format statement based on that switch: code: pdrlcommonb #Canned Drill Cycle common call, before if sav_dgcode = 81, [ result = newfs (two, zinc) if tap_feed = one & drillcyc$ = three, result = newfs (two, feed) #Tap feeds with 4/3 decimal places if drillcyc$ = three, drlgsel = fsg1(-ss$) + drillcyc$ * two else, drlgsel = fsg2(dwell$) + drillcyc$ * two #if initht$ <> refht$, drillref = zero #else, drillref = one if clearflg = one & clearstrt = zero, drillref = zero else, drillref = one prv_refht_a = c9k prv_refht_i = c9k prv_dwell$ = zero ] So as long as those conditions are met (tap cycle picked) it will use format statement 2. I see that you are using pitch feed as well, that uses fs2 2 and that should give you 4 decimal places, check the format statment used for pitch look for this: code: fmt F 2 pitch #Tap pitch (inches per thread) Also look at fs2 2

The output of G18 G19 is triggered by an arc in one of those planes. No arc in XZ or YZ no output of G18 or G19. Allan

Here is what I get with our 840D master post: code: M01 ;TOOL - 48 OFFSET - 48 ;ID THREAD - MIN. 1.0 DIA. INSERT - NTC-3L10I DIAMOF G54 G18 T48 D48 SETMS(1) S200 M4 G0 X1.5126 Z.2325 CYCLE97(.125,0,0.,-1.016,3.4885,3.4252,.2,0.,.1,0.,29,0.,5,1,4,1) HOME M5 M30 That control also has graphical programming where you fill in the blanks and it creates the code. Allan