Shoot everybody else.

Greg: I think it is just the nature of the forum for folks to discuss problems and that's why you see the discussions weighted that way. Most of my issues have been related to importing from other programs like Rhino. I still have issues but they are better handled in X than in 9. Also, there are great features in X that you just stumble across that never get mentioned in the forum because they just work. For instance, how many people know that Mill X now allows Tabs, which used to be only available in Router? I say jump into X and don't look back! PBPaul

Thanks Thad and Paul, but it looks like I'm gonna have to remove X and reinstall. I tried the SP1 Update1 again, just for the heck of it, and I got dumped out of Windows all together. The computer restarted and gave me the blue screen with the disk checking and a bunch of truncated files and all that. Once the dust settled, the computer still worked, which is the nice part!

Hmmmm, Thad. I got the screen shot but then it hit me that I have to jump through some hoops, don't I, to put it on a host website????? I'll see if I can figure that out.....never done it before. Thanks- PBPaul

First try, computer crashed. Second try, got "Error 1620. This installation package could not be opened. contact the application vendor to verify is this is a valid Windows Installer Package. Dll files still says 10.0.14.19 MCXstart file still says 1.2.0.207 Now when I run Mastercam X, I get an Error Report Dialog box (can't copy and paste) with no option but a green check box. Any suggestions? Thanks- PBPaul

I don't have engraving but am curious anyway. What is it that it doesn't do in X? Is it totally dead and hopeless? I've done some ordinary text cutting but have never been able to justify the cost of the engraving package in my pea brain. PBPaul

What version?

Ted: I can give you a couple of suggestions. 1. If you save a Rhino drawing as an IGS and then convert it into Mastercam, you lose your Rhino layer names. This makes us want to open Rhino drawings directly rather than have the IGS step. 2. If you open a Rhino drawing directly with Mastercam X, you get the original Rhino levels including names, which is great, but there is a hitch. Whatever was in the first level in Rhino gets combined with whatever was in the second level and the original first level gets dropped. In other words, if you had 7 levels in the Rhino drawing, you'll only have 6 after opening it in Mcam X. All your geometry is there, but whatever geometry was in your first Rhino layer will now be found along with whatever geometry was in your second Rhino layer. The way to work around this is to never put any geometry in that default "0" layer in Rhino and just know it will get dropped when you open the drawing in Mastercam. Geometry in "1", "2", and so forth will come throught fine, as will their names. 3. When you go from Autocad to Rhino, any layer switched off in Autocad does not show up in Rhino. However, when you go from Rhino to Mastercam, all geometry comes thru regardless of whether a layer in Rhino is switched on or off. 4. If you draw a simple arc in Rhino and then offset it, the offset is not an arc. It is a NURBS spline. So, when you machine the two in Mastercam, your NC file will be very simple for the first and (in my case, anyway) not very simple for the second. Best way we've found to get around this to to use the Rhino "Convert" command to convert the offset back to an arc prior to sending anything to Mastercam. Hope this helps- PBPaul

Well, I've jumped through so many hoops with trying to get from Autocad to Rhino to Mastercam and from Autocad to Rhino and from Rhino to Mastercam and......anyway, here is what it might be. Autocad is really in inches only when it's units is set for Architectural. There is a specific setting for Metric, I know, but if you are just set for "decimal", for instance, it can be decimal in Fathoms or Lightyears or whatever is in your own mind. Then it is left up to the program that is opening the drawing to decide what it is and in your case, it is defaulting to something you don't want. That is my guess and I'm sticking to it!!! PBPaul

....anybody?

Thanks- I fiddled with it over the weekend, tried and tried but I never could actually fix it! I'm curious, too, if it is just me or is this happening to others, too? Thanks- PBPaul

Yes, I can do that and it works but I'm at a loss as to why my Min Z defaults to a value .25 deeper than my deepest Z cut. When I verify, I go to the "Configure" button and it brings up a "Verify Options" page. Right there, whatever value I had specified for Feed Plane (on the contour parameters page) shows up as Max Z. Yet if I've specified a Cut Depth of -.5, why does my Min Z show up as -.75? No matter what I specify for a cut depth, the bottom of my Verify Block is defaulted to .25 below that depth. So either I've got to go in and manually change it every time or live with Verify always showing .25 of material left that really isn't there. I've tried a bunch of options but have not been able to find out where/why this is happening. Is it just me?!?!? Thanks- Paul

VERY GOOD, Mark. This thread will be worth a million bucks to someone else (maybe even me) some day!!! PBPaul

Mark? You know something about this?!?!?!

A real shot in the dark but along the same lines as suggestion from Italian Stylin, be sure you don't have duplicate entities sitting on top of each other that you cannot see. We had someone send us a file once that was full of that sort of stuff. PBPaul

Hope someone has figured this out. Say I cut a simple 2d contour. My Feed plane is at abs .25, top of stock is 0, and depth of cut is -.5. When I verify, I let Mastercam come up with a size for the stock block and the "Stock Setup" button is selected. For Z max, it defaults to .25, which is my Feed Plane. For Z min, it defaults to .25 below whatever my cut depth is. If I cut -.25, there is always .25 left showing. In other words, it always makes the verify block .25 deeper than I'm cutting. I'd like to eliminate that .25 without having to select corners or tell it every time. Any thoughts? Thanks- PBPaul [ 10-07-2005, 12:29 PM: Message edited by: PBpaul ]

I think you run Windows Explorer and click on Tools, then Folder Options, then the tab that says File Types, and on that page, you can change the default program that opens a given file type. PBPaul

I have to agree that Maintenence has rubbed us the wrong way. I don't like the concept of it or the price of it. Still, I went with the flow and did it for 2 years, just a blind faith thing. Now I have the benefit of being able to look back and sorta scratch my head and think about how smart that was! As far as X in general, there is no question that it is an improvment over 9. It'll take some time to warm up to, but there are improvments to be found on just about any page. We do a fair amount of Surface Rough Pocketing, for instance. I found a little box under Depth Cuts that says "Keep Top Cut at Max Stepdown." It's great. I'm reminded of when Autocad changed its interface from "DOS-ish" to Windows-ish" 10-plus years ago. There were improvements but also lots of issues. One of the biggest was printing on Windows system printers and plotting on pen plotters. I expect Mastercam is feeling the same temporary pain and it must be a real challenge. PBPaul

Simoneau: As a starting place, go to Settings, then Configuration, select Screen, and be sure "Show Tool Tips" box is checked. PBPaul

specv: It seems like every different toolpath has it's own little quirks. Some allow containment, for instance, and others don't. One we used a lot in ver 9 used step-over but in X uses step-down. Using a ball end cutter, one does fine on nearly vertical surfaces but poorly on nearly horizontal ones. I've gotten nowhere with Surface Project or Scallop but have gotten some good-looking toolpaths with Surface Project Blend. You just have to fiddle and keep notes! Paul

specv: Just a couple of thoughts. We use rough and finish surface pocket toolpaths all the time. However, we're not actually cutting obvious pockets, as you have described, rather using the pocket toolpath option to create toolpaths on a given surface. This is all in Mill3, BTW, and the key word is surface. You gotta pick a surface to use these toolpaths. If you just define a 2x2 pocket with 4 contour lines and then pocket it, that isn't the same, of course. Anyway, bottom line is, when you use the rough surface option, there is an option to leave a given amount of material, which we do, and then for the finish surface option, we leave nothing. Make sense? PBPaul

Pete: Yes, you are correct about their offset being a NURBS spline and I wrote them about it late yesterday afternoon. They said they would put my request (that if you offset an arc then the offset should be an arc too) on the "Wish List." Here is what's crazy, though. If you just open a Rhino drawing in X, the offsets come in as NURB splines. If you save the Rhino drawing as an IGS and then convert it with X, the very same NURB Spline offsets show up in X as arcs. For the time being, it makes the most sense for us to convert these NURB Splines to arcs, as you suggested, in Rhino. That lets us keep opening Rhino drawings directly with X rather than having the IGS save/convert in there, which messes up our levels/layers. That problem, I believe, is probably in X, and I understand that it is being looked into. Thanks for the assistance- PBPaul

Thanks, Pete: I still don't have it clear in my head what is happening but I know it wasn't a problem until X. However, in Ver 9 we were routinely saving our Rhino drawing as IGES and then letting Mastercam convert them to mc9. It may be that because I am now just opening Rhino drawings directly in X rather than converting then from IGES that this arc thing has popped up. The reason I was opening directly in X rather than converting from IGES in X is because of how levels/layers were being lost. We talked about that in another thread and is still an issue. Thanks for looking into this for us. PBPaul

savagkd: We cut a small amount of MDF for templates and such and use a 2-flute carbide insert mill. These can be flipped once. They work fine, but don't last too long and I'm not real happy with the fact that they won't let you plunge. Let me know what you find out. PBpaul

Here is another question/problem I am having with Rhino. I draw an arc in Rhino and then offset it. In Rhino, both are just simple arcs. That is to say, the original is just a simple arc and so too is the offset. Now I open the Rhino in Mastercam and more often than not, the original arc is still just a simple arc (and machines as such) but the offset is a NURBS Spline and if I machine it, it is tons and tons of tiny straight line segments and tiny arcs. I know I can filter the toolpath, but my question is, why isn't my offset just another simple arc? This was not an issue in Ver 9. Hopefully, I just have a setting somewhere out of whack. Any suggestions? Thanks- Paul