The help in machine sim is one of the better help menus in mastercam. Go through the "creating a new machine".

Or update to X7. It has a solids hole-axis feature. (Verifsurf will do surfs as well however, and has more functionality)

Axis sub with dynamic works great. I believe current posts support inverse time with dynamic toolpaths. X5 era they didn't out of the box and needed some trickery to work. I might be able to dig up what I did to make it work, if you can't get inverse time out.

What Bob says there. It's all a matter of how much programming vs. running time you want.

Is there any technique with which I could finish VERTICAL walls and FLAT floors with the more traditional 2D method, but do it in a more automized manner (like opti with stock models)? Instead of assining chains (wireframe) - pointing the whole solid body and boundries?

You just described FBM to a T. I just looked at your file, and a guy I know who spent some time setting up FBM, would program that part in about 2 minutes. Yes it's probably 2x longer run time than picking and choosing geometry, but if you're making one part, it's a no brainer to use it. You could literally program dozens of these parts in a day. If your business consists of one-off parts like these, I'd give FBM some effort. If you do this type of part once in a while, I probably wouldn't bother and just program old school. Also FB drill is VERY VERY cool, even for just creating the operations. Again though, you have to spend some solid time setting up your FBM library. If you just try it out of the gate as-is, you probably will laugh at it. Personally, I do too many random jobs to use fbm, but I have seen what it can do when used properly.

Do you want a beautiful program that takes several hours to create, for about 10 minutes of cycle time, or a 5 minute program that has a 20 minute run time?

The h.s. horizontal finish toolpath is a slick way to finish everything flat very easily.

Howdy fellas, Rizzo here

Database and upload form are in my signature below.

Just a note, when data gets entered I have to manually go in and move it to the correct material grouping. I also make sure all the math formulas work (% signs and decimal placement cause problems). So you see your data entered and it doesn't quite look or work correctly, I go in about once a week and clean it up. If you'd like older data cleared or updated, just contact me and I can fix it.

hth

Geeze louise...

• Deflection is fair amount, floor was rather ratty but it was a cutout. With this engagement, your loading the whole length of the tool, not just the end. Much closer to the holder, and ideally almost on the shank vs. flutes.
  
• .015 for finish on walls was fine.
  
• Ran 15 parts, 3:30 (ish) cycle time each. Tool got a bit noisy, but didn't break. We actually were trying to break it, but ran out of parts. It didn't look bad however. (tool)
  

For aluminum, I was thinking of making a post with G00 instead of G01 :D

Fantastic software. Very good support. One click toolbar to pass from Mastercam back and forth.

10%, = .05

btw, great words up there Ron. If you don't mind, I'm going to tell some of that to my students. Are you going to be up in my area anytime? I've got a few ideas.

p.s. Fellas feel free to add some data to my spreadsheet (in signature link), thx!

Man, I gotta get some video of my turn-key demo.

• 1018,
  
• 1/2" tool, Sandvik Plura 4fl
  
• 1"doc
  
• 6500 rpm
  
• 650imp
  

Okuma OSP 200

We ran it up to the bleeding edge: 800ipm, but the toolpath was not consistent enough to maintain. Yes Mastercam dynamic's inherent flaw. Try morphing a square to a circle. The first several laps cutting corners you will get 4x-5x over engagement..fyi

If your not cutting aluminum hog-outs at 1000+ipm...well, you should be.

Create a simple solid (revolve) of what the first machine removes, then use that solid for stock definiton for second machine group. ? Maybe?

Stock as defined in the Operation manager -> Stock Setup? Check the "Stock View" setting.

My bad, yes it is still there. I kept thinking all the stock options were in the new stock setup window, and there was nothing left in the old place. I guess to get your stock correct you have to visit two totally seperate stock setup areas. Brilliant!

I'm stumped. Off to QC.

That's not in X7, unfortunately.

Am I missing something? My .stl as stock is rotated 90 degrees.

Hardinge markets Bridgeport under their name and also provide the option to get

an Okuma OSP control. They offer good support here in the states.

Fantastic OSP-200 control! The more I learn about it the more I'm amazed what it can do.

I use this machine alot for high-speed steel & aluminum work. Very quick and accurate. Price is very competitive. Linear guides.

I've run some original era Mori Duracenters, and the spindles had power, a bit fragile though. Not bad budget machine. Control was nothing fancy. I believe they also are linear guide ways now.

Check my database in signature below. .3 Stepover is way more that 10% of a .750 tool. I'd say that is your problem. Tool much heat in cutter. Also I'd increase our min toolpath radius to something like 20% or more. Stepover even less than 10 may be necessary.

EDIT: I see your second toolpath in that file with the adjusted stepover. That looks better. Still watch the min-radius.

Actually the dynamic chaining in x5 was a bit of a brain teaser. In X6 they introduced the whole machining/avoidance region ndialog. I'd stick to Dynamic core for outside-in situations, dynamic area for closed pockets and features, dynamic rest, and dynamic contour. Anything with the word Dynamic. Peel is much improved for x7, I generally only use it for slot situations. Also the filter settings are you best friend for everything.

For some feed and speed suggestions, check the database in my signature below.

hth

68! My shade-tree engineering sense would agree with you Tom. Thru-hardening I'd think would turn them into grenades. What are they going into? Might you want the pins to wear/shear, as compared to the larger component they go into? 68 THRU would pretty much guarantee destruction of the receiving components upon failure. I've broken a lot of machines, motors, and transmissions, and want small parts to fail to save the big ones.

Since you have to make 50, assuming they are being made on an NC lathe, might as well make 100. So when the grenades fly, you still have 50 and can just case hardened those. Sorry I don't have any steel recommendations. S7? That will get you to 61ish max, but the toughness too.

hth

Engraving toolpath can be a serious hassle. It gives seriously awesome results though. It hasn't been touched since V9? Occasionally you will see error messages in

German. Occasionally you will be so frustrated, you will want to fly to germany and take matters into your own hands.

A few tips:

If it hangs on regen and totally doesn't respond, open the task manager and look for "K-STAMP". Kill it and Mastercam will come back. You may see some German error messages.

Brake text into smaller sections and individual operations. When it fails, select a few words (or even letters at a time). Copy the operation and select the next letters. Sometimes you will get just ONE letter that will have to have it's own operation to work! Makes no sense, but it will work at some point. I've done paragraphs and had about 70 engraving ops to make it work. Identical operations, just different geometry.

Set roughing to basic "zig zag". Less math than clean corners.

Turn off "rough" and just have finish on. That will at least give you an indication as to if your geometry is good. If it is good, break into many operations. See tip 1

Sometimes change the roughing stepover just a little bit to something totally random, like "92%", Sometimes that will jog it's memory.

Some TTF fonts will have funny little loops where lines converge... when you really really zoom in. The letter "M" is a frequent culprit. Zoom into your letters or geometry and check it out. Fix it via trimming or creating small fillets.

Last resort (that I know of): Edit > Break Many pieces > Set it to arcs/curves.

I've been using the engraving toolpath frequently for maybe 10? years. The above is what I've gotten to work in more than one occasion.

hth.

We could give users the option to create a much smaller STL file from the Verify in X7, but you would run the risk of having a non water-tight STL file that might cause you problems. Do you want that option? Would a smaller model that carries some potentially bad side-effects be of use to you?

I'm going to say yes.

I'm starting to understand the improved x7 product (legitimate watertight stl's), however it isn't near commensurate of our experience. I'd say the percentage of X7 stl hassles VASTLY outnumber the non-performing restmilling situations incurred by poor x6 stls. Users have developed a certain workflow (pertaining to existing hardware), and now with these monster STL's that workflow no longer "works."

Either:

A) Users workflow has to change to accomidate the monster files. As well as hardware help.

B ) Mastercam has to provide a solution to retain existing workflow practices...smaller stl's. At least for a few years when hardware can catch back up.

Was he able to "shop around" for the new Haas machine?

You'll be able to get it to work. Several years ago (on the old format forum) there was a huge thread on the actual specifics of this. I copied and pasted the most informative response from a fellow that worked for a HFO. He doesn't really give a recommendation on outright values to try unfortunately. He's refering to using G187 to change the values on the fly. (You can just change them manually in the controller, but you'll have to adjust per op if you are roughing and finishing). There are posts made that have the Misc Values with G187 and E#'s you can control for each op right within mastercam. It's pretty nice. Give the dealer (Mcam) a call and they might have one available, if you really get into using this feature.

Oh, also toolpath FILTER is going to be another very important setting, for minimal code and nice big arcs, (vs. little lines). I'd say filter is going to me almost more important than machine settings. Hint: In your backplot, change the color of arcs to orange (or whatever) and you can easily see when you've got arcs and where you got lines. They will still be blue.

HTH

With G187 P1 it will run the Haas with it's most aggressive acc/dec parmaters, thus making the machine jerk more if you have real tight tolerancing. The machine will try to get up to speed as quick as possible from a dead stop.

 

Also, you can use the "E" value which is your deviation. It can be from E.0001 - E.2000 the higher the value, the more deviation (smoother). It doesn't mean you will make a bad part though.

 

The Haas machines have settings 191 and 85 that control smoothness. These can be controlled in the nc program using G187 Px Ey.yyy where p1 is roughing, p2 is medium, and p3 is finishing. The E value controls corner rounding though I believe its value doesn't correlate to inches.

 

G187 P1 E.1 would be very coarse where G187 P3 E.005 would be very accurate.

 

The Haas control can run 1000 blocks per sec, so if the tolerancing is too might it will make really short moves.

One more thing to consider when changing setting #191 to rough is that this multiplies the value in setting #85 max corner rounding by four.

G187 Pm Ennnn sets both the smoothness and max corner rounding value. G187 Pm sets the smoothness but leaves max corner rounding value at its current value. G187 Ennnn sets the max corner rounding but leaves smoothness at its current value. G187 by itself cancels the E value and sets smoothness to the default smoothness specified by Setting 191. G187 will be cancelled whenever “Reset” is pressed, M30 or M02 is executed, the end of program is reached, or E-stop is pressed.

 

MATH FOR Bits Per Sec

F100. IMP = 1.6667 Inch Per Sec (100/60)

If tolerancing is set to .0005, that means it will take 3333.4 blocks to move thru 1.6667 inches of material, of 3333.4 Blocks per Second, which is 3x what the control can deal with.

 

Changing to .002 will drop that to 833 BPS.

 

The solution, make less lines of code.

 

Make sure Mastercam is outputting 3axis arcs, not segmented (G1) moves, a simple 90 deg arc can either be one line command, or hundreds of lines of code, depending on how the Mastercam is setup. The tighter the tolerance, the more code it outputs to move the same distance.

 

Depending on the mfg date of the Haas (I am a Haas dealer Applications Engineer) the HSM machining option will not help a ton. You can actually turn it on as a "Trial" basisfor 200 hours to see if it helps. Talk to your local HFO about that.

 

 

The Haas machines have setings 191 and 85 that control smoothness. These can be controlled in the nc program using G187 Px Ey.yyy where p1 is roughing, p2 is medium, and p3 is finishing. The E value controls corner rounding though I believe its value doesn't correlate to inches.

 

G187 P1 E.1 would be very coarse where G187 P3 E.005 would be very accurate.

 

 

 

The P1, P2, and P3 are more for dead sharp, 90 deg G1 to G1 type moves where as the E value could be more like a NURBS type setting.

 

I have run up to 200IPM on 90 deg square roughing routines (pocketing) and you need to get in excess of E.05 to get the machine to start to slow down at all, meaning it is mainatining the accuracy just fine and no improvment on that particular machine, acc/dec settings, etc... with a number any lower than that.

 

There are allot of dynamics here too. Machine size / weight is a big one. Saw customers buy a VF-6SS and load programs they were running on a VF-2SS, and have surface finish problems / longer cycle times on the 6. Even when using the same "E" value.

 

In the same example as above, testing would show the same program, IPM, etc... and the machine would start slowing down at a E.020. Why?

 

Table mass. The builder has to use allot lower Acc/Dec settings due to table weight and max part weight.

 

My suugestion is to run in the air with really tight accuracy settings out of X4 and mess around with the P1-P3 and E.0001-E.2000.

 

And i do not work for Haas, but one of the larger HFos in the coutnry.

Hi Ron, check your messages here. I just sent you something.

Other than cranking the tolerance way up,

This program click-to-fit has an awsome stl reducing function.

(yes Buck the icon was a bug )