I've been running alot of test cuts and experiments on a GX1000. Very fast smooth motion. I'll get a few videos up soon of cutting 1018 at 600ipm in a moderately detailed part. Max back feed rate is 1180ipm and it's smooth no matter how much data you throw at it. As for power, I'd bet aluminum at 1000ipm would be entirely possible with a proper toolpath. Granted I have not run your comparison machine, but suspect if an Oi can keep up with the feedrates and accel/decel of the Okuma units. Program restarts and related functionality is great. LOTS and lots of other features I keep learning about. You can easily Windows network the thing no problem, no more pcmcia bullcrap, or fanuc data server fun. Your operators are going to say "WTF, work AND tool offsets both use an H value"! I don't really blame them on that one. But show them they can surf craigslist on the thing and you'll win them over. I suppose I should ask, what are you doing with the machine? If you're just drilling holes, well...I suppose it wouldn't matter what you get..Would the 20 vs. 25 hp make a diff? I can't say, but look at the tq and hp curve at the rpm's you run at. That will tell you more about usability than outright hp. A major factor that should be considered is dealer support as well. Gosiger out here is second-to-none. IMHO

Get a mach sim simulator built along with the post. That will help you immensely too. Every 5 axis move has two choices. Backplot doesn't really show you witch solution.

^ What Jay says above. Another way with multi-passes and full rad keyseat cutter. Create several offset surfaces, driving each one with it's own toolpath Create > surf > from solid Create > surf > offset Do this however many mulitpasses you want Toolpaths > Surf Fin Contour For the outermost surface. Once you get one toolpath looking good, just copy and re-select the successively closer surfaces. With surf fin contour you've got really good control with lead in/out, which I like. hth

Well, I tried for a while with spaceclaim...quite a while. I was fixing surfs one at a time and checking in mastercam. When I did the very last remaining surf, a whole bunch of "inexact vertices" popped up, that weren't there before. Back and forth back and forth I'd fix one issue, and a slew of new issues would materialize. I'm far from a wizard with spaceclaim. If you want I could send it to someone who is. Let me know.

What part did you miss of him saying mastercam has issues? Being an employee of, and pointing out shortcomings speaks volumes of someone's integrity. My friend's shop had gibbs. Couldn't find a programmer to save his life.. Switched to mastercam and found a plethora of talent. That was a few years ago, now has 3 seats. You can't grow a business like that if you can't find programmers! At my college I teach dozens of people mastercam annually. That's dozens of local programmers to work for dozens of local businesses...Not happening with esprit, gibbs, etc and yes mastercam has issues.

I'm late to the party here, but would love to try spaceclaim on it also. It is the absolute slickest model fixer.

Check out if you have hpcc or any type of ai-nano. Last YCM I ran had G5.1 Q1-5. Always ran it in at least Q1.

^^ If you make your triangle (60deg lathe tool) tool large, it "intersects" itself with each revolution, thus erroring out. If you throw a big chamfer on the nose of the bolt first, then sweep the threads it looks very nice. Sidebar- Try bringing in sw file with history tree and look how hole wizard threaded holes are created. Very cool. Basically a positive bolt is in there, then a boolean remove to make the id threads.

Save the entire assembly as a stl, and use that for verify. A bit safer because you are not modifying anything what so ever with your existing solids.

Try ignore small cusps, and experiment with adjust distance. Try around .020 for starters.

You'll need a machine simulator, too. Get on Okuma for the files, or start to draw them up. Or are you running vericut?

I JUST ran into this yesterday. Showing a student how the chain selection works, and thinking it's a poor design that you have to select "something" before you get into the true selection dialog. I chain stuff the old way, all in the main box. cuts the largest area, avoids the smallest.

I just downloaded and installed. I'll have to read the documentation to figure it all out. Thanks for sharing, this could be awesome. This has been many folks' bone of contention. "I've got XXXgb of ram, why is nothing using it?

Disclaimer: I am not a tooling or material engineer. This is just a shade-tree theory of metal cutting. (and a bit of trials) I would agree. That does seem pretty heavy for dynamic. . That 45% stepover might be putting some heat in, you've got a lot of tool engaged in material. Tool in material=heat....with a more conventional 10-20%, you have 80-90% of the tool out of the cut, thus being in a cooling phase. (I attribute that theory also to being able to run sfm that is off the charts). Go with less stepover and faster feeds and/or more doc. I'll bet you can get your mrr up with . I recall reading a very technical article a few years back regarding aerospace parts (deep thin walls) and this type of situation. I'll see if I can dig it up. I'm curious now. I'm thinking there are some mechanical stresses being relived in different way via the different cutting methods. Also maybe tool maybe sucking up floor? How thin? Totally unrelated to your problem, but what is the cycle time comparatively? Here is a tip to finish floors with dynamic: Run your regular roughing dynamic however you like (usually the 10-15% stepover) Leave .010-.020 on the floor. COPY the toolpath and kill any depth cuts. set the stepover to something quicker, 40-60%. Oh, and reduce your feed if your roughing at 600ipm At the college I've been running alot of tests with sandvik tooling. Cutting 1018 at 600ipm. .500 cutter, 15% stepover. 1" doc. Their engineers said we'd get 15min of tool life. I'm on 80min right now and still cutting! Working on a video of it. Stay tuned.

Surf fin contour is very nice because you have all the lead-in/out controls. Also work with your filter setting and you can get some nice arc motion on the whole thing.

Cant really visualize the part, but adjust the cut depths is probably what you need.

Got smoothing turned up all the way? Very useful setting to utilize.

Ghetto solution. But does work. Take a 1.251, and with chunk of carbide run it hard along one flute to raise a burr.

What exactly type of training are you looking for?

Certainly not bustin your balls Colin, but somebody needs balls busted in the very least...... Have you ever,ever used a software for 6 versions that has so many buttons that do absolutely nothing? .......yet lead the average user to believe they do........

You can do alot more sophisticated shapes with surfaces than solids. Solids is pretty basic and sounds like will not work for your part. If I can't it in about 5 min. in solids, I'll always switch to surfaces.

Ramping and 3-flute cutters.

Don't forget the time on the sc webinars are EASTERN..I missed the last one cause' I didn't read the fine print.

I simplified the part and it's on the ftp, in the x6 folder. The roughing at least. hth

2d dynamic with axis sub. This was when 2dhst first came out and it was a blast to do this. Xform unrolled the geometry and did just like 5x guy said. Sorry I can't share the file. I may be able to pull out the geo. NOTE the tool will NOT get off centerline. You may need to use roll-die c-hook to clean up wall depending on your wall geo. In backplot, look at it from a side few and study where the tool touches the wall...or switch to 5x swarf