Out here in Portland, OR.... "STORM OF THE CENTURY PARALYZES THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST" Dam, I grew up in Buffalo and am amazed at the "spineless-ness" in other regions!

If your interested in checking out all sorts of other communication goodies, here's another source. B&B Electronics .

Basically the .sldprt file is a true "3 dimensional" PART, known to mastercam as a parasolid. (.prsld). The .slddrw file is generally a nice 2 dimensional DRAWING of the .sldprt (PART). In Solidworks, first you draw the solid PART (.sldprt), then if needed generate a DRAWING (.slddrw). The drawing is just a flat representation of the 3-dimensional solid part. Like Mayday said, the only way to open a .slddrw is have Solidworks save the .slddrwg as a .dwg. THE BETTER WAY to go might be just to get the .sldprt, which opens nicely in mastercam as is, and is a true 3-d solid PART. good luck.

I supppose that's indeed the right way, Rick!

+1 robk Yeah, that's something I hope might get addressed in the next version. Occasionally even the "find features" will not find the most obvious of holes though. Then I'll resort to manually filling them (solids>extrude), or just create some wire geo. for a facing op. to drive.

Not to Hijack the thread, where do you prefer to get your tools in the Portland area, Sandybar?

I like how you put it Harryman! When your tools lose the edge, forget about it....don't even try to run just "one more part (or cut)". Sharp tools are an absolute must.

quote: The shame is that the left is rooting for a bad economy and a higher body count in order to further their political agenda It's a shame that pointing out the blatant facts is considered liable these days.

Welcome Chopsley, The Portland area has a darn good Mastercam base, and training is readily available here. Drop me a line if you'd like, I'd be happy to share my experiences/tips regarding the local educational system.

Nice Job there Bucket! I too like the powder coating on the motor, something a bit different.. As well as the Aeroquip braided hoses and fittings. oh yeah, +1 to everyone else's read on the Harley situation...and that Russel incedent was pretty funny a few years back.

quote: One quarter of steel-consuming companies reported that their customers shifted to purchasing finished parts of assemblies overseas because of the tariffs. I read the same thing, and almost fell over. Trying to "protect" our steel industry is leading to a MUCH more devistating economic blow, forcing manufacturing overseas immediately. If that's not a complete disregard for the betterment of our entire country for the sake of a few big votes and campaign contributions... I don't know what is. Actually, maybe one more thing is...seeing cars pull into Wal-Mart with red white & blue "BUY AMERICAN" bumper stickers.

quote: piece down on aluminum or something verse straight thru to elimate any burrs on the back of the part. goooooood idea!

I made a slight mod to my Haas post...In the t/c plane toggle instead of inputting 1,2,3,4 etc, and having the post tranlate them into 54,55,56,57, I now just directly enter the number that I want to post. If I want 59, I put in "59"! not "6". . Let me know if you want that mod, and I'll dig it up.

quote: I support this president. I wish he felt the same way about us. quote: 87 billion dollar check for Iraq,

I like to add a touch of dwell (.1) to the countersink cycle, just to make sure a single lip tool will cut all the way around...Maybe not needed (esp. in smaller holes), but just a habit of mine.

If he's drawing them in solidworks, bring them into mastercam using the parasolid converter...using dxf/dwg is taking a step backwards!

I've heard of the design tree being able to come into MC, let me know if you have any success with it. I havn't had time to mess around with any of the SW to MC toolbars and the like..I just use .sldprt and call it good, however am interested in importing the tree...

quote: The more radius you have on any tool for cutting the more horsepower that is required to push the tool across the part. Meaning there is more contact edge with larger radius tools, correct? If you've run alot of fly-cutters with manually ground hss tools, it's easy to adjust the leading edge angle and see how horsepower consumption/tool load increases.

What James said. The tool has an "effective cutting" diameter of 2", but in actuality the tool is considerably larger. On a cutter using square inserts with a 45 deg. lead, the leading edges of the cutter make it take on a much differnt dia. and geometry.....That from looking at a Mitsubishi 2.5" five-insert facemill sitting on my desk here.

quote: Cynicism is something that I find myself growing into as I get older. It?s not that I am spiteful or ornery; it?s just that I feel as if I?ve been wearing rose colored glasses for a very long time. Sort of like being tricked really bad and never finding out until everybody starts laughing and the hurt and anger starts to set in. Unfortunatly I think that's how the globe is starting to see the U.S now....

This is a great topic Tim, thanks for putting the time in. I'm eating it all up...I think that most of us here are "knowledge junkies", and certainly like hearing it from a true first-person perspective.

Well, a tub of lye will certainly debur some aluminum...it will also totally dissolve it! Please post the chem-deburing link your refering to.

Huh, I did'nt know that it would use basically all of it's memory for buffer. I have always wondered how the buffer allocations worked in the Haas controllers. I guess with that large of a buffer, you could run s l o w e r rs-232 communications without starvation. You have the "high speed look-ahead" feature on that machine too? P.S. I'm running a 25' rs-232 to a Haas at full-blast 100,000+ baud, and have yet to have a problem.

quote: Here is an updated parasolid that you are currently working on,please contact us Lemme guess, some "product designers" or industrial design folks.

What kind of communications system are they coming with (rs-232 or ethernet)? And memory, too? I'm interested to see what features they pack on the SS machines, because to get the ethernet on a basic machine they really nail ya (3000$+! ). However you probably really need it on the highspeed machines. Meanwhile NIC cards are going for under 10$.