Sergio, Here's the tablet's you might be looking for..

I've always been interested in those microscribe arms for reverse-engineering some parts. How do you like yours Murlin? Does it work well?

Ok, I'm on a mission... I just watched the WCS video from the FTP site, and re-read the WCS tutorial directly from CNC Software...and they contrary to one another. - The video has the programmer changing the WCS for machining different sides of the part. - The tutorial says: quote: One common misunderstanding is that anytime you need to work on different faces of the part or work on non-standard planes, you need to "use WCS". This is not correct-Mastercam already includes tools like Cplanes and Tplanes that let you do this. The ability to redefine the orientation of the WCS is a useful new tool; however, like any tool, it is only appropriate for specific applications. What gives? I've uploaded the CNC provided tutorial on the ftp site here. If y'all don't have it already.

Not sure if this problem is solve-able...I create some letters....A few weeks later I go back, and want to add some more letters. My letters dialog box defaults to whatever is a default, however I my new letters to match the old ones, which of course I forgot what the size/font is. yeah, I should write the specifics down in my level manager or something, huh.

Man, there's been days that I love the WCS, and days that I hate the F$%$#ing thing! Why can't it just work! I go through the tutorial and help menus periodically, and review issues with my dealer/instructor/friend. Guess I need to vent them here, too. Ok, from previous WCS threads (and there are alot of them), some people do it rekd's way, of just swithing the wcs for each op. However I believe that each time you change the WCS, you get eight freshly defined views...and what happens is that the number of views will exponentially grow. 8x8x8x8x8x8x etc. This explains millman's issue: quote: sometimes have up to 400 views for construction and also the help menu quote: However, by redefining the WCS, their current views have also been redefined because view definitions are always relative to the WCS. Personally from what I've been instructed and what the tutorial says, is that ONE WCS change per file is all that's necessary and/or recommended...to prevent the propagation of views (8x8x8x8x8). But then again there seem to be quite a few users who just switch the WCS for each op., and have perfectly fine results; if anything a better time just making each machined face the "top"....please someone chime in if I'm wrong...I'm just reviewing the root of the WCS here. quote: never fails I cant get xyz to be in the proper dir. (not enough options to pick from.) so I agian have to do a rotate of the face I just picked Yes, a big issue that drives me crazy sometimes. Sometimes I actually draw in my desired geometry as short, labeled lines on another level. x,y,z. Good reference when visiting old files too. I am glad they fixed the graphics issue related to this in 9.1, though. That has helped slightly. At least you know what your getting, versus a shot in the dark. quote: Even with that, there have been some bumps along the way - for Transform Rotate ops, the cplane selection tends to be back in world coordinates, not the WCS, which can be quite confusing. YEAH, no kidding! I hav'nt done any transformations recently, but have had some very frustruating days doing many transformations in the past. I've know that there were problems with transforms, and just ended up working around them instead of wasting more time investigating and solving. Ok, enough of the my Biblical WCS post...I'm earning my avatar the long way!

I've heard of some kind of tablet gizmo for Mac's (of course the touchy feely crowd ). As for getting hand-drawn stuff into Mastercam, you can scan a image, then import it using raster-to-vector. I've done this for some splines and such.

My dealer/instructor up here has hinted as to the "coolness factor" of said c-hook...can't wait to see it for real.

Wow R'ekd, that setup sheet kicks some serious a$$!...I'd bet you could make a couple of x-tra bucks for yourself, judging from the amount of interest in a decent setup sheet.

quote: People are to a large extent unbridled to be their best or thier worst. That's exactly it...Our culture coupled with our freedom equates to unrivaled accomplishments, both good and bad. Being the sole superpower of the world comes hand in hand with also being the murder capital. Not that it's justifiable in any sense, but it's certainly not resolvable either. That's just what the equation is. Whether it's Michael Moore selectively editing NRA sound bites, or Charlton Heston claiming entitlement to an amendment written over two centuries ago- each is living in their own interpretation of reality, and neither can deny that as long as we are American, we will own guns..and use them.

Hmmmm, looks like Opera has changed all my punctuation marks into question marks. Looks like I might need to switch to IE for posting on the forum..

Sure this forum is intended as a quality site for professional Mastercam users ...and that it certainly is. The body of knowledge and quality of information is generally expressed with the utmost honesty and genuine interest in helping fellow users...that in turn I feel has helped us establish a certain respect for each other which has evolved the forum into a true ?community?. +1 to all those who make it happen.. It's funny how on a day-to-day basis we feel a certain camaraderie being enthusiastic Mcam users, sharing the common "bond" of Mcam and the joy of making it work. However when a heated O/T comes up, it?s eye-opening to realize how different we really can be. Personally, I usually interact with like-minded people throughout the day, having little exposure to those of differing viewpoints; whether it is political, automotive, gun-related, motorcycle, muscle car, video card, brand of carbide, etc. I?ve had much richer ?discussions? of politics here at the forum than with friends or family, the latter being way too similar to have any real debate with. But due to us users ?bonding? via legitmate sharing and assistance in Mcam, we have earned a certain respect for each other?s differing thoughts?.and that?s what makes this form work. what a sappy post?just check my Columbine o/t for sap of a different flavor.

Whether you love or hate Michael Moore, ya'll should check out his film "Roger and Me" ...about the politics of General Motors chairman Roger Smith, and the dire economic situation in Flint, Michigan. Anyone intrigued by the state of American manufacturing and how it relates to social issues would find this film interesting. Granted it's politically charged, but enlightening none-the-less.

Well, from the beginning I've been watching this one from the sidelines, yet have remained quite... I'm sure my viewpoints might be rather "challenging" to believe, for I can somewhat reside in both camps. -I'm a huge fan of Michael Moore (after all, he is a huge guy). His "over the top" stunts and presentation certainly stimulate the viewers brain. Like it or not, him exercising freedom of expression is more benign than me exercising the freedom to bear arms when I purchased my Glock .45. - I'm a huge fan of guns. We have a .22 range set up here in the shop. I'm probably the only one in the forum who regularly finds .22 brass in my manual machines' t-slots, yet also opposes the NRA and thinks Heston is a buffoon. - What's at work here is Darwinian. American gun laws in conjuction with American society make for a "civilized" county with the highest level of gun related murders. For whatever complex societal reasons guns+America= murder. If we value the right to bear arms more than the right to be safe from them, then so be it. Our society is running it's course of 11,??? murders a year. If we all want the right to defend our homes from invasion, then we must also be comfortable with the negative repercussions that our society brings with that...e.g. Columbine. - "If everybody was packin', and everybody educated their children, and everybody took responsiblilty, etc. etc. etc." there would be no wrongful gun deaths. The fact of the matter is that when there are guns around, American people will use them on each other. Guns don't kill people...people kill people. So here in America we have chosen our guns over our people.

quote: If you under firewall doesn`t mean that you are safe. If your port 135 is opened to everyone you are in danger ! Just check who uses the 135 port and block the virus from using port 135. Plasttav, how do you go about blocking port 135? How come it always seems like family members in particular are the most paranoid AND susceptable to viruses? "Son, my computer is acting funny"...

That's a lot of SFM (400-600)! How can you get away with no coolant? I would think that work hardening would rear it's ugly head....It seems the general consensus is for no coolant? (or just misting)... I'm cutting mostly soft stuff these days, but please enlighten me regardless.

+1 on the Harley situtaion, Rekd. I think we've hit the bike issue in previous threads, and mutually agree! -Too bad about gettin' slid down the xxxx-phalt...but you seem to have recovered nicely. Keep those leathers on, cow skin slides better than human skin! I hardly ever ride in town anymore...I feel safer at 120+ on backroads (or racetrack) than at 10 mph in the dam city.... quote: If Harley Davidson had as many engineers as lawyers, they might make a decent motorcycle!

I could swear that the "highfeed" option came standard on the older Haas controls...anybody know? If that is the case, as more people are are getting into highfeed situations these days, they decide to take it off the controls and then sell it back to you....Granted, if it is a valuable feature then it is worth something... I can see that argument, and it is business. But on a prehistoric control like the Haas (where 1MB of memory is an "option", come on!), they could at least make up for some of it's shortfalls ($3000 ethernet card!), by making highfeed standard. "Yes sir, your new car you just purchased has eight cylinders, if you want to use any more than four cylinders, that will be a 4000$ firmware upgrade on your ignition control module...Now, can I also interst you in a rustproofing option as well? How about the extended warranty on those muffler bearings?...you know they do wear out these days."

No kidding on the highfeed trial! I RAN down to our Haas and tried it, but to no avail...my parameter says "0T", and I can't change it. Did'nt the older 90's' era machines come with highfeed? Too bad it's a 4k$ option now.

Looks like V9.0 has some problems exporting trimmed splines in the .dxf format. 9.1 rectifed those issues and works just fine. I guess that's what I get for leaving v9 on my other hard drive (and both icons on desktop) . Thanks for the input everyone!

There was a discussion a little while back that got into forming taps...just watch out for using them on the cast alum. tooling plate. previous form tap topic

If your using spiral taps and peck tapping/chip breaking, your probably getting the chip all jammed up in the flutes, thus causing the breakage. Spiral fluted taps pull one long nice continous chip out through the flutes. They are rather "weak" taps from the reduced cross section, and don't take kindly to reverse/foward torque changes. That said, just run em' in one time and you'll be suprised that they do work. We run about 500 holes in 6061 wrought plate before changing a 6-32 tap. It may go a few hundred more holes for all I know, but I'd rather change the tap than scrap a part...Keep the coolant flowing too.

Thanks boys, Yeah, it's when I import it back into MC that all those extra lines are there. I've tried saving as Auto 13,14, and 2000. All geometry, no drafting entities. Basic splines, curves, etc. In the .dwg, it is like all the blended splines are extended, or no longer trimmed. What are the "paper spaces"? thx.

Here's my file converting issue of the day: I've got a rather simple 2-d shape drawn (single level, no duplicate entities). I'm converting it to a .dwg file for our vendor. When I go and open the .dwg, there are all sorts of extended and untirmmed lines and arcs, which are certainly not in the original .mc9... Any thoughts?

Very enlightening Cammando... thanks. I enjoy learning all the ancillary stuff within our forum. Now if I only could find an ISO certified plumber for my house!...

Sweet, thanks again!