I USED to work here in the east S.F bay area, near Silicon Valley in the semiconductor capitol equipment industry. A week ago me and one other of the four programmers along with machinists, assemblers, buyers, planners, and others were laid off. They say business has fallen 75%. Things are really slow all over here. Hope something happens soon, I don't think Mr. Bush's tax cut will be enough Mark Coates

Yeah I'm about ready to (format c : ). Not really!! But I really do wish that things would work correctly. I'm the most adventurous here of the 4 of us so I become the guinea pig for new stuff. One guy still uses V6.1! I guess I'll just have to reinstall yet again!!!! Mark [This message has been edited by mcoates (edited 05-15-2001).]

Nope, tried that. I tried all kinds of different parameter settings. It used to work on mine and works fine on another computer, same file, same post. Only difference is the version V8.1.1 vs V8.1(V8.1 works fine) Mark

I upgraded to V8.1.1 when it came out and I noticed that retracting from a pocket or a c bore it feeds up to feed or clearance plane. It won't pick up rapid until the x y move. Tried it on another computer here that is still running V8.1 and it picks up rapid command coming up out of hole. Same mc8 file and same post. What gives? Thanks Mark Coates

Thanks Dave, I had uninstalled V8.1 then reinstalled it and just upgraded with m81-811rel only. Will do a full upgrade on Monday including MPv8.21. Mark

I upgraded and now all my posts are acting differently!!! All ready tool calls are for T0. I uninstalled the upgrade as they said and redid it without upgrading MPmill and they still do it. Whats up with that and what else has changed that I haven't found yet? Mark Coates [This message has been edited by mcoates (edited 05-04-2001).]

Michael, The MPMaster post is available in the Posts section of this web site for download. It is based on MPfan It is set up for horizontal machines but can be used for verticals as well. It can show min/max z values for each tool and hav several other dandy features. I suggest that you download it and give it a try. Mark Coates

Thank you for your help Dave

Do I need to make other changes to my horizontal post to make this work? Or do I need to draw the part different? I draw it with the datum corner at the const plane origin and shift the side work using new planes and setting the origin to each. If I put numbers in as you said, then it doesn't output anything in the G10s but shifts the toolpaths by the amount input. Thanks for your help Mark Coates

Dave, Where do the numbers come from that appear in the G10 lines? At first all I wanted to put in the lines with zeroes and have the operator input the values, but on some jobs I can figure out the G10s beforehand and input them myself. I just need to know where. Thanks Mark C

Yes, I wanted it for the wo G10s. What I did was just copy & paste the logic from Daves post into mine since I wanted a horizontal post. It works great! Thanks Dave! Mark

Actually thats a little more involved than I need. I just want it to out something like: G90 G10 L2 P1 X0 Y0 Z0 and let the operator input the numbers. I suppose I could follow the logic but just not input any values. Is this post based on the MpMaster? Thats what I'm using now. Thanks Mark

Creating letters was what caused it. He said it happened 5 times before he gave up did it another way. The groups were named and each had operations in them. The "delete empty operations" is not checked. Makes me feel better that other people have seen it too and its not just something that we're doing Thanks Mark

The system is doing it. Today it did it several times. He exited, without saving, then reloaded it and was able to finish what he was doing, but then later on it did it again. It's kinda frustrating, but at least it doesn't lose the toolpaths, just throws them all together

What do you mean handle centerline of rotation? I draw the part (or parts) using different construction planes for each view, then assign an origin to each and using the toolplane feature, let Mastercam handle all rotations and wo outputs. You need to have front as the starting point. That will be B0, right side will be 90 deg and so on. Hope this covered it, if not let me know. I know there has to be a way to output wo setting lines. The way I'm handling it now is I just have it output a common line (P0) and one with P1 and just copy it as many times as I need and change the P word. It works, but I'd like the computer to do most of my work for me. I'll keep tweaking and if I come up with anything I'll let you know. Is that SH500 a Mori? Mark [This message has been edited by mcoates (edited 04-25-2001).]

Anyone have any idea how to output lines to input work offsetting data at the beginning of a program for each work offset used? I've got it now to recognize each offset but it only puts out the first one it "sees" in the program. I would like it to work like the tool table and scan the program to get each work offset used. I put the logic into the "pwrtt" section, but then it puts out the data after each tool description. So either I get only the first one or I get the whole thing a buncha times. Any ideas would be appreciated. Mark

One of the other programmers has a problem happening with Mill V8.1. Sometimes, it will take all toolpaths from named toolpath groups and lump them all into one named "Toolpath Group 1" after deleting all existing toolpath groups. We are using the mc8 file for several programs (though small so I don't see a memory problem) and might have, for example T1 be 2 different tools, 1 for each program. Could this be the problem? It's not real serious but is rather annoying keeping track of things when this happens. His is a Win 98SE box 733 mhz with lots of memory. I have a Win NT box and only had the problem once, on a file created on the Win 98 machine. Any help would be appreciated Thanks Mark

Thanks Rekd, Will check it out Mark

How do I get the Misc integer description to show up on the Misc values page. One of my posts does it but several others don't and I can't see any difference. Am using modified version of MPMaster and MPfan for V8.1 Thanks Mark

Rekd, I had the same problem. Don't know if yours is caused by the same thing. When I upgraded to V8.1 I installed it in a new directory. When I finally uninstalled V8 it started. I think the mc8 files were associated with the old version and weren't updated when I installed the new. I couldn't find any way of changing the association in Explorer. What I had to do was uninstall V8.1 (AFTER saving NCI files tools, posts etc) and then reinstall it. Installing it on top of itself didn't work Hope this helps Mark

I get the smae thing when using the edit feature in Analyze. No surfaces, just lines arcs and points. It does seem to do it most when I click on drafting entities. Its a new Dell 733 running NT4

Thanks Peter, What I did was leave the save thumbnail sketch turned on, but clicked on the details button in the save page so that it no longer shows the bitmap there. That seems to have taken care of it and I can still save with the bitmap

When I save a file in v8.1 it takes a loooooong time to come up with the save menu. The cursor alternates between the crosshatch and the hourglass for maybe 20 or 30 seconds. It didn't do this with v8.0 I have a Dell 733 mhz running NT4 Anyone else notice this?

When trying to backplot in V8, one of the other seats, running Win 98 SE got an error; " Warning, memory allocation error for tool storage". We increased the memory allocations for databaes and toolpath but still got the error. It plots fine after clearing the error. Later I got the same error on the same file on my seat running Win NT. It is a small MC8 file, only 187K, with only 8 tools. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance Mark

Dave, Thank you. Will try it. Mark