I too like being able to import (merge) an STL file as a "mesh" and then machine andor shade it. FYI - when merging an STL file, click the "options" button and select "import as STL Mesh" and NOT "Import as Lines". However I think there is minor problem, but I dont know if its just my computer (video card). When I have a STL mesh and I select "only display associative geometry" in the OP manager, the mesh is visible even if it is not being used for that toolpath.

I agree the red arrow is much better now, but it still moves unpredictably. It just won’t stay where I put it!

We use Harvey as well as Microcut tapered endmills Microcut local distributors

It is done through the "print" function. Instead of printing to paper it saves it to a PDF file. In Mastercam when you print, change your printer to the PDF "printer".

It will take a few steps, but yes. Open the file that has the geometry that you want to be merged from. Then File, save some, select all from that level, and save to a new temporary file. Now open the file to which the geometry is to be merged into. Use the merge function and merge in from the new temporary file.

In the operations manager change the NC file name so that they are all the same.

Try changing the "Handshake" to xonoff instead of software.

That is a very good card. In Mastercam's "system configuration" have you disabled the front buffer? This seems to help with some issues. Also which video card drivers are you running? I got rid of the drivers that came with my Dell and loaded the ones from the Nvidia website.

Which graphics card do you have?

Turning off arc support in the control def worked for me. We had to do this for our Makino that has SGI. control def -Arc -Mill []Support acrs n XY plane []Support acrs n XZ plane []Support acrs n YZ plane edit Not sure why it didnt work for you. Was the control def saved correctly and reloaded?

MMT upper lower turret sync demo.avi

google tscc codec

Wow, the file is just over 100 MB.

Rickster have you tried creating points and turning on "snap to point"? Also you could trim to a plane, and tell mastercam to keep both sides (if you need both sides).

Split, trimmed... you name it! In X2 from the main menu Create - surface - ...

Yeah its normal, here is the link

I've been checking out the Soldiworks CAM add-ins for a while now, and I am very happy to hear Mastercam has jumped in. Being able to use the Solidworks history tree will be a great benefit. That alone is probably the biggest draw for me since our engineers and many of our customers use Soldiworks. Also since someone mentioned HSMWorks... I like this too... quote: Modern Architecture HSMWorks utilizes the latest technologies including native 64-bit support for users of 64-bit versions of SolidWorks® resulting in superior performance when working on large or complex designs. The advanced HSMWorks task manager allows users to continue working inside SolidWorks® while toolpaths are calculated in the background, optionally utilizing multiple processors, dual cores and hyper-threading technology. Hopefully Mastercam's add-in will be able to incorporate this feature as well.

quote: Does everybody wish there names were John? Oh, John is my middle name...

9:54am

This product may not be designed to replace Mastercam, but many people including myself will be making that choice if all things are equal.

As you may have heard CNC software has announced that they will have a version of Mastercam that will run in Solidworks. I was curious to see how many would switch from Mastercam (the original stand alone program) to Mastercam running in Solidworks. At this time pricing is unknown and usually frowned upon So I will have a couple of questions to handle that... Also for the sake of argument, lets just say that all toolpath features available in the current version of Mastercam would be implemented in the new Solidworks version.

We'll probably have to add another sub-forum for this.

Sound interesting... Any word on how the licensing would work? Say I have a regular seat of Mastercam, I wonder if we could freely “move” the Mastercam license over to a Solidworks seat. Would any fees be involved with the switch over? And could we still use the regular Mastercam seat. After all the seat would be tied to the SIM - right?

I took a look at your file, looks good from what I can tell. I just started doing thread milling myself. One thing I noticed is that you only have one rough and one finish pass. What material are you cutting?

Do you have autosave on? If so, autosave can stall MC while it is saving the file to disk.