redk, So people in the shop modify your .nc files and then they somehow are letting you know exactly what all the changes are that they have made, and its up to you somehow to go back into mastercam and mess with it until your posted output resembles the edited nc file from the shop?

The only question then is what you do when you need to run the old program on a different machine. Do you modify the saved .nc file that has all the shops modifications, by hand, or do you try and repost from the nci file knowing its not the same as the saved nc file?

Whats the general concensus as far as saving programs? Do you save your nci files in the hopes of reposting at some time in the future and toss out your .nc files? Do you save your .nc files and in the future if you need to run the same job again do you try and repost the original nci file and hope it comes out with the same mods that were made on the floor? Do you just save your nc files and modify them if you need to run them on a different control then the one it was originally posted for? Do you let people make changes out in the shop and then save the altered programs? If you get a repeat order how do you know whatever it was that you saved is up to the correct revision and perhaps purchase order instructions? Thanks in advance for your input.

Why not subsidize the war effort by mounting cameras all over Iraq and showing the video feed on pay per view? Why should cnn and exxon make all the money from this one?

or straight water

As long as our standard of living is not supported by the amount of human effort we collectively put back in to the system, then we will have to take additional resources by force if nessesary. Meanwhile its great for business, I'm swamped. I just hope the so-called war will continue to ensure lower gas prices for all Americans. As far as being afraid, I don't think we Americans have as much to fear from the world as the world has to fear from us.

You say it will "most likely be used in the shop". Why are you buying a CMM?

Sounds like an uninitialized variable. Somewhere in your post you may be doing some math on something lame like sequence numbers that you might not have set in the ops manager.

I think the extra linefeeds are coming from the control. You need to change a parameter.

Umm..fixture offsets? If you're basically running the same program on 4 sides of a cube.

Hit analyze, click on the spline, change edit to Y, hit the move cpts button if its a nurbs spline, or move node if its parametric.

If you have the files in cadkey try exporting them and reading them into mastercam as CADL. I don't guarantee it will fix your problem, but I know from experience that cadl files translate better than iges from cadkey to mastercam.

I doubt anyone will give an answer without knowing what material it is. ( well then again :-) ). What I meant to say was nobody will give you a good answer without knowing what the material is.

I'd love to try mcedit. But even though I have a legitimate copy of V9 with the hasp, if I try to run the mcedit.exe it says mastercam security device not found. Whats up with that?

in the operations mangeler :-). click on the chain for the particular operation. the chain manager pops up. right click in that window and in the menu that will pop up its like the 4th item from the bottom. and yeah click on an op or hold down the shift key and pick several and right click for the copy/move options.

Anybody know of anything that can translate and maybe even rotate, nc program files, and is freeware? ( by translate I mean algebraically add to a particular register ie. x,y,or z ) Thanks.

For any 5-axis verification to be true it would have to know about the machines physical configuration. Years ago when I worked for Pratt&Whitney using UG and Vericut I found that what you saw wasn't nessesarily what you got. Any verification software for multi-axis machine that has the tool able to move as if it can pivot from a universal joint at the top is not a true verification. Variable axis tools cannot change from any position to any position they must rotate the secondary rotary into the plane of the primary rotary (tilt plane). The only true 5 axis verification has to be done with knowledge of the machines physical characteristics.

Thanks for the help. Yes updating to SP1 was the answer. It all worked once I did that. So the answer to making reverse posting work is..... 1.) Update to SP1 2.) Add Q.93 to the forward post to indicate what file to use for reverse posting. 3.) Add the menu option for reverse to the .txt file of the forward post.

I've got 512meg of ram and a P4-2.0. I don't think its a hardware issue either.

Jammer, Yes. Although not too often. I also have other strange anomolies occasionally. For example I have noticed that if I'm working in milling and then somebody bothers me with a lathe job and I run it at the same time, and post something, then close lathe and go back to mill and try to work with the ops manager in milling ( especially when deleting ops ) she'll give up the ghost or freeze my machine. I'm holding windows 98 responsible. I believe a single application shouldn't be able to crash an entire system. Probably by the time V12 comes out intel with have some kinda hardware level error checking like suns and those types of things will no longer happen.

Peter, You had said.... You need to download and install the SP1 patches and then the post processor updates. Does this mean that even though I updated my posts to V9 and have been using them, that I'll have to download something to update my posts again for V9 SP1?

ALT-V shows...Mastercam version 9 (January 24,2002)

I've done a search on reverse posting in this forum. I've set Q.93 in my forward post and added reverse to the menu in the accompanying .txt file. Reverse shows up as a menu option but when I click it nothing happens. I've run rpfan a million times in the past in previous versions of MC (I'm using V9 now ). Is there any way to diagnose what is happening when you hit the menu option? Like maybe some sorta trace or log file, or can somebody just tell me what else I've got to do? Thanks.

Sounds like somebody is forcing out a G0 in the post without using sgcode like "G0G91G28" etc. In which case the post is not aware that you ever left G01 interp therefore is not issuing another G01. That would be why it only happens if you post out 2 or more ops.

Thanks to everyone for their input, alot of decent suggestions. Perhaps I wasn't very clear on the how or the why of my method. What I'm trying to do ( and do everyday with success ) is establish a point on the tool which is the point I'm driving against my geometry. This reference point on my chamfer mills is the intersection of the angle and the outside dia of the tool. I typically create some geometry of my chamfers which is offset just slightly ie. (.02"). This way the edge of the tool is not trying to coincide with the edge of the part, but is actually overlapping by being .02 beyond and .02 above the suface in the case of a 45 deg. This takes care of any irregularities in the part surface etc. When setting chamfer tools, people can put it on a comparator ( shadow graph for you old timers )and see what the offset is from the end of the tool to the intersection of the angle and od. This way when they "touch off" they know how much to adjust the tool length by. For thier diameter compensation, it would be done to the outside diameter like any other milling cutter. The result is that the same point on the tool to which both compensations are being done is the same point on the tool that I drove in mastercam. When I have preset tooling that is set with an electronic toolsetter, I give a diameter target on the conical, to which the length value is to be measured. Either way the chamfers come out as close to perfect as the person setting the tool. Also it helps to have the chamfers actually drawn on the part rather than just compensating using the 2d chamfer as someone suggested, that way I don't forget to do them. :-) The whole point of my post was to get a sense of how other people were doing this in mastercam, since the graphic verify doesn't work for me doing it the way I do. Sounds like everyone is doing this in a variety of different ways. Thanks again.