manual, is that chook in x5? i couldn't find it in the folder. thanks to you both for the help. charlie

hi, i'm cutting a 3d surface from an stl.- 3 axis cutting. solids and surfaces i understand and can play with in solidworks but an stl is like a ghost. all i can do with it is select it as a drive surface. what i really need to do is intersect it with a surface, create an intersection curve and cut a countour line around some of the features. can you do this without a standalone stl editor?

hi, i'm using x6 to do a surface high speed area clearance on a relief map i'm going to cut on a cnc router. mostly surface high speed toolpaths work fine but today mastercam is hanging up on linking pocket passes. i get this from the multi threading manager. i'm just cutting a 12"x14" piece of it for a sample. has anyone had this problem? if the solution isn't obvious i can post more info about the file. thanks, charlieb

so the original program with geometry you are nesting your toolpaths from runs fine? i'm guessing it does. even so, i'd look for stray lines under the geometry you have pathed. same thing if it's from a solid. most of the problems i have with nesting are some variation on the theme of stray lines. as far as crashes go, i find x5 pretty stable. no worse than x4 anyway.

sounds like your sheet size is to small or you don't have create necessary quantity checked on the sheet parameters

i'll look into that, thanks. i guess i was wondering if there is anything obviously fatal in the sw to mcam post- maybe a clue that the conversion from router to mill didn't work properly. i've not spent any time to speak of looking at g-code and have no expertise. when i compare the good and bad posts i nothing jumps out at me. do both posts specify origins in the same place in relation to the router's origin? should i post something else to help answer this? thanks, charles

hi, i've been trying to make solidworks for mastercam work on our multicam 3 axis router for some time now. for those of you who run routers you might be interested to learn that router rmd's are not supported. our reseller didn't mention that when we bought the seat. buyer beware, i guess i should have noticed. to be fair, our reseller, nw technical products, is pretty good otherwise. it turns out that there is an instruction sheet bouncing around cnc software tech guys for turning a mill def into a router def. ok, thanks, that's close enough, i can work with that. so i did the 33 step dance 3 or 4 times with no luck. my reseller gave it a shot and i was able to load my router disguised as a mill. nice work, nw tech. here is the problem: every time i post an nc file and run it i get an error at the router that says out of bounds by some amount. i've followed the tutorial steps to locate the part in solidworks to mastercam, but for some reason it's outputting an orign that's not matching up with my machine. x5 posts run fine. i pasted small samples below and attached full files. we are running mastercam 5x for solidworks with solidworks 2011, if i'm missing any other helpful info, please let me know. we run x5 for all of our parts now. charles oregon museum of science and industry here is some out of bound post: N100 M90 N110 G90 N120 G75 N130 G97 S18000 N140 G00 T2 N150 G00 Z-2. N160 G00 X8.3725 Y.7166 N170 M12 N180 M12 N190 Z-.7 N200 G01 Z-.5 F1.67 N210 G03 X8.2834 Y.8057 I-.0891 J0. F3.33 N220 X8.1943 Y.7166 I0. J-.0891 N230 X8.2834 Y.6275 I.0891 J0. N240 X8.3725 Y.7166 I0. J.0891 N250 G01 X8.3724 Y.7173 N260 Y.7276 N270 X8.372 Y.7331 N280 X8.3714 Y.7383 N290 X8.3703 Y.7438 N300 X8.3689 Y.7493 N310 X8.3671 Y.7548 N320 X8.3648 Y.7603 here is some good post from x5 M90 G90 G75 G97 S4000 G00 T3 G00 Z-.25 G00 X28.3002 Y2.0635 M12 G01 Z.01 F1. G00 Z-.115 G01 Z.135 F1. G00 Z.01 G01 Z.26 F1. G00 Z.135 G01 Z.385 F1. G00 Z.26 G01 Z.4601 F1. G00 Z-.25 G97 S18000 G00 T1 G00 Z-.676 G00 X13.1323 Y11.2575 M12 G01 X12.6703 Z.124 F1.67 G02 I14.3315 J11.2575 G01 X13.1323 Z-.676 Z-.552 F.83 X12.6703 Z.248 F1.67 G02 I14.3315 J11.2575 G01 X13.1323 Z-.552 Z-.428 F.83 X12.6703 Z.372 F1.67 G02 I14.3315 J11.2575 G01 X13.1323 Z-.428 M12 G00 Z-.128 Z-.676 X27.1011 G01 X26.6391 Z.124 F1.67 G02 I28.3002 J11.2575 G01 X27.1011 Z-.676 Z-.552 F.83 X26.6391 Z.248 F1.67 G02 I28.3002 J11.2575 G01 X27.1011 Z-.552 Z-.428 F.83 good post.zip mcamforsldwks post.zip