+1000 I project NCI all day everyday and I for one am Very happy that ghosted paths are not verified, simulated or posted.

Kenneth I am not familiar with the term "center of gravity" within Mastercam. Could you please explain? I am really missing being able to cross section the part where I specifically need it and be able to take measurements.

Unfortunately we have a couple of SNK profilers that are built like a tank but do not support TCP. They are 1995 machines.with 16MA controls.

Yes that is correct. I filtered the toolpath to much and did not give it enough vectors "points" and when it swung around a radius and changed direction and angle it swept thru the comp floor on the machine. Unfortunately neither UVBS or machine simulation will catch that. Expensive way to learn a lesson. Thanks Aaron

Thanks for the reply Aaron. And yes you are correct on the fact that some machines can't handle large vectors without gouging. Got bit yesterday on 2nd to last toolpath before finishing part. But it was with using the Swarf 5 Axis not the new one.

Once I am finished programming this part I will see if I can send you a file. I doubt I can send the whole part with it being from a military defense contractor. I will see what I can do. I just know that driving the same geometry with the new swarf milling generates a lot more code than the swarf 5 axis. One other thing may I ask is how do you get the corner rounding to work properly in the new swarf toolpath. I could only get it to generate simulated arcs in certain areas even though all corner radii were the same. well anyhow I will see if I can send you something. Thanks.

Can someone please give me some input on filtering the toolpath on the new swarf milling. It is creating a large NCI and generating a lot more code than I would like.

Thanks Aaron it would be greatly appreciated. There are so many new features with it that I am not familiar with that it would be great to have an example with some of those features used. Thanks once again!

It should remember the last way it was set. I know mine does. I think you may need to run the advanced configuration utility to reset dialog positions. Either that or permissions may not be set correctly on the folder that the data is stored. We had one of our PCs do that here a while back but I don't remember for sure how we fixed that.

Thank You Aaron for getting right on this. I think this new toolpath will be a great addition to our tool set once it gets tweaked in. Is there any sample files with this toolpath applied to it? It would be nice to see for reference. I haven't seen any real documentation on this yet.

Thanks so much for your help. I think K2csq7 hit it on the head. It is just not reading the retract moves between the start and finish of the toolpath. I could get it to work similar to the way you set the parameters before but I thought I was missing something. Anyway thank you everyone for your help. I will try hitting up my reseller to see if I can get some more info.

I think you are probably right. Because no matter what settings I use on the leads it acts like they are not even there. It would be nice if that was in a help file or some other documentation. Thank you very much for the input it is greatly appreciated.

Looks the same to me. Maybe you adjusted something else besides the small gap leads. Is there anyway I could get you to post the file you adjusted and see what it is that you did that I must be missing. Thanks.

I'll give that a try in a few. Thanks much for helping.

Thanks JP I already tried that but then I get a really messed up lead in coming down on the initial rapid down. I have used this same path before with just using the "links from input toolpath" and made it work. This time I have some leaning walls that I want to be able to rapid at the same angle as the wall and not just rapid straight up and down with the tool kicked.

Could someone please give me some insight as to why I can't get the tool to retract between moves on this 5 axes converted toolpath. I can't figure it out out. CONVERT TO 5 AXES.MCX-7

I am running in to the exact same problem. Want to do a rough then a finish pass at each depth (slice). It is duplicating the toolpath twice just like oneyankfan1 said. The walls I am machining are fairly thin and I would like to be able to rough and finish each depth as I go down the wall. Does anyone have any ideas because there really is no documentation on how to use this new toolpath that I could find. I guess for now I will go back to the good old swarf toolpath but I really wanted to use the new one because it has the ability to round internal corners.

+1

For X7MU1 the Precision Factor was raised to 4 from 1 (initial release) because they tweaked out a little more power. Like Kenneth said the precision Factor is exponential so it's like doubling the power for every point. I use 2 for the larger parts I do and 4 for the smaller parts. I now have 6 different defaults set up for different types of work I do. Automated Zoom would be very cool as long as we can get back a little more speed in the Compare function.

I am doing a 280 inch long part right now. I changed my Prescision Factor from 4 to 2 and set the Precision Slider at 6. After running the toolpath the part looks like mud but the accurate zoom works much faster at these settings. Also I turned on Windows Aero and it seems that the accurate zoom is much faster. Maybe it is just me. Anyhow it is definitely a change to workflow habits. We will just have to adapt.

Yes Chris I agree. I know that with the new UVBS I will have to change up some of my programming habits but comparing in verify is not one I am willing to give up. I want to be able to see an area that I just cut and compare that area to the model. I can't see the cut taking place in Stock Model. With some of the complex shapes that I program I want to be able to see tool engagement and depth in certain areas and then be able to compare to the model in those areas. I don't believe I would be the only one who feels this way.

Thank you for that informative answer. Nice to know the reason behind the performance degradation in the compare function. Hopefully you can squeeze some more performance out of it in the future. Unfortunately for me I live by compare. I know I can blow out several toolpaths run the verify and compare and make sure I haven't made a mistake and then blow out a couple more toolpaths. It gives me a sense of security. I guess I will have to learn to let the compare process in the back ground while I work on my next toolpaths. I just hate having to backup several toolpaths to correct any mistakes. Well on the bright side UVBS has really come around with all the new features and faster verification performance. Thank you once again Kenneth.

I have never used model compare in machine simulation before. I didn't know you could in machine simulation. I ran the part in the machine simulator and used the refine view to get a resemblance of a part but could not find the compare function. I will contact MLC today if I get the time. Thank You Colin.

You will have to zoom into those areas and compare to get an accurate comparison or you can bump your precision factor to 5 or 6 with the precision slider all the way up and try that. It will be slow but will give you a more accurate full part compare.

I am thrilled with the upgrades that have been made to UVBS. The initial visual quality is somewhat lacking but I was able to bump up the Precision Factor to 5 from 4 and did not notice too big of a performance hit over SP2. It definitely is faster running the tool paths. I am programming a 280" part right now and the compare time is killing me. I thought that maybe the size of the part was a factor with compare but that's not it. I brought in a 24" part I did a while back and ran it and the compare was just as slow. Hopefully someone can shed some light on this.