Im firly certain mastercam is only capable of processing with a single core at the moment...not sure if there is plans to change this in the future??? would be nice though!

Hi There, In most programming languages you have the option to use block comments (everything enclosed between 2 markers is a comment) or single line codes (open ended comments - only one marker to initiate start of comment, a new line ends it). I know some controllers (Siemens I think) you can do single line comments with a semi colon. I'm not versed up in all controllers but it may be worth looking into to avoid such an occurrence in the future. HTH brendan

Hi Brian, Had a very VERY quick play and came up with a couple of alternatives. HTH Brendan

Hi Brian, The way that I would try to import the signatures into mastercam would be to save them as an image file (could even just do a screen cap of the pdf?) and then use the rast2vect chook to import the images. I have had very limited exposure to this chook so I don't know the ins and outs of it, but it'll definitely be able to get the image into mastercam for you. I am not sure that you will get great quality lines from it though. Have a play and let me know how you go. Brendan

Hi Matt, To select a single surface of a solid for machining you have a couple of options: 1. when prompted to select geometry for your toolpath, you can press the 'Activate solid selection' button which is located by default in the toolbar at the top right hand side of the screen. It looks like a blue cube with a green tick in it. 2. You can project a surface from your solid...create menu-->surface-->from solid. I prefer the second option as it gives you more control over your surface for minor modifications. HTH Brendan

Hi mig, you could probably just use a slitting saw with a standard countouring profile to do this

Hi Todd, I have run into this problem before but it seemed random then... Like you I could not see that I was editing an operation or anything else. All I could suggest is to save it and then force shut down mastercam. Brendan

I have not had a problem using this feature in mastercam. Have you created the solid in mastercam or externally?

Great! Thanks everyone for the ideas. I am running X5MU1. Bill/Brad, I have been using the file merge method up until now and you are right, it works great! The main reason I want to try something else is because I am importing virtually the same geometry for every part i program. I have thought about setting up an mcx file with vice/fixtures and using that as my default, but have always been worried about overwriting the file. Making it read-only is a great idea! Might have to look into that a bit more! Thanks for the help! Keith, that method also sounds really good. If I were to do this, could i add multiple fixtures and toggle the visibility of each when programming. for example for our Deckel have a vice and a chuck and a standard fixture all built into the machine def and then choose which I am using when actually in the program? Or am i limited to 1? Thanks for the info! Brendan

Hi Everyone, I'm wondering if it is possible to get standard geometry to be imported when you create a new program file. So for example a vice model? or fixture models? Ideally when you start a new file you would have a vice on level 'x' positioned where you would normally have it etc. I'm thinking it looks like youd need to run a c hook or vb script on start to do this. Anyone run into this before? Thanks in advance! Brendan

Depending on the requirements of the engraving a 2mm dia ballnose cutter works very well and looks nice. Not so good if engraved lines need to be paint filled. Brendan

Try create->surface->remove boudary on the projected surface

Darin, When you go to produce the setup sheet using activereports it comes up with a prompt box for extra input (and you can specify the report to use etc). Note 1,2 and 3 can be used to insert comments to the report.

Hi Darin, If you go into the tool manager you can right click and select import/export tools. From there select report. The default report for this is just a simple list of the tooling like what yhou are after. Hope this helps Brendan

Hi Greyman, As I'm sure you are aware there is a lot of time and effort gone into configuring an active report. Im happy to help you out with as much information as I can to help you work through problems, but I am not comfortable sharing the rpx's. Besides anything else I have only been at my current workplace a short time and am not aure they would be too pleased with me sharing the documents that they paid for. If you want me to look at creating a custom activereport to suit your company and machines i'm sure we can sort something out and get that happening. Otherwise I have definitely found that everyone on the forum are very happy to pass on there experience and knowledge to help people in developing active reports. Brendan

Hi Keith, Did you set the machine type to design, and then create a new mastercam fiel before going into the machine def manager and finding the machine you want to change? I think this may have an impact on whether the machine definition is changed locally or globally. HTH Brendan

At the top of the Operations manager, in the toolbar, there is a button with just 3 blue squiggles...hit this with your desired operations selected to toggle toolpath display. HTH, Brendan

If you are using the same geometry then you can set it in your strategy manager to perform multiple operations per level. All you have to do is make a copy of the level name in the strategy manager and asign another operation to it. The order that you have the operations/levels in your strategy will determine the order that they are imported into your program. Hope this Helps Brendan

+1 I have run onto this problem before, and the solution John gave works well..I usually do it for the entire toolpath group to make sure! It will also effect your setup sheets. Brendan

You can display an icon that will create a setup sheet for you. I haven't looked into it very much, but you may or may not be able to utilise this for a tool list. Settings->Customise->Category Section->Utilities: There is an icon here for create setup sheet. You can drag this onto your desktop or set to appear in a right click menu. Hope this helps, Brendan

Thrash, On the faulty active report I had my subreport references set to //TOOL and //OPERATION. Taking on board what you said about defining them more clearly I changed the references to //SETUPSHEET/NCFILE/TOOLS/TOOL and //SETUPSHEET/NCFILE/OPERATION respectively and from there I only had to change a couple of other small references (pretty much just re-setting the time and tip radius fields) and now it works perfectly. Thanks for taking the time to help me out there Thrash! Is Appreciated! Brendan

There isn't a way that I am aware of. It is a good question and would be a great idea. If I have some spare time today I will look into it. Brendan

Yeah I am using subreports and have them defined to the correct Sections of the XML File like you have indicated Thrash. Will have a closer look at it today and double check that section of it is correct. I'm not able to attach the rpx files for some reason...sorry i can't provide that information. Thanks for all the help everyone! Brendan

Hi All, I'm in the process of developing a setup sheet for our Lathes and am running into some problems. We have a report set up for our mills and it works no dramas. I have pretty much replicated it for the lathe and am getting the following issues: 1. Insert Tip Radius: When I create a setup sheet, it will only read the tip radius of the first tool, and then output that radius for all tools, however, if i create a setup sheet for individual tools, it will pick the correct radius every time. 2. Operations are getting listed twice. Using a subprogram to output relevant Operations info. It lists all of the operations, then goes through and lists them again, but with some of the details missing, and then it lists another called "All Operations". Hope this makes some sense and any help would be greatly appreciated. I've attached a marked up image to help. Thanks in advance! Brendan

I've found that the most powerdul method of doing it is to change the default in the control definition for individual machines...I couldn't get it to default to the correct report using a variety of settings any other way.