Myself and another programer have been having issues with the operations manager glitching the programs when we save our programs, it puts red x's on some of them in the past when this has happened I have simply just reprocessed them, but on a couple jobs ago when I did that it seems to have changed the programs and messed the part up by missing some of the surfaces, I had selected. I had run the verify and visually seen the programs was good before I posted them to the machine. Has anyone else had this problem? I am working with MCX4 with MU3. Also on a new computer with windows 7. This also happened agin this morning when I was creating curves around holes for drilling I had them all created and saved and it glitched out several programs. Hope someone can shead some light on this.

That was happening to me, till I realized I have the undo icon right next to the save icon in the upper right corner. When in a hurry

I'll click the save icon and before its started to process I'd run my mouse over the icon next to it on the way back to the operations menu,

the undo icon.

This seems to click it somehow. Since then iv'e moved the two icons apart and its never happened again.

Hi ,folx

 

Talking about MCX5 MU1

 

 

 

 

Talking about Dinamic area milling why I can not enter from any point i LIKE ?

 

 

 

I wonder if there's an offbeat solution to this? Like using a reference point at the wanted start position, or something like that???

The boss wants to bring in a magnetic chuck to try on our cnc mills.It is a Tecnomagnete brand I'm not sure of the model #.Any one using them and what is your opinion of them. I would tend to think the holding forces would limit how agresively you can cut and the chips would tend to stick to the workpiece.

 

 

Noel

Coolant makes the rubber spacer between the polls puff up. I end up milling it off monthly, and i bearly use coolant. Without coolant it doesnt puff up at all. I dont think it would last in a mill running coolant as the norm. But who knows, maybe the rubber spacer isnt even needed and it can be milled away?

I'm playing with the probing system on our mill, trying to learn the ins and outs of it, and I noticed a discrepancy today. Basically, when we put something in the mill we usually indicate about a hole in the center to give us our part center. Pretty basic, and we haven't had any problem with it. But I would assume the probe can do the same thing and be just as accurate, if not more accurate. So I tried it, and noticed that the center of the hole using the probed center is 0.0147" different in the X, and 0.0022" different in the Y. Which would you trust to be more accurate, the indicator or the probe?

Make an x-y calibration on your probe before every pickup. it only takes a few seconds. Automate it. Otherwise it could be out from

just handling it or going thru a toolchange.

I wish that they would purchase vericut.. I have had so many problems with transform operations that I cant believe that I even use them anymore. This is the second issue on the same job with transform/mirror. The last issue was in the clearance moves. It completely left some of them out. A tool ended up rapiding through a corner of our dove tail. I missed it on verify because it was on the back side of the dove tail and the part is fairly large. I missed this clip for the same reason. It is a relatively small cut when you consider the size of the part, but it is well out of tolerance.

 

We lost two parts because of it but was able to make some adjustments and hopefully the next part will work. I am afraid that if I EVER use the words TRANSFORM OPERATION, and SCRAP in the same sentence in this shop again the owner will fire me on the spot. He was very understanding however because he knows how buggy this system is and about its issues.

 

The ONLY reason that I used it this time was because we were pressed for time. Once again, bitten by transform.

Save your file as an stl if you can, and use it as your stock model. Then you will clearly see any steel removed from the finished part. When your done the verify should show only one color on everything. I nicked a corner by .003" and I could see it plain as day.

Thanks guys for this thread, after showing my boss the 14 minute time I got, and the times others got, I got the ok to build a new computer. The results from this thread is what got me under 1 minute.

My new time is 54 seconds! UNBELIEVABLE!

No RamDisk...yet

Intel i7 3.4Ghz non overclocked.

motherboard with 8 meg cache

8 gig of ddr3 1333 ram.

windows7 ultimate 64bit

pny nvidia quadro 1800 ddr3 memory

The setup sheet works, but I'm not getting the Notes 1, 2, and 3. Everything else is good. Nice, concise look.

I took those out. I customised them for my personal use. Some minor editing can bring them back.

What are you trying to do?

 

There was a nice face color enhancement in X5, where you can set faces to colrs, then use a colr mask select to make the process easier.

Yep, I seen that. That makes it A LOT better...

I guess I'm thrown off by not being able to select individual faces. Like color for example...

I cant just right click a new color on a face.

I'm off to check out the color enhancer...

You do realize that it does not matter which you use.

Surfaces or Solids, Mastercam is still tessellating the model for Tooolpath calculation.

 

So is every other CAM system on Planet Earth.

The limitation I see is the tools to work with the solid are lacking, selection especially.

Maybe I'm wrong on this?

Thanks for sharing.

Nice first post for a noob :D

 

 

Welcome to the forum :old forum cheers:

 

 

thanx, i been on this forum for 10 years. It's just that I forgot my password and my old email addy isnt working. After reading a bunch of awesome stuff on x5 here I felt compelled to contribute to your forum.

 

I do have a lagit question:

coming off ug i want to cut solids, not surfs, but it seems like after 6 months of usage the solid machining part is lacking...

The solid creation is really lacking and I know that for sure, but is the machining of solids worth my time and effort?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PEACE

I am runing MC X5MU1, W7 professional 64 bits, DELL T3500, 8 gb RAM, and NVIDIA Quadro FX-1800, W7 is running in Adjust for best performance mode, MC is running OpenGL and Disable hardware acceleration is OFF (not check mark). I have been this configuration for 2 mouth ago. Today when I tried verify a cavity a compare to STL file my MC freeze after that, when I try to use verify again MC show me this error "Fatal error occurred in Verify/simulation. Please exit Verify/simulation and try again with reduced image quality. If the problem persists, report it to CNC Software."

When I verify the same part in other PC it work fine. I can turn ON Disable hardware acceleration, and verify work fine but it is too slow.

 

Any recomendation?

Youv'e already had a reply saying it might be a driver issue and I agree, The reason might be you could have auto update for windows turned on, and it updated your driver without you knowing it. Or...Maybe you have system restore on and it restored a driver that was fuxored? Whatever it is...update drivers first with a known version that works with opengl. Or you could of updated the OS with autoupdate, and lots of times opengl support is the first to go bonkers.

I know this has been brought up in the past and again in another active thread. To do some processing time benchmarks. Anyone who is willing I have selected one of the default sample files. This is a default sample file but it is only there if you have installed the sample files from disk #2. Maybe someone can post it on the ftp? I have problems uploading.

 

 

1. Open: C:mcamxmcxmillsamplesinchhigh speedHST-CORE-HORIZONTAL-RASTER.MCX

 

 

2. There are three operations in this file, they all have the filter set to off, with a total tolerance of .001".

 

 

3. Set the Total Tolerance to .0001" on all three operations.

 

 

4. Select all

 

 

5. Regenerate

 

 

6. Please post:

 

 

Time to process

 

laptop/desktop

 

CPU & speed

 

Operation System

 

RAM & RAM speed

 

 

 

I think this will be a useful tool for those looking at purchasing a new workstation. Also, if you have a pc that is older please test this also, it will give an idea to others with similar configurations on how much time can be saved by getting a new pc (may help with justification for new pc?).

 

 

Thank you

 

 

This post has been promoted to an article

First time I got 14mins, 28 seconds, and that sounds right for a single core 2.8 with 1 gig of ram.

However, when I tried it a second time I got around 6 minutes. I tried everything to get back to the 14?

I deleted the regen files and even emptied the garbage.

I deleted ALL temp files in my box.

I turned off the page file, rebooted, defragged... then recreated it with a slightly different size and rebooted.

I renamed the file, renamed the 3 ops, and put the file in a different place.

I even tried opening a different file and regenerating it first.

Then rebooted, and left the comp off for 2 mins.

same time everytime, 6 mins 3 seconds.

Where is this stuff saving the info allowing it to go twice as fast?

It's funny how everyone is either 13-14mins or 5-6 mins. Like there's 2 groups. Kinda fishy.???

A bit over the top asking for what others have spent time working on isn't it?

 

Kind of like asking for a post if you ask me.

I think it's legit asking for the active sheets

considering the person wants help making them work?

Besides, I'd like to see a place where people post their setup sheets, post processors, macros, tool lists, config files, etc...

I'm sure the local distributors prolly wouldnt like it, but it sure would be a good thing for the mastercam user community.

13 minutes 55 seconds

 

Dell Dimension 3000

Pentium ® 4 CPU, 2.80GHz

1.00GB of RAM

XP Professional

 

The sad thing is they bought this POS for Mastercam X. At least I have time to read the forum

(kinda off topic) but I have that same computer at home, and I bought a gforce 9400 1 gig ram graphics for it. It' not a cad card, made for gaming, but it rocks, and

it comes in the 32bit old pci version so it will work in that dell. The thing was 60 bux. Just a heads up if you care.

This wont help you proberbly, but the comp I use at work is a single core(newer comp). It would never go over 50% cpu on mastercam. Come to find out it was a threading setting

in the bios. Mastercam thought my box had 2 cores, so it split it up. Now after disabling it I get 100% of my cpu running on mastercam.

This is a descent set of friggenlathe setup sheets using the same style as my friggenmill setup sheets.

The instalation is basically just copying files. And a batch file is provided for one click install if you

prefer that.

Maybe their not exactly what you want, but they are a whole lot better than the default ones, and easy to edit.

Here's the link:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34947158/Friggen_lathe_setup_sheets.rar

cheers.

Looks like toolpath filtering using arcs doesn't play well when running HPCC. I get either illegal arc or plane error, not always but often enough for me to start considering not using toolpath filters.

Do you turn filtering completely off when using HPCC or just arcs?

Am I missing something here?

 

TIA

there's 3 arc filters, dont check on the lower 2...filtering in g18,g19. Only use the G17 filter(x-y plane, the top one. Might be your problem.

I've just started playing around with producing set up sheets from within the operations manager in X5.

Normally we've just produced Manufacturing Operation Sheets in Excel which does take a bit more time.

Can anyone tell me if there is a way to edit the comments sections in the .pdf file from within Mastercam or will I need a .pdf writer to be able to add comments in these comments sections after I publish the pdf?

Also, given the file size of these pdfs and the one I did is about 550 KB compared to the same info minus the graphics on Excel spreadsheet is only about 50 KB, is there a way to generate these in another format other than pdf?

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

\**********

When your setup sheet gets created it pops up a window with the sheet on it. At the top of the screen, right next to the help icon is an annotations icon. What you have to do is pull down that menu, decide on the type of annotation or comment you want, then "drag the icon" to the place you want to add an annotation.

Mastercam X5 has dropped the GUI tool list maker. The replacement is meant to be active designer.

The problem is the default setup sheets are enormously fat and super slow. The information supplied in

the setup sheets is nothing short of overwhelming.

So I edited up a nice set of sheets for 3 axis milling, really fast and gives all the info I want to see.

The files contain a text file explaining where to copy the new sheets, and there's a batch file for

one click install if your installed in default places.

These setup sheets will not in any way overwrite your existing sheets. It will just add another set of sheets

to pick from called friggenmill.

The files are located here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/34947158/Friggen_Setup_sheets.rar

cheers!