In MC7 I noticed this right away, although nowhere near 10 seconds. Maybe an extra second or two at most. Our network is pretty solid for the most part.

I might be wrong but the looks like the same file from another one of Reko's posts on the Singularity issue he was having. I believe he loaded the file on to the FTP site. I also posted a working file for it last week, I believe...

This is one of the settings in the multi-axis "Curve" toolpath. Click on the "Cut Pattern" right under "Trim to Stock" and you see those setting right around the middle of the box. +1 +1

I usually get great results when setting tighter tolerance on the "Curve following method" (cut tolerance to about .0005" and maximum step to about .010"). Also check your filtering. I set mine pretty tight (.0005" or more.). Lots of code but it will work great.

Well now that make sense. I have a 100,00kb + file that just blew up MC when I tried to very it at 8 factor. 90% surfacing and high speed toolpaths everywhere.

If you read into the subject more it becomes pretty interesting (for a geek like me anyway, LOL). In quantum mechanics it's more like a back hole exploding or a Big Bang.

FYI, after reading this post I decided to push the limits and changed my precision factor number up a bit. Left it at 8 when I went home last night and when I tried Verify this morning it just locked up and crashed MasterCam (stalled with no recovery). Had to change the setting in the XML back to get it to work again.

If you download the SolidWorks file from McMaster you can open up that sketch that it was created with and see the entire process used to draw the thread. I've done it out of curiosity in the past. It's pretty envoled and take more effort than I'm willing to put into each and every thread that I need but at least you get the idea of what it takes. I believe you can use the same process in MasterCam.

Good to hear that you got this settled.

This worked very well for us. Even at a high setting it still works great. Not a much of a noticeable difference on parts that I've done so far.

Looks like I have a fix for you. Loaded it to the FTP site but I can't seem to see it there. Not sure if I'm doing it wrong, it's been a while since I've loaded anything to the FTP. It should be "5X_SWARF_GROOVE_SINGULARITY_FIX---MAYBE.MCX-7".

High speed toolpaths. Seems like you have enough machine to make these work well for you.

Bingo! Your machine doesn't know what to do when it sees this. We use CAMplete for our Matsuura and even that needs some fanagleing. I had to do a dovetail groove on a profile with only one entry point in 5 axis the other day and it would have shot through the part if I didn't catch it. For a Haas I would split the part. Also, I found that a 5 axis Curve toolpath sometimes works better depending on geometry constraints.

WOW! Well then, I have to say, if you've done so much HSM and you're still having a hard time believing than you're doing it wrong.

Not offended at all. I'm just surprised that you would call out Chris on that. Through this forum I've watch him develop some pretty amazing data for this precisely these types of apps. I tip my hat to him for taking the time and effort and for sharing it with us here. I also assumed that if you've used these toolpaths in the past, you may know that it's pretty typical to use for %7 to %15 radial depth of cut depending on machining conditions. Not trying to sound condescending, just explaining myself is all. It's actually good that this came up. These toolpaths are still new to a lot of people (even me) and it's all about learning what works best.

First off, I know this thread has gone off a bit the OP but I have to say that there's been some good points made here. I've been experimenting with these tool paths since early X6 and have found the very useful in most cases. I really like the chaining methods that xycnc brought up. I hadn't considered those but will be using them when ever possible. This is something that I noticed early on and my solution was to hit the corners of the square with a regular 2d Core Mill to just enough to smooth them out and then apply a 2d Dynamic Core Mill tool path to complete the roughing. Works great. Would be nice it CNC would enhance the toolpath to avoid having to do this, but... well see were that goes. ^^^ Seriously?... I mean, I know that when you start throwing the radial factor into it "xxxx starts changing" but you can't say 650ipm, 1" D.O.C., on 1018 is not impressive.... To Crazy, I'm not an owner but hear you loud and clear. Thinking has to change at all levels to stay competitive now days. It may sound crazy to some, but you hit the nail the head. Thumbs up.

MIcro, I'm not sure what version of MC you're using but I remember coming across this in the past a few times in X5 I believe. Not sure what caused it but I have a feeling it might have been on of two things. First a corrupt tool, second changing, updating, or renumbering a tool for those toolpaths. I would suggest re-creating a similar toolpath of which you're having problems with, from scratch, using the same tool to test this. It might give you some resolve. Or try reselecting the tool from with in your current toolpaths and regenerate them. This hasn't worked very well for me in the past for this particular situation, but worth a try.

+1 ^^^^ I've seen the same with a corrupt tool.

First off, WOW! I'm blown away by the how much this thread has grown. I read the first few post a couple of days ago when it only two pages and haven't logged on since, so it took me a bit to read my way through all the most recent posts. I have to say that a lot of the gripes that you guys have, I also have. I'm just not as vocal about it for the most part. Like others here, I've hoped for new releases to fix problems that have been around for years or even at a more stable new release. But time and time again, new releases have fallen short of the hype that precedes them. I think Bob said it best that we end up getting so used to the workarounds, that it becomes second nature. And I for one have spent many hours and countless hair pulling sessions because of them, just to get the job done, out the door, and on time. (not to mention many 750ml recovery sessions) I also took he time to read the private blog article above. Usually I'm not a big fan of these type of articles as they are for the most part someone out there just venting, or promoting propaganda. But this one did seem have some good insight on more than just Mastercam. I've work with a few of the software mentioned and agree with the points given on those. Although it did seem like the writer was bashing CNC for mistakes made in the way the software is, it's not to much different than what most of us here have been saying for years. We like bells and whistles, but fix the bugs first! Even if it takes a little longer for the next release. I've been a fan of MasterCam for many years and it's helped me make a living for at least the last 15 years, so I had been hoping that CNC would get it's act together and give us something good with X7. But again, I think that they've really continued in the wrong direction with the addition of features which IMHO were less necessary than good stable fixes to old problems. I mean really, I could of done with out a new tool manager that doesn't really work and makes creating a tool a longer process than before. Well, for me, the energy that I spend relearning some of the new features in Mastercam can be better spent on learning another more reliable software like Catia. Which is now a priority for me. JM2¢

My mistake was going back and trying to read it over and over again in an attempt to understand it.... I think my eyes actually started to bleed, LOL. Terry, it sounds like you guys have some custom applications there that use tools and operations in a certain way through different jobs. My solution would be that you create a custom "tool" or "operation library" (or both) for each type of operation that you use often and have these all named properly from the beginning. That might save you some pain.

Holy cr@p, it's been out since March and I've been sitting here making flowlines and connecting dots and crud. What's worse is that I read that OP when it was first posted but didn't follow it, LOL. Thanks for the link J these tools come in very handy.

I remeber seeing this before. I'm almost sure it had something to do with the way you did your install but everything should be there. You should be able to just click through that message and continuewith your toolpath creation.

I haven't seen any Verisurf tools for x7 yet. But, if your looking for a way to get an axis try this. Create flowline geometry on the walls of the hole you want drill. Make sure that your flowline direction is perpindicular to the dirction of the hole. This should make complete circles on the hole surface. Adjust the distance to suite your needs as you'll need at least two circles. Then just connect the center of two of the fowline circle geo and done. Semi-instant hole axis. This usually works for me... unless I have a model with funky UV direction, then I actually have to do some work.

^^^^ I'll second that. Works very well for me.

Ah yes, I did catch that. Good feature IMO. Wish I could do it in the regular MC.