jmparis, John are the chains nested? How many of them do you need to select at a time? You can window select them but there isn't any great way to control the order of the chains unless they are nested (smaller inside of larger contours). Manual selection is still the best way to guarantee they are in the order you want. Send me a sample part and I'll see what I can do. Tomorrow's a Tech Day here in the office as well. Call us and let us know if you want to come in for a session during Tech Day.

g huns, Murlin is correct. Loosen the tolerance and you will get more splines to Simplify. Or you could use Trim/Break Break many pieces and select the line/arc button on the right end of the ribbon bar. This also allows for a tolerance value. Something else that may help with commonly used V9 functions that don't appear to work the same in X is to "Use Learning Mode propmts". This is a switch in the System Configuration-Screen topic page. When activated, the cursor can be held on any of the fields or buttons on the ribbon bar and a text box will appear directly below the ribbon bar to provide additional information for the function. HTH

Shawn Cassidy, Welcome to the forum! What is the CAD software your customer is using? Many times it's far better to bring in native part geometry rather than an IGES "I guess" file. If they're using SolidWorks, for example, ask them to send you the .SLDPRT file directly. If they're using Unigraphics, ask for a Parasolid file (.X_T), or a STEP file. If they're using Pro-E, ask for a STEP file. There is an add-on Pro-E converter for Mastercam which requires an additional license, as required from the developers of Pro-E. There are plenty of CAD files that can be imported to Mastercam directly. Ask your supplier what they're using and if you're not sure if Mastercam will accept it, call your reseller. If all they will send you is IGES then ask your supplier to "explode" the file before sending it to you. HTH

KMI, The STL works better in Mcam X but for Verify you can also use an actual solid part as the verify stock. Open the Verify configuration and select Solid for stock shape instead of File. Then click on the square arrow button (select) and click on any solid part in the graphics screen. HTH

loraxian, What's the size of the cutter? Is the diameter too large to allow for a full linear move to the point where it would transition to the next line? Here's a quick test to see if the cutter is too large when not using "roll cutter". Select Xform-Xform Offset Contour from either the drop down menu or Xform toolbar in X. Select one or all of the islands, making sure that all chains are going the same direction, and supply the offset distance as the radius of the cutter. Set the Corners switch to "none" and make sure to Copy the geometry. Reverse the direction if the copied contours are on the inside of the islands. Are any of the copied contours touching or within the tool radius of the pocket boundary? If any are that would explain why the toolpath cannot be generated without "roll cutter" switched on. HTH

quote: What is your problem Ran? Obviously Brendan this is someone who doesn't have much class and just wants to drag the rest of us down to his level. It seems as if he intentionally belittles himself and others as a childish attempt to entertain. Clearly the fault lies with his upbringing as indicated with the topic you linked to on the "Off" forum. It's truly sad and yet, strangely hypnotic. RandleXX is placing himself into the position of forum Jester, pass the popcorn.

jmparis, Can you send the file to me John? I'd like to have a shot at it. Are you using the solid edge geometry or are you generating edge curves and then chaining them? Email it to me if you'd like. Or drop it into the ftp here and I'll look it over.

jmparis, Glad to see you found a solution John. How're you doin'? Hope you didn't get flooded out like so many others in our state. My advice would've closely resembled gti_jay's. That's what it looked like to me. Possible breakup of a spline into many linear moves. Check your geometry. Is there a spline instead of an arc at the location of these lines of code? Splines can often be confused with arcs or even straight lines. The only way to be certain is to analyze the entities and find out what they are. Or you could attempt to Edit/Simplify (Modify-Convert to Arcs in V9) and select All - Entity menu - Splines. If anything highlights, you've got splines. HTH

Mark Bana, quote: Page 404 in MCX Reference Guide Reference Guide? What's that? "We don't need no stinkin' Reference Guides." BTW, it doesn't really say what menu lets you access that page like jmparis described above. Sometimes the information that's left out can be just as important as the information that's included in the guide. JMHO

Lucky, Mcam X Backplot before SP1 didn't have any units of measure for the estimated run time. CNC Software assigned a unit of measure to the estimated run time for SP1 however it appears the displayed unit variable is wrong. What should be minutes is displayed as seconds. So when the display says "60.0s" it really should read "60.0m". Just keep that in mind when looking at the estimated run time. To find a more accurate run time, use the GUI Setup Sheet and have a printer, network or local, installed so you can produce an Operation list with the run time at the bottom. HTH

dprovost71, Welcome to the forum! Follow the advice of everyone above. I'm including a picture of the general selection bar with the solid selection cube they're referring to. After the first cube button is clicked, the GSB changes to show the solid Face and whole solid Body buttons. HTH

Metal Flake, In Mcam X, separate the solid from the rest of the geometry by moving it to another level. Turn off the visibility of all the levels except the one with the solid on it. Now File/Save As and select Stereolithography as the File of type to save it as. Place it in a convenient folder where you can find it easily to select it for verification. Or in Verify itself you can select the solid for the stock definition. HTH

haroldm, Glad I could help. Good luck and let us know how you do.

All, Doug said it best with this statement. quote: But my guess would be that it would be difficult to QC these at such a high frequency. As an employee of a reseller I often provide tech support to companies and users who haven't updated their computers for a very long time. Many issues with software are fixed with frequent updates. Some of our customers don't even have internet access. Some users, who would benefit most from frequent updates, aren't aware of updates, or not allowed to download and install new software updates. Can you imagine the nightmare of having to ask every user who calls for tech support what update they're using? That was bad enough in V9 after the introduction of the Maintenance program. "Are you using SP1, SP2, MR 0304, MR 0105?" Not to mention that MR 0904 didn't even change the title bar. There was a separate download to test whether or not the MR had been installed properly. What would happen if there were twice as many updates within the same time frame?

haroldm, Welcome to the forum! My suggestion would be to generate a "slice" curve down the parting line of the part. Do this by using Create/Curve/Create Curve Slice and select the whole solid or a single face if it continues through the whole part. Generate the slice at a a plane which would essentially cut the part in 2 pieces lengthwise if it was a knife blade. Think of a cheese slicer. Now generate a curve at one of the open ends of the solid by creating an Edge curve. This edge curve should be the edge which defines the ID on the inside of the "pipe". Perform a solid Sweep operation and chain the ID edge curve as the chain to be swept. click the OK (green check) button. Next select the slice curve as the sweep path chain. The path chain doesn't have to be closed but it should not have any sharp corners along its length. When the Solid Sweep dialog appears, select the "Add Boss" button and click the OK button. This should produce a sweep solid that fills in the "pipe". Look up Solid Sweep in the Help topics if any of this needs clarification. Do the Boolean remove after the sweep and you should have the cavity you're looking for. HTH

Decomaster and others, Be certain you're using a HASP 4 to run Mcam X with. If it's HASP 3, Mcam X will not recognize the HASP. Go to Mcam Simswap form and look at the top of the page for the "HASPinfo" link. This will allow you to test the HASP and will let you know if it's HASP 3 or HASP 4. If it's a USB HASP, it's automatically a HASP 4, no need to test it. Also check to make sure you're not trying to run a NetHASP if you have a local sim. Go to the Mcam X program group and select NHASP X. This will sometimes attempt to run on a NetHASP depending on how Mcam X was installed. HTH BTW, Lathe-Mill. The NVS series chipset is NOT a recommended video card chipset. It's equivalent of a "plain Jane" office pc card, not a CAD/CAM engineering grade workstation card. You may experience some video issues. See if you can upgrade the card to a Quadro FX 500/600 or better. I use a Quadro FX 540 card w/128 Mb of onboard RAM. It's not that expensive and the video is flawless.

R.O.Y._23, quote: Question: How does one edit a drafting note? Answer: Create/Smart Dimension left click on Note. I know it sounds wierd but the Smart Dimension also includes the "quick edit" feature of V9 and V8 for Drafting. HTH

stevieboy, Charles' reply says it best: quote: Edit, Trim/Break. Turn on both "Trim to Point" AND "Break". Click on entity, move mouse to Midpoint of entity, left click Check out the image below. The Midpoint selection is just above the Trim/Break ribbon bar. "Patience, Grasshopper". Try it again when you have the time. HTH

Joel Walker, The Preview button is active by default. This shows the user the Result along with the Group of the function so they can make changes before clicking the Apply button. In previous versions of Mcam, the function had to be completed before users knew if changes were necessary. Shut off the Preview button if you would like it to work similar to V9. HTH

R.O.Y._23, quote: Can we still select, for example, create/line/endpoints/and then select endpoint. Then click on the line nearest an endpoint you want as the 1st endpoint selected? All the point selections that were available in V9 are still available in X. The menu is part of the Autocursor bar, which is right above the ribbon bar to the left of middle in the screen. Check out the image below. The drop down menu shows all the point selection methods. HTH

stevieboy, Are you trying to change the level of existing geometry? Is the ribbon bar open from a previous function while you're trying to change levels? The error message seems to be more of a generic one that will appear as a user is attempting to do more than one thing at a time. Try to take note of the precise steps you took, or clicks you made, juust before noticing the lock-up. Usually this helps to pinpoint the problem. Try not to do too much at the same time. Also take note of any prompts that appear in the work window just before this occurs. Something else to consider is whether the system meets the minimum requirements to run Mcam X. Look through the Installation Guide that came with your package. HTH

Brendan, quote: Or better yet,the students with the instructor!!! LOL Come on B. No one ever has a problem with the instructor do they?

Psychomill, quote: Can't seem to locate where the "Hkey_local....." needs to be changed? Hkey_local... refers to a Registry key. The only way to change this is to go to the Start menu and select Run... In the prompt type "regedit" and click the OK button. This will open the Registry editor but you should be very careful not to eliminate something that is used for other applicaitons. You also will not be able to open the regedit program without having admin rights on the pc. HTH

jmparis, Thanks John. I'll try it out. Maybe my next classes will see it if the projector doesn't have any issues with the colors.

jmparis, Verrry interesting John. What are the #'s for those colors? Here's one I just thought of to sort of get me in the mood for the upcoming Halloween holiday. Enjoy. Start color: 138 End color: 255