Is that even legal? Not allowing them to smoke in their cars I mean.

I'll tell you what you can do, fire his lazy xxxx and hire someone that actually gives a crap about their job. I smoke myself, but I would never spend 2 hours in a day catching up on my fix. That's what break time is for.

Sounds like you might be hitting a limit switch. Is your machine able to do negative axis?

Go ahead and act surprised. It will make for a nice break in the day

Pretty well sums up a fair amount of my critisism. Except for the part about recommending MC.... I am actually doing the exact oppposite.

Happens to me all the time when I use High Speed Dynamic and surface toolpaths. You get used to it after awhile

I agree, you should have quality tools in your toolbox. There are plenty of reasons I personally don't like MC, and they all have to do with what I believe is a sub-par quality product, that in my eyes is just plain dangerous to use. If they brought it up to the standards of the current generation of CAM software, then my opinion could certainly change. But I'm not holding my breath.

I am not so sure about that. We have 4 guys here, all using different hardware set-ups and we all seem to have the same problems to some extent.

Just sad ....

If all the bugs and issues were magically fixed, I still wouldn't pay $0.01 for this program.

Even if you dry run a program your not always going to "see" all the problems, such as fasle cuts or overcuts or things like that. Plus, dry running a long program just isnt feasible for most things.

Ok, back to the regularly scheduled program. I was using the HS Dynamic contour on a particular job. It has never given me any problems so far untill now. It ran as per usual along the selected curve with no problems what so ever. It got to a part where it had to go back to the start point, to clear out a corner. It went right thru the part. A $3k block of aluminum smoked in less than a minute. I sure didn't see that coming. When I looked at the toolpath on the screen it never once violated the contour I had chained. When I verified it, nothing looked out of place. I recalculated the toolpath, re-ran it on the machine, and the problem disappeared. That was awesome. Truly it was. I tried to explain to the boss, but he didn't quite seem to care what went wrong, just that he was out 3 grand.

I have almost done the same myself. You really get a sense of how poorly it does the job when you are used to a different CAM package that is light years ahead.

I will agree that just because it is new doesn't neccessarily translate into better. And it's not just MC that works that way. All the other CAM packages do as well. However, when the other guys make releases, they DO fix any problems from prior versions, as well as actually improving on existing ones, plus any newer style toolpaths that, while not used by everyone, are still useable and stable and not prone to crashes, bugs etc.. Oh, and btw, still not feeling it here. Sorry. Your credentials just aren't blowing my socks off. I'm not gonna list mine, it'll just make you jealous. Of course, you would probably be pleased to know I only have about 18 months worth of MC experience But don't let that fool you.

Colour me unimpressed. How can you say you have done cavities and cores with thousands of surfaces, when by your own previous admission you stated you don't do surfacing much? I can only assume you are refering to not using the dreadful new HS surfacing paths and not the horribly outdated old style surfacing paths then.

This is probably one of the more moronic things I have heard. By your statement you are basically saying that MC should have just stayed at V9 and never released anything after that. What is CAM software for if not a tool to make everyones lives easier and more productive? Hence earning more money etc etc. But I guess your not bothered by this as you clearly enjoy being stuck in the early 90's, or you are already a millonaire and don't care about making money. Don't bother. If you don't use surfacing toolpaths regularly then you will never know the pain they inflict

The fact is people shouldn't have to come up with creative work arounds to get their software to work. Especially when those same people (or their employers) are shelling out some serious dollars to purchase and maintain that software. Its not exactly productive to spend half your day trying to get something that should make your life easier to work properly.

Honestly, I can't understand why it is that you guys are so shocked about the unwieldly and buggy surfacing toolpths. Everyone knows how bad they are. I get cheesed off at them on a daily here. I had a good one happen to me yesterday, I created a scallop HS path, no problems, did a few other things, verified the whole thing, posted it out etc etc. Operator comes in and asks what the hell I was trying to. I open up my project, turn on the scallop path, and find out that it dropped half the selected surfaces and recalculated. I couldn't even begin to explain that one.

Those are still some pretty significant problems that can cause a whole lot of grief if your not careful. Completely unacceptable for the self proclaimed leader in the CAM industry.

Well I would think the hope is that if X7 was released this summer it would address all the outstanding issues, rather than just release a maintenance pack but still have the stigma of "X6 was a disaster" attached to it.

Yeah, I get that one all the time. I usually have to physically go into the paramters, reselect my tool, then recalculate the whole thing. Royal pain in the behind it is.

We do tight tolerance aerospace parts here as well, and I have given FBM a fair shake, but I was unimpressed. Found it to be more of an irritation than anything. Like Bear said, there are better ways to do things.

Warm and fuzzy isn't exactly the term I would use. Red faced and steaming might be a touch more accurate

Something like what happened to Rickster happened to me the other day in X5. I had to renumber all the tools for a program, so i just did it all thru tool manager, then posted out the program and sent it to the machine. 10 minutes later the operator comes in and asks me if I had intentionally made the 2" facemill run at 10 ipm and the 1/8 endmill feed at 50 ipm. What the.. ???? I go in and check all the toolpaths, and all the feedrates were all screwed up in 1/2 the toolpaths. That was very much NOT amusing.