Im with Tony on this. I've got burned using R in the program especially with a nice .1 overlap to the circle for blending. It made a nice dent into the side of the boss I was cutting. IJK only here!

omg! I am so doing this, that window has bugged the crap out of me for years.

The 2 c-hooks I use all the time is FindOverlap.dll and NoHist.dll Findoverlap checks the entire model for overlapping entities like lines and arcs and deletes them. Very handy when you get crappy iges surface files. Nohist just deletes the history tree for solid models turning it into a "dumb" solid.

In the machine definition edit the control definition, select files, under posting error file select on fatal error and all error messages to screen. This will only show the error when posting and not save it to a file.

We have a job that requires a couple tolerances that I can't find unless we purchase the standards book. Km 12 DIN74 Km 8 DIN74 I know these are counterbored holes, I just don't know the tolerance for them. I put in a request for the standards doc but I was wondering if anyone has it and can look it up for me before they finally order the standard so we can finish this job.

We buy split-end engraving tools from Micro100. They work great!

Hide all entities with ALT+E. Press T to turn on/off the toolpath only with the toolpath highlighted. Or select a blank level, turn off all levels besides main and press T to turn on/off the toolpath with the toolpath highlighted.

Im always afraid of screwing something up doing it John's way in incremental mode. I usually do it by Rick's method of using the work offsets.

We just finished some parts on 4140 burnout with 1.25 hole diameters through 1" material. We used the new Iscar variable pitch 5/8" mills with a .08 pitch in the helix bore path. Iscar's carbide mills are similar to Hanita and Niagra. It cut a nice hole, but we didn't like the tool life compared to drill + bore tool. Finding a grinder still in business around here to grind those is such a PITA.

quote: gcode - I've changed the NC name multiple times (using Edit common paramaters since the normal way doesn't work yet in X3) What is your normal way? I usually right-click on a toolpath group or toolpath selection and select "Edit selected operations" then "Change NC file name..." and it works every time. I try to avoid the edit common parameters as much as possible since it leads to many possible problems. Almost sounds like one of those oddball side-by-side install problems. I kept having issues with stuff that works fine for almost everyone else.

Ya Sheffer we are going through all that now with temp control and specific gaging equipment to check them. I wanted to cover my end of it with the tooling

Thanks Chris we are looking at a few jobs with +- .0001/2 on the bore sizes and Romicron looked like a good fit.

No one uses these?

I agree with the tool life. Removing material in aluminum like that is an easy choice for us with that cutter. That feed and speed isn't all that tool can do either. We run it there because we get good insert life at the rate on that machine. We have run it at 500 ipm we just didn't get the tool life we wanted. The only down side I could see was the fact that you can't finish walls with it if it was a requirement.

We would run that cut with a 1" mitsubishi bxd mill 13000rpm 380ipm 1/4 doc on our Okuma 56va 40 taper. Another thing to note for comparison purposes is you have to send the carbide mill out for regrind and when it gets back you have to deal with compensation for the tool. If you do any kind of 3D work with it after its been ground, good luck. The insert mill you pop in new inserts or turn the insert and away you go. And you can ramp heavier (18 degrees for the bxd) and plunge up to .200 depth. I'm not the tool order guy but I'd imagine the inserts are cheaper then the regrind especially if it has variable pitch flutes on it. edit:: Forgot to add that with the Mitsubishi cutter you get a limited amount of warranty replacement cutters. You break it, send it back for a new one no questions asked. Each cutter is warrantied.

We are looking into getting a set of bore tools and its looking like Seco or Romicron. Anyone have experience with these Romicron bore tools? Can you really hold 2 micron with it? Is it a sturdy setup? We will be boring anything from 7075 aluminum to cast iron with these.

Clearance .1 abs Use clearance at the start and end of the operation = do not check Retract -1.1 abs Top of stock 0 abs Depth -1.5 abs Just one way of doing that.

Interesting... I print almost daily on tabloid paper. Shaded surfaces, models, stl files doesn't matter. I have never had an issue with printing on that size.

thanks Thad ill give it a shot.

I created an stl file and I want to import it into another file and create some geometry on it. The problem is I cant create anything on it since its treated as 1 item. Can I translate this mesh into anything like a solid model or surface model in a different software package? Like Solidworks or Rhino?

The color changes for me as a "result" entity. So it all changes to the result color. When I am done using translate drag multiple I just hit clear colors and its all gone.

If I have to make edges from surfaces I usually follow mold100 with delete duplicates then run findoverlap c-hook.

I too got tired of trying to work around stl problems so I sat down and learned WCS and haven't looked at an stl file since. Only time WCS doesn't work is for my horizontal work. If its vert work you are into you should really try and learn the ins and outs of the WCS, it will make life so much better.

Attention to detail is amazing in this post. Thanks Alex!

A lot of the mill tool library stuff has been around since v5. This is one of my only gripes with mastercam right now. It should at least function "something" like lathe with insert categories, tool bodies, holders, proper sfm/ipt calculations etc... It just needs work