quote: Technigrips, BY FAR one of THEEEEE most effective ways to use a common work-holding method that is flexible and as repeatable as you want it to be. These things kick SERIOUS @$$ and I would HIGHLY reccommend them to anyone looking to simplify workholding for VMC's, HMC's and 5-Axis. Im curious now. We cut a lot of different materials here (4140, crs, ss, aluminum) and we take some fairly hefty HP sucking cuts. Will this system really hold on 1/8 stock taking some highfeed cuts? I see the website and I know how a marketing campaign works. Id rather hear it from people who use it.

Matt that was the biggest selling point to the boss when breaking out of the hogmill age

quote: If money was not a problem what parts would make the fastest computer? Short answer... all. I would kill for a no price barrier computer build

I always set mine up the same as ocean lackey. Heres to hoping for some improvements in this area for x3

My company bought one of the old watson buildings There are so many closings in this complex but we are busy and with summer around the corner aerospace work will be picking up too. edit:: I would like to get my hands on one of those iscar feedmills just to do some comparisons. They do look nice and the example cuts they list look better then what im doing with mitsubishi's stuff

Rhino was always my prefered choice to cleanup and bring in iges files. Those pics look alot better then some of the files ive done. Sometimes there is just no easy save for the mess engineers make.

We use a G116 macro for all tool changes. It checks to see if the tool is there if it is, it doesnt change, if it isnt it orients spindle and changes. So instead of M6 we get G116 T1

You could also set this when you import the toolpaths. Setup up your file with the wcs/tplanes etc on how you want when the toolpaths are imported. Hit the import button, then select "Assign current system tool and construction planes" button.

quote: Just curious how many added this information to the notes or reference material???OMG this thread and posts in it are amazing help for post editing those rotten variables. This thread has been bookmarked, copied to hard drive and copied to my jump drive. If the mods ever delete this thread im coming north with a few sticks of dynamite. Thanks for this!!!

Same here on the mitsubishi ajx mills. .05 doc .05 ipt for the 2inch diameter. We use the mitsubishi bxd mills on aluminum. I cant break that damn thing. Last test we ran on our okuma 56va was @ 14000 rpm and something like 350 ipm with .25 doc

This multiple machines/types in one file is annoying. Everytime I add a machine whether its a mill or lathe, save and close the file then reopen the file it sets my first machine group to the default machine definition : most annoying thing ever. Setting where the red arrow is important as well. Ive tried to backplot something in a different machine group with the red arrow in a different machine group and have gotten weird things.

I only had to open the .xlt (template) file. It is a standard excel file type and in order to open a template file you have to right click and select open. You cant just double click it.

What I did to start out editing and creating one was to copy and paste the Format_sheet.xss and format_sheet.xlt files and renamed to test. Then I opened the .xlt file and deleted all the macros out and had the GUI of the X+ setup sheet add every single option I think I would want output. This way you have a basic sheet with all the output formated the way it is given and you can work backwards into designing and laying out your own setup sheet. You could go in and turn off the macros in the .xlt file but I deleted them just so I could have a base I can refer back to when needed.

We use mitsubishi bxd cutters almost exclusively in aluminum rough cutting. Great lead in ramp angles (18deg) lots of feed and lots of options for radius sizes for the inserts. Plus the fact you get a warranty with every cutter body that they will replace without question at least 1 time.

53 degrees gives me the right side face, I just went 127 degrees and got what I wanted Thanks man

I have this part I am trying to make a new tool plane on and it isnt doing what I want. This is for a horizontal and it is the 53 degree face on the left side of the part where the 2 extra lines are. All I want is the Y to point up, the Z to point out from the part, and I dont care about the X. No matter what geometry I create or use it wont give me this option in the view selection options. I either get the Z flipped the wrong way, or the Y and the Z axis are correct, only they are on some silly angle that doesnt match anything. I created a tool plane on the right side with no problem but the left side isnt working. I uploaded the file on the ftp in the MCX_MR2_or Earler_Files folder called work_plane_help.mcx

"Rectangular challenged" I was also baptized into all this round stuffs 2 weeks ago with mastercam.... by fire. So many cool things on lathe side I wish we had on mill side.

I wont be. While it sounds great and im sure it works great, paying money for something that that will stop functioning period if I decide I dont need any more updates just wont ever sit well with me... ever.

Watching those mitsubishi ajx mills rip material out of ss is something I can never get used to.

Its hit or miss with which old c-hooks work with the new version. Some of mine do, some don't. I couldn't live without findoverlap either. Some designers are horrible @ part drawing

bah

I typed ASN 6350 into matweb and got 4130 steel. http://www.matweb.com/search/QuickText.asp...Text=ASN%206350

I havent read all 5 pages of this thread so im sure some of the stuff I bring up here has already been discussed. - The ability to define my mill tools (facemills, mills, drills etc.) similar to lathe. I want to be able to show inserts, insert type, dimensions, body type and size and have verify tell me if I programmed my toolpath to go 1/2 doc when the insert I picked only allows 1/4 doc (like collision). This would be huge for setting up set-up sheets. Yes I know I can draw this but Id rather have it setup like lathe does it with its libraries or bodies or inserts and I can then plug this info into my sheets. - Allow me to make a facemill 90 degrees with a radius without giving me a big red X :/ So many different types of facemills out there and the interface for facemills is horrid. - More control over defining radmills. Setting 1 diameter doesn't cut it when you can have so many different body styles for them. It should have a nose diameter, body diameter and shank diameter. Also let me define where I program the radmill to. Top of tool or the point past the radius. Allow me to also define a radius on the tool if I need it. -More control over defining counter boring tools. Setting only 1 diameter doesnt even define a counter bore. Where is the pilot diameter? Im tired of just defining an endmill and skipping the c-bore layout. -Remove the dependency of material to calculate feeds and speeds. Let me input the chip load and surface speed myself. Like you have done with your HSM toolpaths. There are many more toolpaths besides HSM in mastercam dont exclude them. -Add the tool holder dialogs like HSM has for the rest of your toolpath package. I dont want to go the route of drawing tool+holder. Give me libraries I can use and make a tool + holder in the tool definitions. Im just disapointed with the entire tool definition layout for mcam. I was really hoping for changes here for more control with the release of X, but it hasnt changed since what? Version 7? Before any of you go blowing your horns about drawing the tools myself and saving them to a library just stop. I've been doing that and it sucks. I want this info in each tool definition right in the tool page itself without having to stop programming to draw some off-the-shelf tool mastercam can't even handle in its definitions. These types of changes will go a long way to making better and quicker setup sheets as well. Running X+ style with the ability to pick and choose what fields are included in the setup sheet and exported to excel would make my tasks much easier. Bug fixes should be taken for granted also. I shouldn't have to pay maintenance to get a fix for something you broke. I would gladly pay for new features but paying for a buggy program to get a bug fix only to break something else is silly. The two bugs that drive me nuts the most: 1. The crash to desktop associated with pressing the backplot button, then pressing "S" for step backplot before the backplot dialog fully loads introduced with sp1 sucks. It hasn't failed to crash yet so it is reproduceable yet there is no fix for this yet. FIX IT! 2. My gawd verify sucks. I select "Use last size" And mastercam usually ignores this. And not to mention its completely random when it will ignore my settings. Sometimes I open verify and I get "Failure in stock definition" even though I just selected my solid body or selected the corners for stock and I see $$$$$$$$$$$$$ in every size defintion (min point, max point, margins). Why? How? I do realize you are using a third party software for this module and all I can say is you need to fire them and get someone new.

I always use edit point options to get what I want but if I had that many holes to do I would probably make points in the holes to the depth i wanted and made the depth incremental in the toolpath.

We just started using a horizontal cnc and this is the first time for me. I came across a part that I can't make mastercam do what I want so I have to hand edit it. I was hoping maybe someone here could help fix it. Imagine a picture frame, on the front toolpane I drill and tap 6 holes. Now the part has to rotate 90 degrees (either way, doesn't matter) and I have to drill 6 holes on the frame edge. So the part rotates 90 degrees, but I am still drilling on the front tool plane. How can I make mastercam input a rotation code (B90.) at the toolchange even though it still thinks its on the first face (B0.)?