I do not like how mastercam now handles expand and collapse so I usually only create toolpath groups for each operation, never each tool. I use as few as possible.

6 minutes ago, JParis said:

RTX A4000 Here...I need the horsepower...

I am regretting not getting the 5000 but it's been "sufficent"

 

Why do you regret it? Im currently putting together a build that is 4k at the moment and I am debating if I want the rtx 5000 with double the ram.

edit:: my biggest problem with this software is verify. I do simple cuts on very large parts and verify drives me batty.

5 hours ago, gcode said:

Try Carmex Spiral Mills Spiral Mill-Thread | Carmex

We do hundreds of 1-11.5 NPT's a month and these work really well

On a rigid machine with good through coolant you can get 40 to 50 holes from a set of inserts with a 30 to 45 second cycle time

 

We use a combo of tungaloy, kennametal and vardex insert thread mills and I can't stand any of them. I am gonna give these a shot thanks man.

I deal with too many models that come from a variety of often terrible sources so I have used point to define all my threadmill toolpaths for longer than a decade.

I define my threadmills exactly how my source defines them so when the dudes on the floor get my tool list it says the same thing on the tin. My current source (JBO) defines the tip diameter and the shank diameter along with cut length. I just plug all that in to mastercam along with the taper (1.7833) into every npt I make (usually 1" to 2" npts) and I start with the OD tube diameter defined on the charts and work from there. Depending on the machine they typically end around -.002" to -.014" comp. The inserted npt threadmills we use occasionally just suck balls so we end up with a lot more comp than the solid carbide ones.

Threadmill works too. I use it quite a bit.

On 12/29/2021 at 8:25 AM, Chally72 said:

Just a note that 2023 has some icon color changes that will alleviate some of these visibility issues.

Thanks for this man. My vision thanks you as well

Are you doing any xform mirror imaging? I was finding xform mirror was changing parameters of my toolpaths in 2022 along with crashing a bunch and not letting me mirror legacy surface routines sometimes.

Its been awhile since I had access to those converters in mcam but there used to be a couple different translators. One was verisurf and the other I think was mastercams version.

I am not old enough to be in the old dog cant learn new tricks camp, but I am old enough to know when those new tricks are not helping me get stuff done. It is getting really frustrating.

On 11/18/2021 at 2:59 PM, AHarrison1 said:

Not to sound facetious or anything, but do you not have a choice as to what version you can use.

I use 2022 when helping out the router/5 axis dept because they use it but I prefer using and still use 2020 for my own stuff.

Is there a problem with wanting the current version to work correctly? Why would I want to use multiple versions? They don't even fix problems with 1 version behind the current one.

There are just to many things now that are user unfriendly in this version I don't think I am going to continue to use this.

3 hours ago, crazy^millman said:

Exactly why I will use the 5 axis toolpath where they handle this much better and with more intelligence in the process of making the toolpath. The gap settings play a big part of this in the HST toolpaths, but the fact I can control the 1st and last moves in and out separately from the whole area being machined is huge difference between the thought process of handling situations like this that Moduelworks put into it that HST still has some catching up to do.

I miss these paths I wish they would spring for the 5ax here. I still get area roughing doing plunge on walls instead of the horizontal arcs I explicitly set.

One of the first things I do when I move to a new version is update those sources to the new version. The migration tool never did update those so I would wonder why it would still reference 2020 when I don't even have that installed heh.

23 hours ago, Bill Craven said:

I posted the templates back in 2019 for the short version (checklist) 

I included a Word doc explaining how I was naming tools and how to install the templates.  

These templates are still available to download and play with.  

I probably stripped out the Router and Wire subreports, but they could be easily added back in.

Even though this was for MC2017, it should still work for 2020, and 2021 without modification. 

Click on the link/picture below and it should take you to the original post

 

So long as you update the data sources.

4 minutes ago, SlaveCam said:

It was improved. The icons were renewed in 2022.

And now they blend in nicely with my grey background so I can hardly see them at all. Definite downgrade for me.

On 9/1/2021 at 10:09 AM, crazy^millman said:

Used Microsoft Access for dong this 20+ years ago. I had a full query process, inventory, time sheets, job scheduling and other things done. We had all of the customer information stored in it and could tell you the machines part ran on and what we the scheduled work for the machines we had.

Excel can be used in many different ways.

I have used it for accounting, scheduling and many things over the years.

Setup sheets I used it for were also copy paste or manually write information into them. Zoober had a pretty slick X+ script written to make setup sheets from Mastercam that was output in Excel years ago not sure if he has kept up with it.

I have seen it used for Quality checklist, Inventory control, any other things, but most of those I cannot share since they are customer files and not what I created.

 

I tried for so long to get a handle on query and and the finer controls of access and I just couldn't do it I gave up around 2003ish. I can however program my way around excel. I used to make a highly custom X+ excel file complete with tables of cycle times, MRR, feeds and speeds, torque, horsepower.... you name it I had it in there and it was mostly based off data I pulled from Machinery's Handbook. If you wanted to know how many parts you could get in 6 months at 70% efficiency with my current program broken down by toolpath? Done!

Nowadays I have a few excel files I use occasionally. I have 1 to calculate savings between up to 4 different tools for testing. I didn't like any of the excel files my tool vendors gave me so I developed my own. I have 1 big excel file with loads of conversion math, chip thinning, finish calculations etc.., I do a lot of probing and macros now so I have a couple I use to test the math formulas I write for macros since I don't have a really good way of verifying my hand written chicken scratch.

oh my

Did you look into Guhring Diver mills? I am not sure they have that length/reach but they do make solid carbide with thru coolant in the flutes. That would get more coolant pressure to the tip of your tool to evac chips easier.

Depends. Some are "in aircraft space" and some I will move parts to print datums and WCS around the part as needed.

I setup my setup sheet a long time ago. Now I just adjust the info I display based on who I am working with and how skilled they are. I just setup my tools correctly in mastercam once and hit the report button.

You have 2 different systems making the posted code and the reports so they don't go together. What I do is put a manual entry at the top of programs formatted for what I need. And btw, LOL outhouse solutions!

Ive been doing serial numbers for far to long. Found the letters command many years ago and it has been on my right click menu ever since.

There are ways to do that. You can do a point to point toolpath, You can have your post output long hand code so its all g1/g0. You can also use advanced drill and that would get you g1.

If I could figure where it's doing the rounding/truncate I can plan for it but this was a 4 place and a 3 place decimal it was doing math against and I am just not good with math games.

9 hours ago, cncappsjames said:

Unless otherwise specified, Excel is going to give you linear type values. You're probably going to need to build some trig into your Excel formula to get the right number.

I've got an excel spreadsheet that calculates #19700 parameter value changes for me based on feature error, angle and position. It only gets me close. The probing MACRO stuff gets me the rest of the way.

I'm sure Excel can do it all, and do it correcvtly, I just don't know how to. :shrug:

JM2CFWIW

I have my excel formulas worked out. For the trig stuff you just need to use RADIANS to get the correct answer. If I change this one value my excel spreadsheet (and my calculator lol) works out correctly. I can't understand why the control solves this macro as 12.5325. If I do #111=[-35.4335]-[-47.968] it solves as 12.5345.

I have checked this so many times I have lost count. I have rerun the program many times and still get the same results. I have the macro expression calculator and it solves to 12.5345. For whatever reason the 12.5325 number works out correctly when I draw the points in mastercam and rotate about center.