The SS machines are definitely a cut above the normal Haas offering. I have run them with no problems. Can you get a proper inspection report on it (bar test etc.)? It is a bit old.......

Amen to that, seems to me I remember you being quite successful with your last request to CNC for the Code Expert upgrade. Care to take another shot Husker.....?!

I would make sure you have separate toolpath groups for the different operations. Not absolutely necessary but it helps keep it organized. Select the toolpaths you want to change. Right click in the Operations Manager and select Edit Selected Operations. Select Planes check box and this will send you to the planes editor (similar to the one in the operation tree/button) and you can assign WCS, C and T planes for all the selected operations. If you are creating an operation open the planes manager before you start and select the WCS, C, and T planes you want and it will automatically assign them to the operation you are creating.

Probably making it more complicated than it needs to be. What's the problem with keeping spindle and coolant commands separate ? My lathes use M03 for lathe spindle and M13 for live tooling spindle. So you might be doing a lot of post editing to support this on only one machine.....and then you have to remember which post does what......there is a lot to be said for keeping the posts as similar as possible.

Parameter setting compare....? These problems are so annoying, like trying to diagnose an intermittent fault without ANY info...

Pretty sure they do models for all probes for Prod.+. Give them a call thy are very helpful....

Have you tried just without any cc? Sometimes cc just fails for no apparent reason, nothing but misery......

Welcome to the forum, fellow former APT programmer! Not many of us around now.....I worked in a shop around 2008 and we had 3 programmers that knew APT, vey unusual.....

Yeah, I've never been in a position where I couldn't get the motion I wanted with 1" vectors, but then I've never made parts as big as Ron does.....

Check out Mikron, and Sphinx (distributed by Big Kaiser), the latter do 80D and longer small diameter drills. We use both makes 12D in Inconel (.047 - .075 diameter), turned a nightmare into a breeze. When I saw the really long ones my first thought was "I would hate to be in a position to have to use one of those!!" Both have could technical support, with Mikron a bit ahead here, but I don't think they go as long....

I usually use a center drill unless there is a reason not to. Strong, lasts forever, readily available in many sizes and inexpensive. I engraved tool steel the other week at 15 ipm, no problems.....aluminium at 25 - 30 ipm

So is this mainly a visual aid for motion and does not effect the code?

As you haven't had much luck I will share what I know. As you might be aware the views and rotations are controlled by a system of vector matrices. This is from the original "Compaq" language which then developed into APT. Later GUI interfaces were developed to overlay these matrices and make the whole thing more user friendly. Views and rotations (other than the standard front, back etc.) are derived by matrix algebra using the standard view / rotation matrices. These can get pretty hefty in terms of calculation time for the user so the GUIs do it for you in the background. Standard vector magnitude (at least in APT with which I am somewhat familiar but by no means expert) is 1(") and that is the value used in the matrix calculations. Why they give you a choice of length/ magnitude I do not know, but there must be a reason. Whenever I have constructed vectors in MC (not the moduleworks version yet) I have always used 1" length. Perhaps an e-mail to Moduleworks might get a better answer. I'd be interested to know myself....

You can control the direction of zoom in system configuration, screen page

Yeah, commaoil is the manufacturer. It looks a little like the anti-seize compound you get with insert tools, paste like. Thin it down to your requirements with Moly dee, you will probably want it fairly thin for the small holes. One of my fellow machinists dreamed it up cause we were having problems with tapping "sensible" size holes in Ti, it did work well but nothing will save you if you let the tap go too dull.

Don't forget to mix in some Copper Ease it seems to help stopping the tool from binding....

No problem. I'll keep an eye on the thread if you need any more help, though you seem to be doing fine now.....

In one shop I worked we used a mixture of Copper Ease and Moly D to lube the tap and hole before the tap cycle, which worked well. If you don't want to stop to apply the goop, threadmill is safest

Hey Jeremy, Good job...! I was going to suggest the following: if prv_next_tool$ = 35, This might help get you going. I like this because it keeps you out of the "t" logic which is linked to other things like sequence numbers, so just safer to avoid any interference. I don't see any reason why yours shouldn't work though. You should just be able to "call" without the M06 in the appropriate spot to stage tool. if t$ = 35, pbld, n$, "T35", e$ The place you want to do this is in ptlchg$ if mi10$=one, n$, *sm00, e$ else, pbld, n$, *sm01, e$ The second line is where the M01 is output. Let's see if you can figure it out. If not quote me again and I will try a couple of things to help. Again test, test , test..... Nearly there....!

Hey Jeremy, Had to go into a post to look at something so I couldn't resist. In ptlchg_com, look for this line: pbld, n$, "G43", *tlngno$, *tloffno$, pfzout, scoolant, next_tool$, e$ change to this: if next_tool$ = 35, [ pbld, n$, "G43", *tlngno$, *tloffno$, pfzout, scoolant, e$ ] else, pbld, n$, "G43", *tlngno$, *tloffno$, pfzout, scoolant, next_tool$, e$ This should also work: if next_tool$ = 35, pbld, n$, "G43", *tlngno$, *tloffno$, pfzout, scoolant, e$ else, pbld, n$, "G43", *tlngno$, *tloffno$, pfzout, scoolant, next_tool$, e$ I used the brackets just to make it easier to keep track of while editing. So as you can see when the next tool is 35 it will not post the staged tool. Both output lines are the same except for the next_tool$ call. In all other cases it will. N.B. I have not put this through any real testing! Make a copy of your post and try it out with the copy in some of your programs where the tool is called at different places in the program so you are satisfied that you are getting reliable code in all situations. I have an excellent first part machinist and I always tell him when I have done something in the post and he keeps an eye out until we are both satisfied there are no hidden bugs or loops somewhere. Should be no problem here but it is always the time that you get overconfident and don't run proper checks that you end up getting bit, especially on something apparently "simple" Good luck! Edit: Thinking about it this might not give you exactly what you want, but let's try this first. Plan "B" will only require a slight modification.

Hey Jeremy, They have me hopping here at the moment. It is New Part Introduction season and I have 16 machines to program for. I should be able to take a closer look early next week and I will see if I can point you in the right direction.

No Config. setting I can see.....Let's see what JP comes up with....

Sorry master80, I cannot open your file (I am still on X9). I tried all sorts of combinations to see if I could get my 3D arcs button to "grey out" but it is always there. There might be a Configuration setting....? I will try and check this out. Don't use the Smoothing settings button at first. It is kind of fighting the 3D arc filter. To get rid of the odd move off the surface try Depth of cut page, or construct check surfaces. Also check the surface normal condition

I usually use Flowline in these situations. Go to the Finish flowline parameters page. Top Left, click the Toatal tolerance button. Check Line/Arc filtering and the Output 3D arc moves. I usually set the Line/arc tolerance : Cut tolerance at 2:1 using the slider bars. Press the Gap settings button (back on the parameters page) and set the Gap distance larger than the length of the cut to stop vertical retracts.

Thanks for the info Jeremy. Very useful. I would encourage you to have a go at the post. The key here is to learn how to use the debugger. Have you got the MP documentation? You should be able to get it from your reseller. I had a quick scan through the post after our previous exchange and it looks like it will all happen in one or more of the toolchange post blocks. (ptlchg_com, ptlchg0, ptlchg and ptlchg1002). Figure out which variables you want to track and step through the post blocks and see how the variables change as the post blocks are read and mst importantly where the staging is actually posted as code (the debugger will tell you this). It should be pretty obvious which ones you need to "bypass" to avoid staging the tool "if nextool = 35". Once you get an idea of what you are after throw it up on the forum and you should get plenty of help. People like to see you have done some "homework" before you ask for help. Good luck! Let me know if I can help.