MD Parameters operating via a look up table

Mastercam has always been a little prone to making duplicates, always worth deleting duplicates as soon as you run into a chaining problem...

You should try and get hold of the documentation. If you have current maintenance you can get it from the MC website.

Having worked with such people I have no tolerance left, just let'em learn the hard way. It's not that they are necessarily stupid, just a little arrogant. The great "boot" of the machine shop arriving from on high to visit the fool with his manhood reeled out beyond his control usually gets the arrogance under control, very suddenly.

That's very generous of you JP...and possibly a little insulting to bullcrap artists...

I predict his Zip2Go will either not appear or will prove to be "dodgy"...

This is not a parameter change in mastercam problem, it is a Post/MD/CD issue. More info about the machine needed, how many axis? You will need to post a Zip2Go so we can see your set up

If you have active maintenance you can get it from the Mastercam site.

I would certainly be looking at a CAV system. Vericut is the standard but is not cheap, and takes a fair amount of set up time. I have heard good things about NCSimul, more reasonably priced, but it is not as well supported. So the first thing I look at is where did the post originate from. Look in the revision log at the top. If you see the initials IHS then it is originally an In House Solutions post. If you see CNC then it came from Mastercam originally. Most are edited versions of there generic posts. This can help you track down the "source post". Now you can run a file compare with your problem post to start figuring out the problems. Do you have the documentation? Have you used the debugger? Just remember unless you get a post from the tech exchange at CNC (have you looked there?) you are not necessarily getting a post from Mastercam, you are getting a post from a reseller and so may be limited by their skills and knowledge. Dialing in posts isn't easy at the best of times, and over the phone or indirectly inevitably leads to a tail chase or back and forth a few to many times. That's why I (and I suspect others) took matters into our own hands and do it ourselves. All my posts are MPMASTER derived and I am able to constantly control the updates and improvements, and keep them consistent. And 90% of the modifications are very straight forward, but make a significant difference at the machine.

Yes, just using it as an example of "Kinematics".

Mastercam Verify is very good for what it is. It is very (very) tool path centric, so it will give you a very good rendition of the cutter motion over say a surface or along a contour. What is does not do (and has never claimed to do), is mimic the "kinematics" (movements) of the specific machine between cuts. One example of this is dog leg 45 degrees to the long axis in rapid, this could easily cause a crash but is relatively easy to avoid once you understand that MC is of limited help to protect you in ALL circumstances. Personally I only use CAV for 5 axis work in mills, I don't USUALLY use it on horizontal 4 axis work and never on 4 axis verticals or 3 axis. I have physically run all these types so much that I am able to visualize the relatively simple motions and clearances in my head (and know when to play it safe). Lathe I do not have as much experience on and once I get to 2 turrets I am feeling the need for help from CAV. Give us an idea of your general type of work you do and I am sure you will get useful suggestions on how to overcome some of the frustrations.

No, but I have been in this business using Mastercam to know that all resellers are not created equal. My commiserations. I am blessed with a responsive and helpful reseller. I have still learned post editing myself, just because it is one of the most powerful tools we have with Mastercam as programmers. Is your problem post "binned" (encrypted)?

Quite possibly. These features normally work "out of the box" so somebody has been meddling. Try running the mplmastter and see, I think you will find these problems will go away, even if your code doesn't look exactly how you want it. Your reseller should be able to fix it for you, especially if you payed for it.

somebody has been hacking in YOUR post then.

So they recommend that with carbide you start with a large included angle, then drop to a lesser angle with the follow drill so you just get initial engagement on the point, so less immediate heat build up.

Mikron cross pilot. 1.5 D with 170 degree point. No spot, shouldn't need more than 2, probably only one. They aren't cheap but we use them a lot in hard metals

Could also be your clearance settings. What are the front and back clearance angles, I would be surprised if you could go downhill like that with any thing with less clearance than a 35 degree VNMG, even that might fail. I take it there is a reason you can't reverse the direction of cut?

Could be a number of things, can you post up an example file?

Not suggesting the calculations were incorrect, I think Mastercam does them too and stores them as a predefined variable.

If you write the whole program with the stock flip as an OP in the middle it will take care of the flip during verify and you will end up with an STL in the correct orientation for any Operation you verify up to.

I think you are making it more complicated than necessary. There are variables (pre defined) available to do what you want without calculation. Pay attention to incremental and absolute. As Zaffin_D suggested the documentation is indispensable here. Especially the newer (after 2017 or 18) portfolio has a dedicated drill cycle section. You need to see what pre defined variables are available on the custom drill NCI line

I don't even hesitate to run 4 axis verticals or horizontals (including multiaxis) without CAV, simply because I spent so many years running these machines I have no problem visualizing what is going on. Once I move up to 5 axis I really prefer to work with CAV, just because the code can be somewhat arcane and the possibilities of crashes are much more likely with so much movement. Same with lathes, single turret live tooling, 4 axis no problem, I just don't have enough , well any, hands on multi turret experience so I defer to our lathe experts for those machines.

Generally the people using MP posts for multi turret machines have many years hands on programming AND running these machines. They are able to completely mentally visualize the sequences and can put the wait codes in the appropriate places. And it is not always intuitively obvious...there just is no substitute for experience here. The MT module provides a GUI solution which allows you to virtually crash the machine, then apply "linking" which controls the turrets in the virtual verify which in turn co-ordinates the posting of wait codes. This is of great value to people with less extensive "sharp end' multi turret lathe experience. There is of course no free lunch and there are downsides to the MT module in terms of control of the machine environment.

Or Blend Toolpath. Many options on this toolpath.

I think there are some router posts on the Mastercam site if you have current maintenance. And there is specific documentation for converting mill posts for routers which might be useful.