yea thats a good idea, i often just use I for intersection, o for origin, c for arc center, e for endpoint, etc but since i had audio muted in the video and didnt have my keystrokes shown i wanted to just use the dropdown but yea great idea and that is handy, the options offered in the 3d lathe tool designer are identical to the ones found on the model prep tab, like align to face is the one used in 3d tool designer, so you do have these tools outside of the 3d tool designer, but its a single face at a time and doesn't let us mate a cylinder to 2 faces, if anyone is curious the video shown below shows these model prep mates but they are not at the level of the SW mates and is only face to face, not a face to multiple faces like what we would need for this task.

I used some functions that may be overwhelming to a new user like the autocursor intersection snap and or the measure angle from the right click menu so some of that could have been done in a more simplistic way with some additional steps, like analyzing the angle of the v block ahead of time. That video may not have been an optimum way of showing how to do this if you are still fairly new, if i was teaching this to a new class i would have gone about it in a completely different way so everyone could follow along easier so keep that in mind, there are so many ways to accomplish the same task in mastercam and depending on your time in front of mastercam sometimes the long way about something can be the better choice for ease of use and learning. someone very experienced in mastercam may do something in a drastically different way than someone new and still get the exact same results but using different tools and steps to accomplish it, don't get too concerned with doing it the way i showed, you may find a much easier way, if you want me to show a more simplistic way that may require more steps i can do that if you would like.

I have not ever got into c-hooks for some reason, they are very interesting but I know so little about how to create them that I have no idea. Although I will likely dive into them some day so your guess would be better than mine on that.

Thanks, I could have streamlined it a bit more in hindsight since there wasn't any need to create edge curves but other than that its the best method I can think of.

The video below is how I accomplish this, not super difficult but not as easy as SW Mates. https://fastechincorporated-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/support_fastechinc_net/EVfJ_DsqmH1AjugUXvW72tkBQlHZ6gMo_rtIT1Vx5ebTgw?e=nEOJwE if the video is blurry in the web browser you can choose download if you wish and it should be very clear if downloaded.

what i do for left hand and right hand mirror imaged parts is program one complete, save it as one name like Left hand, then i just save as again and save it as right hand. then in the right hand part i just activate all levels and show all geometry, window select it all and mirror all of the geometry over. From there all that needs to be done is simply reverse the chains for toolpaths that follow a chain direction, like contour for example. that has always been the easiest way for me to do it, just make sure Transform mirror is set to Move instead of copy so all the toolpaths remain associative to the mirrored geometry.

Hi Chad, typically most virus protection software will run in the background, starting with windows automatically, typically you can get to your virus protection settings through the show hidden icons button in the lower right of the pc, next to the clock on the pc. so if you look at the bottom right of your screen, the button that looks like an upward pointing arrow is called show hidden icons, clicking that shows some programs you have running in the background and you should see a bitdefender specific application in there. I hope this helps, you likely will need admin rights as mentioned in the reply above

if gcodes link above doesn't work then first log in to www.mastercam.com and then click his link and it should work I noticed.

a while back emastercam offered a free ebook course on Indexing for HMC's that shows how to use planes and setup a part for HMC programming, its still avalable here it appears https://www.emastercam.com/freebooks/ so i would suggset checking out the Indexing tutorial after downloading this free ebook and it will walk you through the process of programming a HMC in mastercam. Keep in mind if you are running the same part all in all 4 positions of the tomb stone there are some cool things we can do with a transform toolpath that make that easier but if you are running different parts in each position of the tombstone then the planes and concepts shown in this tutorial are explained well.

the page below cut parameters has stock thickness that you use with dynamic contour, need to enter how much wall stock you have on the contour when you use that toolpath, that was likely what you missed when trying this path. Jparis's i thought looked a bit better than the one i showed, but both are pretty dang similar so it likely wont matter which one of our two examples you go with. Also i think i just figured out why i am limited on file size so nevermind on the question i had about file uploading on here, looks like ill have to delete most of my old uploads and then ill be able to upload files again, i didnt know each user had a max limit of files that could be uploaded so that makes sense

so whats the trick that you guys use to attach files to these forums? when i attempt to reply with an attachment emastercam always says "file too large and says my max total size is .02mb, how do you guys manage to attach part files successfully? I feel like Emastercam always limits me to .02mb and i cant ever get anything to upload, is there a trick that i am missing?

I don't know if I am fully understanding what you mean by the stuff with the radii but i think the attached example is maybe what your looking for, i used Dynamic Contour toolpath, then with the dynamic contour toolpath you can specify how much stock is on the contour with the wall stock page. i cant get the file to upload for some reason so its a onedrive link below https://fastechincorporated-my.sharepoint.com/:u:/g/personal/support_fastechinc_net/EZVnElfl-shKivz-udQ263IBXxrC82rqyhwL_TbJTK0J3g?e=9Wsemu is that similar to what you were after?

Hmm i have never heard of that chook, but google took me here i am starting to look at this as well because it looks interesting.

its should be pretty simple, just paste the Op library that you want to use on a server (in a location that all mastercam pcs can access), and if everyones using the posts from the server just have someone load the machine, change the library where i showed in that video and it should apply to everyone, when anyone in the shop loads that machine it will auto pull the proper op library. it should be really simple if they do it like i showed in my video, the key is to make sure the library they are selecting is accessible by all by placing the library on the server.

here is a video on how to fix this, Op lib defaults are machines specific, the Control Definition controls it not the config, link to video below: https://fastechincorporated-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/support_fastechinc_net/EWSwG2cfpg9Amci9vz2TUyIBI-SgZwjDYbm69AJkbu5gUQ?e=8CmS0v

it sounds like its the Machine selected under simulator options, the button directly to the right of verify (in the toolpath manager) is your simulator options, click on that simulator options button, then go to the machine tab and choose the machine labeled "5_5AXGEN_VMCTTAB", you shouldn't get any warnings about a machine if the 5_5AXGEN_VMCTTAB is selected. My guess is that machine on the simulation page was changed from what you have described, that is the machine that verifys simulator will load in for the machine simulation that is inside of verify.

Great solution crazy^millman, I agree after looking at his file that the the way that lathe tool is defined is likely causing his frustrations, one of the things I notices is plunge angle was set to 180 degrees instead of using the reverse tool check box. Shaggoth I can understand the frustrations because if your lathe tools are not properly defined you will be in a constant fight with the software, setting up tools properly in lathe is very important for making the toolpaths work properly, with mill tools there is fewer things to concern ourselves with compared to defining lathe tools. one thing to be aware of is when you need to flip a tool over under Tool setup, use the reverse tool button instead of changing the plunge angle to 180, that was likely one of the culprits causing you trouble with that toolpath. Also on a side note, the default insert colors for lathe inserts are Orange and Yellow, Orange means the insert needs to be Facing downward when setup on the machine where Yellow means the insert needs to be setup on the machine Facing up. If you ever find that you cant get the correct spindle direction for a lathe tool without the direction of the tool being altered then that just means you need to select the opposite hand holder and re-visit the setup tool page, just something to be aware of because you may run into that or may already have, those colors can of course be changed in the config but yellow/orange for up/down are the defaults. I hope this helps

if you hate Mastercam lathe then its likely just a lack of training on your end, I would encourage you to check out the Free online lathe courses being offered here https://signup.mastercam.com/free-mastercam-training Once you sign up you can login and view the lathe training courses here https://university.mastercam.com/ and a step up from that would be a lathe course at a local mastercam reseller. I hope this helps.

T and alt+T give different results depending on mouse location or what window has focus, so i like ALT+T more than just T, but if the focus is in the toolpath manager the regular T works fine

ok the very last part of the kb article is: If Media Player is present, this issue can also sometimes be resolved by installing vc_redist.x86.exe and vc_redist.x64.exe from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads i would try that instead in this case,.

yea the solution listed in the knowledge base says: Solution Install the Media Feature Pack provided by Microsoft. so i would just use the links they give in the kb article at the bottom

see this kb article https://kb.mastercam.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50406.aspx

I think colin is correct on his assessment and I went ahead and opened ticket 34890 for this.

without seeing a file I think I would suggest making the shoulder dia of the tool .0001" bigger or smaller and regenerate. sometimes i have found with tool errors that making just a very subtitle change to the tool parameters like that will fix issues