Yea there may be some math, i believe its A/B=C, where A= Size we want it to be B= size it currently is and C=factor ratio. So with the math problem listed above you can just replace the variables; ​ for example we have a part that is 5" long in the X and 5" tall in the Y direction and lets say we want the new x length to be 5.01. the scale function would look like this, 5.01/5=1.002 --> so in this case our scale factor is 1.002. ​ Edit: or to be more specific to your question. our parts 24" long and we want it to be 24.010" long. the scale factor is 24.010/24= 1.000416666666667

I got at "get F%$#@% lolz" error once and was thinking to myself that it was an interesting error message haha. Thanks for updating this for us we appreciate it!

What is the reason you dont have your mastercam reseller assist with the post modifications? Dont get me wrong these forems are GREAT and its awesome to modify and make changes to our own stuff, but theres some complex language inside the post processors and some things i think are best left to the professionals at your reseller who make changes liek this every day and know exactly what to look for. Either way I wish you the best of luck with your posts but wanted to make sure you were aware that your Mastercam reseller should be able to assist in these areas as well.

heres a video i had done a while back on how it works. https://www.dropbox.com/s/5d2w4f3d3kupri0/lathe%20stock%20flip%20-%20x9.mp4?dl=0

the stock flip is found under toolpaths --> misc ops --> stock flip.

so we are assuming that the Makino will bring in 200K more than the haas a year? In that case its worth a few spindles , if the makino only brings in 20K more than the haas, is it really worth the down time and the spindle costs? Downtime is everything for some companies but I think we are arguing about the wrong topic here. The "best" machine for me, may be the "worst" machine for you or vice versa. We do not all get the same type of work, same skill level or manufacturing experience so I think there will never be a best machine to recommend. To get us back to the original topic I think we can look at some pros and cons and let everyone decide on what they want Makinos: pros: very accurate, very fast, great finishes, great accuracy, can be ran in production with little maintenance cons: expensive Haas: pros: Cheap, parts readily available, very popular so its easy to find operators cons: not as accurate, not as fast, not as good finish, lightweight and not very rigid. I probably overlooked a ton of pros and cons, but I'm sure if i did someone here will point it out

I am not sure if this makes any sense as this is fairly complex to type out, but i created a simple image below showing what i am referring to. Both plane 1 and 2 are set to the same origin values, but you will notice they end up in different locations. image free hosting

Maybe I am not seeing it the same way, but who cares what the values read in planes. lets say I have a 4 sided block and I am doing 3+2 style work using planes. You can set the planes to any location you want, so if you want all planes to go to the same spot just pick the point. Are you guys disliking that you see values in the planes page for XYZ locations which reference from a WCS TOP? If so, just ignore them! ​ The only advantage i am thinking you are looking for is to be able to just type xyz 0 and have the plane automatically locate to the same spot as the previous plane, but how could it do that if your new planes XYZ are completely out of wack or completely different than the original. some of the 5 axis machines can position the part it virtually any orientation, So plane 1 may have X going positive direction and plane 2 could potentially have the plane going the opposite way, so X+2 would become X-2 and so the math would not work correctly if you used positive values for both.

Ok I gotcha. and I wasn't saying purchase a machine on strictly replacement part costs and availability although I do think it should at least be considered. Mostly what my initial statement was mentioning was I think purchasing a machine should also be based on your part complexity. If I'm just cutting 1-2-3 blocks all day with a +/-.010 tolerance that's going to get ground and has no complex surfacing, it may be difficult to justify the price of the makino over the haas, however if your doing 3d milling and mold work of high accuracy, that price can justify itself pretty quickly with how much polishing, etc. that may get saved. Those are my $.02

You should never consider a crash? Why has this never happened at your facility? I like the comment, if your operators are that poor its time to replace them... so anyone who crashes a machine is considered a poor operator then and they all need replaced? Sounds like you have some godlike operators over there, I bet they are high paid.

I believe that the machine purchased needs to be based on the parts your company plans on cutting and tolerances. For high accuracy moldwork, a higher end machine like makino or DNG mori would be a good choice, but if your cutting some simplistic prismatic parts with low complexity then the Haas will get it done just fine. Also someone mentioned earlier about a new hire, I would much rather have a new hire out of school crash a haas than a makino as haas parts will be cheaper and more readily available typically.

I believe MCFSW can use the exact same setup sheets as the full version. I have been using this one http://www.emastercam.com/board/topic/83094-free-activereports-template-for-setup-sheets/ and I really like that one. Its for Mill only but "theMachinist" has created it and was nice enough to provide it for us for free!

The title of this topic lead me to believe someone has died! I guess you just want us to fill out a survey and needed a catchy title.

Nice choice on the toolpath, Opti rocks! if you have any high feed mills laying around for aluminum you could use a really large step over with that optirough, then turn off the step up option and set your step down to the cutters reccomended Depth of cut (which should be small if its a high feed mill). Just a thought, may still have some tool chatter but a larger dia high feed mill shouldnt chatter too bad. plus by eliminating the stepup setting you wont be burning the end of the solid carbide up as bad.

As collen As colin originally mentioned the chained geometry is being recognized as an area, I honestly love not having to worry about my arrow direction, just set it on the cut parameters page and don't worry about the direction unless you are using finish passes for the pocket or if you are using a contour type path. This is also the way you can expect 2d high speed area (which for most parts I find works better than the pocket path but that's my opinion) and also the 2d high speed dynamic, which can blow the old fashon pocket toolpath out of the water when used appropriately

There is a face interpolation mode you may need to turn on. If the post has been setup with this option you will find it on the Misc Values page. If you look up a G12.1 or G112 online you will find what I am referring to. The G12.1 or G112 is a Face Milling function for the lathe and will turn your choppy motion into nice smooth motion. This is what I am talking about image hosting without registration​

I have been told that wood chips can clog coolant filters and coolant pumps pretty bad. Obviously we wouldn't be cutting wood on the lathe with coolant but you may want to watch out for wood chips and or take the vacuum recommendation that someone else had.

as others have said use 0 deg, not 90. And on a side note, if you want to make it even easier to define, don't use a face mill tool, use a bull mill. I define all square shoulder face mills as bull mills personally as they are easier to define and you can still name them face mill when naming.

Do you really need to work with an STL? The reason i ask in in the past STL's were popular to be used as Stock and the Stock Model toolpath has eliminated the need for saving and referencing Stl files for the most part. I am not sure if this solution will work for your given situation but if you haven't tried the stock model in the past its worth checking out because it may do what you are after more easily.

1helical.com has a good free calculator for Dynamic motion. when setting toolpath type, use the "volumill" option for dynamic and I think this one does an awesome job!

I may not have tooling or insert reccomendations, I use iscar tooling here but have never been a picky individual with tooling, but i would highly recommend dynamic motion. I am sure you were aware to cut it that way but traditional milling may burn tooling up too quickly. For exotic materials, Dynamic all the way!

I have a solution Ron, Update to X9 and youll get a nice "Home tab" along with a save button

this is strictly opinion, decisions like this are more based on application rather than preference, but in my opinion; if its one component, i like 1 offset, if its multiple components, or if things need to be able to get moved on demand, multiple offsets.

hey what are your thoughts on the cad mouse by 3d connection. I seen that thing on there and to me it looked like just a marked up regular mouse. Do you recommend this mouse? I really like a madcatz gaming mouse that I purchased but have been curious to what was so special about the 3d connection cad mouse.

a mirror planes button would be nice but since we don't have one yet you could do this simple trick. set your plane to one you want to mirror. Create a line over the x axis (any length) and same for the Y axis (use different line colors if you don't want to get confused on which is x and which is y) then just mirror the two lines over the plane you wish to mirror over and create a new plane off those new mirrored lines since "planes by geometry" lets you select an x and y axis line. As long as you pick x first and y second this solution will work every time . my $0.02