im just guessing but perhaps you are chaining the whole rectangle. When using the 2d high speed peel mill toolpath you will need to chain 2 separate chains both going the same direction. This is also the same process we use for 2d high speed blend. So if you were to just delete the two smaller sides of the rectangle and re chain only the 2 longer rectangular edges both going the same direction and as long as the tool can fit into the slot with the radius specified the path should be able to generate.

my colleague recently recorded a webinar on customizing setup sheets if you wanted to take a gander at that for some info.

thats odd, i would try going into advanced configurations (start menu-->mastercam-->utilities-->advanced configurations), under reset, choose status bar. See if that does the trick, if its not that give your reseller a call. hope this helps

by what you described above i believe this is the clear colors i mentioned previously. Whenever you perform any xform function (like a move to origin) your geometry by design will turn an xform result color, typically purple. To clear this color you can right click into the gfx and choose clear colors or under the screen dropdown you have a clear colors option. I could be misunderstanding this one but hopefully its this easy

if you look for the shading toolbar (a solid blue globe) look for a small dropdown arrow, you have options for outline shaded or just shaded (darkens the edges) you will also have a drop down under the wireframe globe for controlling hidden wireframe, etc. Hope this helps

or kill a few birds with one stone and you can select the wireframe and right click on attributes, this lets you change color and line thicknesses at the same time.

Just snowballing ideas, but try, screen --> Clear Colors, then see if it lets you change

Hmm that's interesting, thanks for the info

Not to take this off topic but whats the purpose of the combine views button? I just tested it and it did work but its not a function i have ever used so i am wondering what the reason would be to use a function like that? i just dont grasp why it would matter if the arc was created in bottom or top plane?

Well with a similar to 5deg slope and a ball nose tool im sure you can imagine how close to center cutting you are doing. The RPM needed there for optimum tool life may not be achievable with your machine when using ball nose tools with surfaces that close to flat so bull nose pushes the rad to a larger dia and which makes sense why your increasing tool life. I was also going to ask what type of coating you are using on the tool, the coating is another important factor that you may want to consider when buying tooling. but 3500 rpm was too slow in my opinion for a ball nose on a slope that shallow. Unfortunately with surfacing we cant just look at the sfm and rpm but also have to consider tool cutting position. thats just my $0.02

I have seen it become greyed out sometimes if the operation is not selected. It sounds too simple to be a solution but try left clicking the operation first then right click on it for the TP editor. lets cross our fingers and hope its that simle

Surface finish flowline supports undercuts as well as the surf fin contour. I prefer the contour method because you can also use lead in/out with it very easily and it does a better job then the flow at times. If you have multi-axis, use your multi-axis license and set the path to 3 axis because you will have the most control for the undercut with the multi-axis path. hope this helps.

I like the drivers off the solidworks website, I have had success with some of them in mastercam. http://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/videocardtesting.html

Holy Holes that's a lot if drilling

I have done this before when using a slitting saw to rough upward on some sort of feature. I ended up doing the ramp path downward like normal, then backplotted and in backplot i hit the button which saves the toolpath geo as wireframe, then you can chain that path in the reverse direction. Now the trick here is that you have to run the tool with comp set to off but this should work for you. There are some other methods which may accomplish this too but without seeing a part file I cant recommend anything else. hope this helps

One of my colleagues here runs mastercam on a surface pro2 tablet. Now if you are shooting for efficiency, good luck, the small touch screen requires some good eyes. I wouldn't want to do programming in it because I have big duel monitors and still feel like im running out of room but for just running through backplot or verify on a program on the shop floor or for checking tool data I think this could be an effective way of making easy mods while mobile.

this is the book i was referring to - http://www.emastercam.com/board/index.php?app=nexus&module=payments&section=store&do=item&id=518 , they may even have a PDF of this.

There are a few ways to accomplish this. You can either create tool planes or use a transform operation to accomplish this. They have books and manuals on this that you can purchase off this website at the store, look for an axis positioning training manual. You can probably find videos on youtube showing how to accomplish this as well, after a quick search i found you this which may show you everything you need to know to accomplish what you are after. youtube link below

You could ask your Mastercam Re-seller. They should be able to help.

or just do a machine simulation. I sometimes like the mach sim better anyways.

Good point Bob, and to add to Bob's suggestion, ViewSheets are awesome to use in conjunction with levels and views, planes, etc. I would suggest them for any complex job, simple jobs they may not be needed but when you start building a pile of levels and views they are great.

If you have a solid you shouldn't have to even mess with normals. A solid body does not have nor need surface normals because it has mass and volume so mastercam should know where the inside of the part is. If you are having gouges I would guess that it would be issues with the toolpaths and not related to normals.

I also find that my X7 is faster at regens than X6 was. I do agree the X6 verify was a great product however the X7 verify is also pretty sweet once you get used to it and figure out how to use some of the new functionality. At this point, in my opinion at least, X7 blows X6 away other than stock compare. The X6 stock compare was the only thing I miss. Yamablingin, 4-10 seconds for a re-gen... yea that sounds like a rough day. I cant imagine all the extra stuff you could get done in that extra 3 seconds you save.

Export / import operations into similar part files (just right click in the operation manager and click export) this can save someone a ton of time, especially with how repetitive certain things can be, like tapping, typically we have what 4 operations (give or take on tools etc), center drill, tap drill, chamfer, tap. Do the tapping cycle on one program then export them under a name that makes sense then anytime you see that size thread in future parts simply import them and select geo and you are all set and ready to go. Ofcoarse this is just one example, the sky is the limit and you can export almost any toolpath that you feel you want to use again. Another thing i find that helps is using transform operations (cant use them everywhere). It still supprises me how few people know about or use the transform operation but its very powerful and should be in any mcam users think tank. Can use this operation to copy toolpaths to new locations (transform), Rotate a toolpath around a bolt circle or index a 4th or 5th axis (rotate), and the final option with the transform is Mirror which is great if you are making a left and right hand part (mirror). Setup sheets are useful, not much from a mastercam standpoint but for an operator and you have many to choose from as well as many setup sheet add ons, and the active reports type are customize able. Last but not least, learn your keyboard shortcuts as others have stated! in my opinion the more i can do with my left hand on the keyboard the less i have to click with the mouse. default shortcuts can be found here "C:\Program Files\mcamx7\documentation --> MCAMX7_Quick_Ref_Card.PDF"

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