i also think location makes this question tough because you can have 2x the salary and still have half the buying power depending on your area, 100k a year in CA probably doesn't leave you as much money to work with as making 50K in Ohio, just like you can buy a house for 4x less and all other commodities for less depending on area. Crazy how much changes from one part of the country to the next... but politics and the people that run these states dont always make the best choices... Hope you all get out and Vote!

just spitballing an idea, but does the steps below resolve that problem? i dont have this issue so i cant test it but just a thought source kb article 17631 Right-click on the Mastercam shortcut on your Desktop, or Mastercam.exe in the program folder. Select Properties from the list that appears. Choose the Compatibility tab along the top. Under Settings, check the box for Override high DPI scaling behavior. Choose System from the options in the drop-down box. Do not choose Application or System Enhanced.

if your new heres some free online training courses that may interest you, they are based off a newer version than what your using however most of the info on paths like that contour should be exactly the same. https://signup.mastercam.com/free-mastercam-training just wanted to share this since you may not know that free training is available through mastercam

practice helps get good at a task but not if you keep on practicing something the hard way, Lets say i need to get from point A to point B and all i know how to do is drive a bike, i could practice every day and get really good and fast on that bike, but someone in a car or truck would still beat me to wherever im going no matter how much practice i have. Same concept with using software, you could be very practiced and proficient with somethign but if your doing it the hard way or long way about someone with less practice could beat you. Like for example some users may have learned to create edge curves or wireframe off solids then toolpath off the wireframe, nothing wrong with that and they may be super fast at that but still not as fast as just solid chaining and not even worrying about creating wireframe, not trying to start a wireframe vs solid chaining argument but my point is proper training then practice is far better than just a bunch of practice. Because no matter how much practice you have on your bike your not going to beat someone in a car

i agree, mostly because if someone doesn't know how to do anything on a haas machine, a very simple youtube or google search will yield a ton of info on how to do whatever it might be, and haas's Tip of the day videos are amazing to say the least and with watching a short tip of the day vid from mark terryberry you can learn how to do whatever you might need. Sure you can find videos on other machines, but the info is just so readily available for anything that you might want to do with haas machines. these are all just opinions and to each their own but thats why i think haas machines are great startup machines is because they are easy to learn, easy to use and easy to find information on whatever you want to do.

there are additional benefits to a network software license beyond just remote access, some additional capabilities gained with a network software license are - license borrowing (can borrow a license on a work pc so the pc can be taken home or anywhere for that matter with no need to connect to the server) - Remote updates (remote updates are NOT supported for updating a nethasp license, a standard nethasp does not support remote updates even though it can be done and many users make it work, some remote software's like teamviewer i believe will let you do it, some don't, but officially remote updates are not supported with the old nethasps) where the new network software license fully supports remote updates - Virtual servers are supported with the new network software license, again many users have found ways of getting a network hasp to work on a virtual machine (typically requiring a usb virtualizer like anywhere usb), so its certainly possible but not officially supported and typically the updates are not nearly as easy to perform on a VM due to remote access reasons. With a network software license VM machines are fully supported - VPN and Remotely using the software does not typically have any issues, unlike nethasps and hasps can have - restrictions can be made in the codemeter software to prevent certain users from license access where a nethasp i dont believe offers many options for preventing someone access if they have access to the license server those are just some of the additional capabilities and added features included with a network software license in case anyone was un-aware of the other benefits.

my fav as well is opti-rough the reason your gettign so many questions on tooling, etc. is because many of us have different toolpath choices depending on the tooling being used, for example i would likely use a optirough for a solid carbide roughing tool and might choose 3d area roughing for an insertable cutter. Just like i might not choose Dynamic for a machine with low amounts of memory or might exclusively choose Dynamic on a low horsepower machine. So tooling, materials, machine capabilities all effect our decisions on toolpaths as programmers which is why so many people area asking you all those questions before they answer what is best

they have great training

well its been almost 3 years since he posted that so im guessing that he got his answer by now, and if he hasn't i cant imagine he is still here waiting for one

or capable of cheating

on your tool axis control page you have chosen "to point", where it appears the proper choice is "from point" alternatively you can choose Surface for your Tool axis control setting, and then you can simply select the surface. also if your in need of some more tutorials the tutorials that this person has created are very good in my opinion if you ever would like to look over some more tutorials https://www.youtube.com/c/ASPEAeroSpacePrecisionEngineering

when you say "btw, i never use MC's stupid solid pickup, always curve all edges" tells me that you have not had proper training because if you were properly trained you would most not think that way and would be using solid chaining and making your job easy instead of doing all the edge curves. So i would suggest getting some training and revisiting mastercam powerful solid chaining options. I am not saying that everyone that creates edge curves does anything wrong nor am i saying wireframe chaining is bad, im just saying that in my opinion you must not have properly learned the solid chaining in mastercam if you think that way or made a statement like that

as a work around Brandon just make your Turned stock profile include enough geometry to cover the fixture, see image below. from a quick test this works well. Mayday submitted it to cnc it sounds like so maybe there will one day be a better way but i think this should do a nice job and isn't very difficult to draw the stock profile

oh i see, i thought you were just looking at clamping on something that was already turned

hi Brandon, the easiest thing to do in my opinion is create a profile that represents the Exact shape of your stock, then use Revolved stock for your stock setup, as long as your profile you select doesn't have stock on the end that was already cut it should clamp right where you need. Also if you turned the first side of that part in mastercam you can do a lathe stock preview to save the stock geometry or the turn profile if you dont feel like re-creating it. if none of this makes any sense what im trying to say is do it kindof like i did a stock flip in this video here https://fastechincorporated-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/joshc_fastechinc_net/EeQzcaIJqGBKqXKRNrZhuu4B8RauXDgJZ4_JBHg7jWoL2A?e=6yjfQN

if 12.75 mm (0.501968) is close enough here is one i found https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/12666715

I do not think that is a good suggestion for others though, tools should be defined accurately, I don't know if your saying that all the chamfer mills you buy go down to a .001" point but if you define the chamfer mill properly and use the toolpath properly everything works perfectly, and comes out correctly first try without having to comp the chamfer mill in any way. If your defining your tool incorrectly your going to have a not so fun time out at the machine trying to get the correct results.

a point toolpath makes that simple, first create a point above the groove, on the left side of the groove, which will be your rapid point click the point toolpath choose G0 RAPID BREAK, then select the rapid point (rapid break will rapid in Z first then X) Choose G1, then select the bottom left corner of the groove Choose G0, then select the rapid point again Then check out, and set tool settings

its probably a boundary from the toolpath control page preventing that path from cutting the entire surface. Also sometimes i also turn off Optimize cut order to get a slightly different result from Hybrid set to flats only as well.

You can set the hybrid toolpath to do flats only, the setting is on the cut paramaters page and that will cut from the outside and only cuts flats.

SLuong looking at the bottom right of your file where there is the scale or ruler are you seeing it say metric down there or inch?

from what you described with toolpaths showing Top* it should be the setting shown below

I would do it similar to how toolpath 7 and 8 were done in this file here https://community.mastercam.com/TechExchange/Parts/82#partTitle Just out of curiosity is this just a learning exercise because I noticed the drawing was a solidworks training type drawing? If you would like you could even peel mill between the blades using 2d peel with axis substitution.

in regards to returning to center for a T-Slot cutter or woodruff cutter I would agree and would just use circle mill and make it simple just simply use the finishing page with circle mill and turn on leadin/out with like 90 deg entry arc sweep along with start/end at center checked.

Thats great! If you machine one and can post a pic of it that would be cool