When generating a Restmill operation in Surface Finish Contour I am receiving an error. I am using the Use Previous Operations NCI Motion option. I get the following error and after selecting OK a path generates that does not look correct. Warning - Error Opening d:mcam8commontemptmpzrest.tmp Any ideas? MPO

Thanks cadcam. That was it. I needed a linear entry and exit.

I have version 8.1 of MC and a post and we use an updated version of mpfan as our post. When I make my parameters as you indicated the tool center is right on the chain or boundary on the finish pass. I want to be tangent to the chain with a little side stack and be able to bring it in at the machine. Thanks, MPO

I want to create a Pocketing toolpath with a finish path and have the cutter comp turned on. I turned Cutter Compensation to Wear in the Finish area of the Rough/Finish Parameters tab but I get no G41 or G42 when I post it. What am I doing wrong? Is there a setting in the post that has to be altered? Thanks, MPO.

We have our tool libraries for mastercam on a Network drive. The config file calls out the default too library when our users log in. The users have read access to the tool libraries and the directory they reside in. When a user tries to change tool libraries inside of an operation he gets an error saying he has no permission to save the file. If they change tool libraries in the config file before creating an operation he has no problem. Anyone have a clue why? Thanks MPO

When I change the Cplane using Cplane - Alt O - Relative - Endpoint - pick the endpoint and type in a z5 the location of the GRID stays at the z plane it started at. If I use the Z button to move the z height then the GRID updates. Shouldn't the GRID go wherever the Cplane goes? Thanks MPO.

No it can not. Thanks anyways guys. I don't think he should be using Cut Comp when surfacing anyway.

This is a nice tip. Is there any way to have the GRID display where the height of the Cplane is? The GRID, when turned on, displays where the XY origin is but not at the Z height. It would be nice if there was an XYZ label on it also....just an idea. MPO

I don't know if anyone actually does this but I have a user that wants to use cutter comp when using Surface Finish Parallel. Is there a way to turn on Cutter Comp when surfacing? Thanks

I received a CD with the latest version of MasterCAM (v8.1.1). Does anyone know if there are any major changes or enhancements in the mill area in this version vs v8.1.0?

I have them both reporting to screen. I will try to use the config file from the box with no errors. Thanks

Thanks for the quick reply. I am more concerned with the reason that one computer w/ MasterCAM can trim the surfaces and bring them in without errors and the other computer w/ MasterCAM can't. Is there a setting that determines whether or not MasterCAM can trim a surface. Thanks

When bringing in a parasolid file I get the message that untrimmable surfaces are on level 255 on one of my computers. When I bring in the same parasolid file on another computer I do not get the message. Is there a config setting that may be different between the two that causes this? I have looked but can not find a setting that may cause this. Thanks for any and all responses.

I can't remember the exact wording without going over there and trying it again but it was something like "can not access a level 3 license, nethasp not found". I will try to get hte exact error message this afternoon. When you say see the servers I am not sure what you mean. I can map a drive to the server from the clients that have problems. Once again thanks for the responses. If anything it makes me think about areas that may not have been considered. Thanks, MPO

Our license manager is installed as a service on the server. The client machines can ping the server without a problem. The IP#'s are all in the nethasp.ini file. James, according to our Network Analyst our toolrooms are not on the same subnet but they are on the same subnet mask. Thanks, MPO

I don't know if this is the place to ask this question but I thought I would give it a try. We are running v8.1 Network version between multiple toolrooms. I thought that the new network version would be great but it has been nothing but a headache. When first installed the network version ran fairly good but now one of our toolrooms can not access a license through the network. Has anyone else experienced problems with the network version? I know I leave a lot unanswered here but I thought I would see if anyone came up with something I haven't tried. Any suggestions are appreciated. Servers are Windows 2000 and clients are Windows NT4.

If I Read a parasolid file into MasterCAM and then create a surface using MasterCAM is there a way to check the deviation of a surface from the parasolid to the surface I created using MasterCAM? I would like to check to see how accurately the MasterCAM surface follows my parasolid model. Thanks, MPO.

James, When you say test against a surface/solid model what do you mean? When I go to collision check in MasterCAM I only see the option to select an STL file. How do I collision check against a surface/solid model? Thanks for your help.

I have a user that generated a Surface Finish Contour path in a cavity for high speed hard milling with a .0005 cut tolerance. The path looked good but he checked it using Collision Check in the Operations Manager using a Minimum Collision/Gouge to detect of .00052. The collision check detected numerous gouge points. Correct me if I am wrong but if my cut tolerance is .0005 then that path should not gouge the surface by more than the tolerance. Why is Collision Check detecting these points and how do I get rid of them. We ran the toolpath and the areas of gouge were there but we were able to polish them out. But the reason we high speed hard mill though is to avoid polish. The STL file was written with a tolerance of .0001. Thanks MPO

How do you generate a surfacing path that contains no G02 or G03 moves in it. I have a user that wants a totally linear path.

Is there a way in MasterCAM when using Surface Rough Pocket/Contour or Surface Finish Contour to use different increments for stepdown in different areas (in z) of the cut? Michael O'Brien

I have a post for a Makino High speed mill but whenever I post a job it outputs z values on every G01, G02 and G03 even if the z value does not change. Is there a setting in the post that causes this or is it a problem with the MC path? I am new to post writing in MC so if this is a stupid question bear with me. Thanks in advance.

James, this refers to a message a bit further up the list. What I was referring to before was to be able to window around a certain number of faces. I don't always want to pick the whole solid. This forces me to select a toolcenter boundary and the tool does not seem to go all the way out to the edges of the area I wish to machine when I use tool center boundary. Thanks for your input though.

How about the ability to window around solid faces like you can around surfaces? MPO

This seems to work OK but it seems to be very limited. I want to customize the process of creating a setup view for the second setup of a part. I dynamically rotate the part to the orientation I want first. At this point I start recording the macro. I then set the Cplane to the orientation and location of machine coordinates and save it as a name. Then I set my Tplane to my Cplane. This is where the macro bombs and tells me this is an "Invalid Function Pointer". Does that mean using this function in MasterCAM can not be recorded by a macro? If this is the case then like I said the macro function is very limited. Any more info is greatly appreciated. Thanks.