Kirksite is both gummy and abrasive at the same time. Sharp carbide tools and high pressure coolant. DON'T let chips build up or they will come around and damage the surface. As stated above, don't send a drill through a pre-drilled hole, bore it out or mill to size.

If you check your machine parameter list, you may find that you don't need IJK and can use "R" instead. Fanuc controls accept either and other controls need to set the parameter. Don't forget that any angle over 180 deg. requires a "-" sign. Eg... x1.0 y2.0 r-.75 You can also analyze "contour" and hand over a printed copy. Purchase the Mill level 1, if thats all you need, and be much more productive.

Change back to "factory settings". Set MC to associate line colors of Mastercam with widths (pen numbers). Ask HP to send you a chart of their factory settings of colors to color numbers. Then you can assign the colors right in the plotter to the pen number, and its line width. MC will relate you line colors on the screen to the appropriate pen number. For those who use hardcopy all the time, using the actual plotting is mich more flexible as far as control of line widths, color and scale. Plots can also be output to a file (in HP format) and emailed to anyone with an HP compatible plotter (just about everyone) and have the same plot you would have to ship them. Example, email a plot file to the other end of the country and be reviewing the drawings over the phone, 15 minutes later.

3 daughters aged 15, 19 & 21. It's interesting when they get introduced to my younger brothers, they're both taller than me. I'm 6 foot, 200 lbs and the smallest of the bunch, including in-laws. My brothers like to give the new boyfriends the gears when they first meet them, just for the fun of it. Only two "keepers" have stuck around after this and the 21 yr old is now married. The 19 is considering it.

Most CNC controls have a G code to shift everything after its called. Use that to create all 4 parts on one side. Use your G55-G59 to rotate to each side of the tombstone. Just add the angle ( 0, 90, 180, 270) to the axis rotation line. Your main program will set the G55-59 then call up the others as subs. You can simplify this by having a sub call a sub. In the "old" days, I would have up to 6 subs in a row if needed. Make a flow chart of what needs to happen if you can't picture it. That would help alot.

Believe it or not, I ran into this with my system as well. It was the Graphic card drivers. It has nothing to do with RAM. Check if there are improved drivers available for your OS. You can test this by setting your graphics to 256 colours. If the problem disappears, it's the drivers for sure. I've seen mouse problems, dynamic rotation and printing problems over the last 12 years using MC, and they all were caused by the graphics card. If you get the latest and greatest card, expect these kinds of problems until bug fixes are available. In our field, we are only after reliability, not the "wiz bang" latest.

Check out the UG site, they have a listing of preferred hardware and OS. I found that every CAD/CAM solids package has the Oxygen graphics card on their list. It may be more $ but it comes highly recommended and has been also recommended in this forum. As far as OS, the feedback on their list is Win2000 Pro. XP has been recommende by some and cursed by others, so it would be wise to check out the specs on the UG site, because it is more demanding than MC or SW on a system. Consider that a graphics card can make or break the reliability and stability of a station, so don't cheap out on this. More RAM is better for any solids program.

James, the feed rate example was for stainless, I forgot to mention that. I used an air blow with coolant fed into the air stream for chip evacuation and the standing features were to the middle of the block, so the depth cut was from the outside of the block. For TheePres, consider having the CNC work done on a high speed CNC, especially if you have a number of parts to do.

As I stated, it would be helpful if a sheet of allocation settings were included. Most of the allocations deal with the amount of RAM to allocate so it should be a simple thing to do. I know about "cheap" bosses. Our production manager has a P 66 thats 7 yrs old. The boss has it in his head that since he paid $6000 for it, it should be good enough. To review a file in MC or Cadkey ( say 6 to 8 Meg) it can take 3-5 minutes to load, and DON'T try to dynamically rotate or shade!

One of the variables is that every machine has a harmonic range, it vibrates in time to the spindle speed or even the axis servo motors. Alot of times, the machine builder can model this and add some ribs or adjust casting thickness to move this value out of the operating range of the machine. The more common harmonic vibration that we see is due to the part and spindle (tool) within a certain range. if you're taking a .1 cut in a 2" block, it won't show, but if you get to thin ribs or sections it can effect size and finish dramatically. For thin ribs, it is always best to finish cut in steps, doing each side of the rib at the same depth and stepping down. Here's a trick from an "old guy", keep a lighter and some wax handy. Add a few blobs along a thin section to dampen the vibration. Harmonics in the extreme case can cause so much vibration that stress cracks can occur. Aircraft people don't like this! If you use a stethoscope to listen to the mat'l being cut, and experiment, you can actually hear the difference as speeds and feeds are changed. I agree with Finecut that 3 flutes are better. In the old days, we used Strassman or Cresscut mills for roughing to prevent vibration and tool breakage, but all I see now is carbide tooling. I showed one shop I was at how to reduce roughing by 50% by going full depth with a Strassman in one pass at 4 ipm, rather than multiple steps with carbide at 16 ipm.

Usually engraving or raised lettering is .010" ( .25mm) max for us. But 7 mm (.276") is a feature like a boss or something!

I think that the frustration expressed has been echoed at each new release, something that worked fine before now is erratic or doesn't work at all . In this case, if modifying tolerances can cure the problem, then MC should look at having the defaults set right in the software when its loaded. There have been many questions concerning allocations and tolerance settings and I find it odd that the settings are so low, as if we are running a 486 with 32 mb ram. Realistically, it should be a given that the minimum is a P450 with 128 MB ram. It would be prudent to set these values and do all testing useing the defaults, so the newbies don't run into problems right away. How about a spec sheet, outlining settings and tolerances for different systems, including processor, OS and RAM ? That may be of great service to many customers and would only need to be sent once.

The two basic solid types are Parasolid (*.x_t)and Acis (*.sat). Mastercam can read both of these, importing as wireframe and surfaces. If you have the solids for MC, you can also write these two file types. However, there are numerous levels of these and they are not backwards compatible. If you have MC Ver 8, it will read up to Ver 11 of Parasolids unless you install the Ver 13 patch. STEP is another solids type that I see becoming more popular. STEP was to become aa accepted replacement for other solids types when it was introduced, but there are at least three STEP release levels already that are available. Some systems can output solids to Iges as well, and if you have the MC Solids with the latest Iges translator, you can import them. I've only had one file so far in the past year and it worked well. Just because it's a solid, it doesn't guarantee compatibility. You have to know the type and output level. I have found MC to be exellent in importing any file types given to me the past 12 years I have used it.

Increase the resolution of your screen, say from 600x800 to 1280 x 1024. That will fit more icons in each row. Not what you want, but it may help. I've arranged each row to specific tasks, eg.. Pg 1 to general creating data, Pg 2 to dimensioning, etc. Each page has construction planes (top, front, side) and views in the same location on each bar so I don't have to search for it. Taking the time to set up the bars is well worth it.

Heres a method used by us old tool & die makers to qualify setup orientations. Use a tooling ball ( as many as you need ) to re-orient for pickup to the next setup. Use tooling balls rather than dowel pins because the ball gives you all three axis to a positive point, the ball centre. I've even had parts that were qualified to reference points that are out in space. To do this, I used a block of steel larger than the part and put the tooling ball into position, used it as the master to pickup the datum point and milled the feature. My parts were the only ones submitted that passed inspection. 3D software is great, but how do you think we did stuff 25 years ago? Complex setups sometimes need an experienced mind to see more clearly than 3D CAD systems.