fastercam, i to would have to disagree with your opinion.i do agree certain features ar unpredictable at times,but over all mc is by far the most versatile software i have programmed with.(i have been using it on and off for the past 9 years).i am at the point where if i had to use something else i would go postal just my .02, trevor

what are you looking to do? could you be more specific please. and welcome to the forum trevor

i have read both good and bad in this thread on 401k's for those of you that do not like the results your seeing maybe you should talk to the plan admin. and see if they could expand the options for investing.there are countless places to invest,perhaps the options available to you are just lemons.i am presently putting 15%into my plan and am seeing tremendous gains all across the board (12%-23% gains) i also have investments outside of my work plans.i also have accounts set up for my son that i contribute 10 dollars a week into.that alone even with no gain will be almost 10 grand when he turns 18. i am 33 and plan on being out clean between 53 and 55 depending on how things go.my wife and i decided to make some sacrifices now to be able to retire compltley at a modest age. ie: we dont rent movies or go to the theater, we only eat out about once every 3 months .vacations to us are camping in national parks and forests, not hotels and expensive theme parks. not that i am against people who do things differently , it is just what works for us just my thoughts, trevor

best of luck to you corey, i checked out their website looks like a nice place to be employed at. trevor ps, hows the family doing? i bet luke is getting to be a hand full with the terrible 2's

metalflake, leading edge has what you need. catalog number bh-4xxl-250x10 for steel catalog number bh-4xxl-250ad98 for graphite both tools are 6 inches long hth, trevor the phone # is248-814-9290 they should be able to help.i have a local rep here in erie dont know if you have one out your way. they are located in michigan

good morning, like was stated above,if no one at your facility has expeirience designing and building molds you will definitly need to hire people in that capacity.it is such a dog eat dog world out there on bidding and quoting . i have seen jobs go to a competettor for as little as 200 bucks. if you are not set up to build molds ie. people,machines,skills .you will not remain competitive.plan on spending some cash.also things to consider also is the many purchased items needed to build the tool. leader pins, bushings ,wear plates, ejector pins, and so on and so on. you will definitly need to spend some time doing home work. hth, best of luck to you, trevor

hijack thread: hows about the cherry with polished brass hardwear. dont know if it was for an aniversary edition or not. afew years back a guy i worked with wanted it soo bad ...finally i gave him 1100 bucks for his xl top and bottom boxes (both oak)then he only needed 200 more to get the xl top box in cherry.he's now less one gerstner box but the one he has is real nice as far as refrence books go the machinest hand book is a nice all around refrence to own trevor

imo how can you have a good print and a bad model?prints are made from models.we have some old schoolers here that work from prints but only doing 2-d work. for the guys doing every thing else models only.it is to the point where for me if i have to look at a print it just gives me a headache.i work in a mold shop and have been building molds long enough to know the diffrence between molding and shut off.tolerancing goes hand in hand with that. trevor

ray, thanks for the tip, i generally get my ops via the job set up/import .i will give your way a try also. btw, thank you and all the fine folk at cnc for asking for feed back from the end user. trevor

paul , knowing your constraints at the floor better. how about a .8mm with a .05mm corner that should get you what your afterthat tool has 2 options for clearance 7mm or4mm both tools are from tesco cataloge #'s 905 L008 mega-t is 4mm reach 905 xL008 mega-t is 7mm reach hth, trevor corey,addition is comming slow they say october complete.i took the day off the gas issues happened.hate to be the contractor when that happened.my guess is the back hoe driver had some gas issues in his pants

i worked for a company that offered me 3% for a lead (ie i did no sales) that produced work,i got that for all repeat business. if i did all the sales work i would get 10% on all repeat work. trevor

i'd try OSG or TESCO both have quite a range of sizes and styles. hth, trevor

42 sec first run, 22 sec 2 try. my box: tyan opteron mother board dual amd prossesors 512 mb each 80gb 7200 rpm sata 150 hd nvidia quadro fx1100 128 mb win 2000 pro i had 3 sessions of mc open along with 1 session of pro-e. trevor

look here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5538151/?GT1=4244 wether your a democrat or republic it is nice to see young people willing to stand up. trevor

sad to hear of this.i to had a bad expeirence a while back.i caught my employer using employee 401 money for his own personal fun account.i did some research (my sister is a cpa)and threw about a dozen legal documents across his desk.i was fortunate enough to get it all resolved within the following month or so with out seeking a lawyer or spending any money.i do not know about all the other employees thou.and now that company has closed its doors. alot could be lost for those that do not pay close attention to their finances and employers. hope all is well for you gentelmen that have had troubles. trevor

i have seen this error in the past also.if i close mc then reopen file and regen all works fine. sorry to be of no more help,just letting you know your not alone. trevor

what i will do if i need to keep tool down and the corner sharp is add a .0002 radius and flow that surf also. that small of a rad should not ever be noticed. hth, trevor

nobody lol for those of you who remember or heard about wavy gravy. j/k trevor

number 9000 will probly be from the 100 acre wood. lol, trevor

matt, i do rhe same as what corey stated.i will post individual prog then in a editor (this varies depending on file size)combine them all. i mainly cut electrodes on an errowa pallet,each pallet has varios individual holders on it. i stay away from using the multiple offset button in t/c plane tab because some files can be as big as 60 meg or so.and that is an awful lot of ops and regen time.also i may be cutting several diff.trodes at once.this way i look at my setup sheets see what cycle times and tool selection i have and put together a prog that will get me the longest run time. trevor

hijack thread, quote: __________________________________________________Where's Whinnie when we need him __________________________________________________ he's on the bavarian beer tour for a week.im sure we'll here from him when vacation over trevor

lev dies, i can not help with your wire post issues,sorry. but perhaps you could turn the CAPS lock button off.maybe show some of your code and what you would like it to look like.im sure someone could get you going.sit tight and welcome to the forum. trevor

thad, i played with your file for about an hour last night.i agree if you tell it to leave .025/side it will leave it every where. i tried to move the big bottom surf you created down .03 to make sure it got to the 2.43081 level. still no change. i did come closser by setting your max depth to 2.4308 ( notice i left of the.0001) and selecting detect flats. youll notice if you leave that.0001 on your max depth the detect flats will NOT pick up the 2.43081 level.i have found this to be the case on several occasions. IMO if you tell MC to leave stock it will that is what it was designed to do. maybe cnc could shed some more light on this subject.however i think youll find if you want to leave stock on walls and not the floor it will require 2 operations. sorry not the answer your looking for,just my take on the subject.but anyhow try setting the max depth like i said and youll see an improve ment in the detect flats pull down. trevor

18 correct, i guessed at 4 of them without even thinking i will admit if you fill in number 13 with "crap" it is not the right answer trevor btw, when i saved my results to hard drive it only showed the score and corect answers,not what ones are right or wrong.what gives

good morning, for question #1 unless you are using solids or untrimming a surface im not sure why a brand new surface created from scratch would be associated to anything,could you explain more please. for question #2 if you set all surface normals at once mc will adjust them in relation to the c-plane you are set at.i have found no good way to set them all so they point out when selecting all at once.every time i try i end up going in and fixing the ones that get flipped the wrong way.imo unless you are doing flowline paths surface normal makes no differance. hth, trevor