Hmm.... Well that doesn't make me feel great about Esprit. Since I'm not hearing absolute horror stories with Mastercam I think I would rather stay with the software I know. Yes I can see where having the simulation environment would make things less hair raising.

We've already paid Mazak so we are committed at this point. Luckily for us only myself and one other guy will be running this machine. Not that we can't make mistakes but it should limit the shenanigans. Since Greg_J mentioned it above, I have wondered if we really needed the mill-turn environment since I don't think we will be running multi-stream paths. Our machine will have no lower turret so we won't be running parts on both spindles at the same time or doing any pinch turning, etc. These type of machines are new to us, so we don't know what we can really accomplish with them. It is encouraging to hear that Mastercam sounds like they are improving the mill-turn functionality.

Thanks for the feed back millman. We will want to mill while parts are held between both chucks as well. The main project that's going on this machine is crankshaft castings where we will rough the rod journals by mill-turning. We're also working with our Mazak distributor to get some programing done before our machine shows up. They use Esprit and say they have had good luck using it to program Integrex machines. I've been using Mastercam for the past 10 years and would prefer to stay with it since it's familiar, but I'm not opposed to trying different software if it will perform better for this application.

We’ve just completed an order for a new Mazak Integrex i200SW 1500U with Mazatrol SmoothX and a programable steady rest. Has anyone had a good experience programing a newer Integrex with the Mastercam mill-turn environment? This will be our first mill-turn type machine so we are expecting a bit of a learning curve. We’ve been told by our reseller that it won’t be any problem, but after reading a thread from Bob W. about his issues getting good code for a new DMG-Mori NTX I’m curious if Mastercam really has its act together regarding mill-tun programing. It’s going to cost us a decent amount to upgrade to the Mastercam mill-turn environment and I really don’t want to have to fight post problems on this level of machine. We've attended a couple of seminars from our reseller demonstrating the mill-turn environment and understand that the work flow is different from how Mastercam normally operates. But what has your experience been? Have you been able to get good code from day one? Are you able to use Mastercam to take advantage of all the function of your machine? I’m specifically looking for feedback on the newer Integrex machines, but experience with other late model mill-turn machines would be welcome as well.

So I was getting this same error this morning when trying to open Cimco8. "Error in ConfigPaths.cfg, the directory 'CFG' cannot be created!" At first rebooting was fixing it, but it would come back with the same error. Replacing the ConfigPaths.cfg file with the one from the .zip from Jeff2005 seems to have fixed it.

Talked to my reseller and they set me up with the post for a MB4000. Thanks for steering me to the right place.

Sounds like I should talk to my reseller. Thanks for the help.

So it looks like we are getting a new Okuma MB-4000H with the OSP-P300M control (possibly P300MA). We're using Mcam2017 multi-axis. Will the 2017 mpmaster post (or X9 mpmaster) be enough to get me going? The immediate plan for this machine is milling two different aluminum castings. No tombstones right now just access to multiple sides of a single casting or casting assembly. This will be our first horizontal and first Okuma product so much of this will be new to me. I've done some programing for a Haas VF3 with a full 4th and a trunion that I built for it. It's all been programed to center of rotation using the X9 mapmaster post. Rotate to angle, mill features, rotate to next angle, etc. I don't see doing anything more fancy than that for our present application. For the immediate future this will be small lot numbers. Even at max production we're probably only talking about 500 units a year. That being said I can eventually see this machine doing some of our other parts besides these castings. At that point it would be tombstone work. I'm no post guru and have only done very minor edits to the posts I use so detailed customizing of a generic post is not something I'll be doing myself. What advantages would an actual MB4000 post give me? We're supposed to be getting fixture tracking on the controller if that makes a difference to the post processor. I appreciate any help or info you're willing to share. Let me know if I need to fill in more details.

Yup I saw CNC's name listed and was glad to see you all are working on this as well as a lot of others. Good to see the industry moving this direction.

I have the free Verisurf module. Would the licensed version be required to read Solidworks MBD? Also it does look like a MBD cross platform standard (STEP AP242) is being worked on. NIST press release STEP AP242

MCfSW was a thought, but I'm not sure I want to switch over. It always sounded like it was a better program for someone who already uses SW and needs to do a little CAM programing on the side and not for serious programing . I'll take a closer look at MCfSW when I talk management into getting a seat of SW for me. From the poking around I've been doing it didn't sound like there was anyway to transfer MBD between different platforms. I figured if it could be done the experience on this forum would know how. Honestly the minimal 2D drawings and solid model combination works fine, and at this point in our operation communication between manufacturing and engineering is good. Most of the time manufacturing knows what an engineer wants even if it's not explicitly spelled out on a drawing. I also understand that this won't last forever and is not the best practice . Thanks for the replies.

I've been having a discussion with one of our engineers about how to digitally dimension solid models created in Solidworks 2013 so that the dimensions are transferred into Mastercam. Right now what is happening is that engineering produces a minimally dimensioned drawing with notes, tolerances that are different from the title block, threaded holes, GD&T, etc. Then Engineering generates a parasolid for CAM programing and it becomes the reference for dimensions not specifically called out on the drawing. This is all for in house part manufacturing and prototyping. Solidworks has a module called Model Based Definition that lets you add this information to the solid model inside of Solidworks and export to a 3D PDF, but it just seems like it’s making a fancier drawing to me. From what I can tell none of the dimensioning would be saved in a format readable by Mastercam. I haven’t seen any way for a parasolid to transfer digital dimensions and tolerancing. It would be nice to have this type of information totally travel with the solid model and not worry about needing the drawings. I know were not the first folks to explore this and I’m wondering how others handle it (specifically with regard to Mastercam). Is there any sneaky way to get Solidworks to transfer this info to Mastercam? Am I asking for too much in cross platform information sharing? Is the industry just not there yet? I know there are some specific Solidworks questions here, but I’m hoping someone has dealt with this issue before and can suggest a direction to follow. Thanks for the help.