Bruce, Thanks and I hope all is well with you and everybody at Tripp. Also thank you for your input on the robotic cell. I will be in Reno in late August and will try and make it by to see everybody.

The guys at KMT in Auburn Hills, MI are also very good to work with and are willing to setup demos and test cuts if needed.

Rick, The company name is Tripp Plastics and last I heard the guy doing the programming was Bruce Kanzelmeyer. He hangs around this forum and would probably be able to answer any questions you have.

I am in Oregon now, no robots. But at my last job in Reno we had a robotic cell with a Fanuc arm from RPT (now KMT) doing a lot of trimming of thermoformed plastics. All programming was done at the machine but I know they were looking at Robotmaster around the time that I left.

Don S - Give me a call or shoot me an email with any questions you may have.

Looking forward to hearing from you Sandybar.

+10000 Ployd I came up here from Reno about a year and a half ago and I could not be happier. This is a great company to work for with a bright future located in a recreational paradise. cadman2112 - possibly for the right candidate.

How long ago? I have only been here about 1-1/2 yrs. I have not heard that name though.

CNC Programmer Opportunity in Bend, Oregon A leader in the Central Oregon manufacturing industry is looking for a full time CNC programmer to join our Methods Group. This is an excellent opportunity to work for a cutting edge shop in a great location. Candidates will be responsible for three-Axis CNC and Waterjet programming as well as Manufacturing Document Maintenance. Our shop works for a variety of industries including 4-Wheel/Offroad, Medical and Agricultural with our main focus in Aerospace. Requirements: • Recent experience in a Manufacturing/Machine Shop environment. • General Knowledge of Metal Cutting processes. (CNC and Conventional) • Mastercam X2 experience. (Siemens PLM NX5 or NX6 experience is a plus.) • Strong organizational skills. • Ability to work with little supervision. • MRP/ERP software experience is a plus. (will train the right candidate) Company Info: ISCO has been a leader in Central Oregon for more than 30 years and is committed to staying on the leading edge of manufacturing technologies. With full 3,4 and 5-axis CNC machining capabilities and a broad customer base, ISCO has established a solid position in the industry. A solid benefits package, competitive salary and safe work environment make ISCO a great employment opportunity for any qualified candidate. Contact Information: Company: ISCO Location: Bend, Oregon Don Griffiths Phone: (541) 382–1573 [email protected] www.iscomach.com

Working fine here.

Thanks Doug. I have the Productivity+ demo and I am checking it out as we speak. It seems to be very user friendly, was there any training provided when you purchased the software? I have another probing question that is a little off-base, do you orient and lock your spindle during probing routines? The reason I as it that our 5-axis head/head machine makes its tool changes at C90 and the we do all of or probing at C0. When the head moves back to C0 the spindle is free and and spins. I would think that the spindle should be in the same orientation everytime for accurate results.

We have an opportunity to do some target machining on some large titanium aerospace castings. I was wondering who out there is doing this and what probes and software are you using to accomplish this. If we take this job the requirements would be to probe each casting for offsets, machine target points then probe again to output inspection reports from the machine. We have a Renishaw RMP60 probe on a Fanuc 31i controller. My main concern here is that with casting machining, we have one shot to get it right and a scrapped casting results in a 10x the casting cost loss for us. I want to make sure we have our ducks in a row. Any recommendations, tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated.

Take a look at this. I used this quite often on acrylic and ABS. It might give you what you are looking for. Brillanize

If it is a multi-tooth threadmill you just specify how many active teeth in the parameters and MC will take care of the rest.

Thanks everybody. I will give it a try today.

Thanks Ron. I will try this tomorrow. This looks like what I have been wanting to do. What I am struggling with is that I have a very similar 5-axis post that works with the same code I posted. At this point this is more of a learning experience for me. Trying to sharpen my post skills. So as Ron's suggestions are what I am ultimately looking to do, I would still like to figure out what I am doing wrong with the user prompts. I will be reading up in the V9 post docs tonight but any ideas would be much appreciated.

When a tap is chosen as your tool, you can specify your desired spindle speed and the feed will update accordingly.

OK. So here is were I put the prompt info. It is in the same location on one of my other posts and seems to work fine. So what is happening now is all the header info shows up in the posted code but the post is not prompting me for the info. code: pq$ #Setup post based on switch settings sav_spc = spaces$ stagetool = bldnxtool$ if use_frinv, prv_ipr_type = -1 slockcomm = scomm_str + slockcomm + scomm_end sunlockcomm = scomm_str + sunlockcomm + scomm_end pcooltxt fq 3 scustomer "Enter Customer Name:" fq 4 spart "Enter Part Number:" fq 5 sprogrammer "Programmer Initials:" fq 6 spartdesc "Enter Part Descripton:" scustomer "" spart "" spartdesc "MACHINE OP1" sprogrammer "XXX" # prompt user for question ***************************** q3 q4 q5 q6 pheader$ #Call before start of file ##### Custom changes allowed below ##### ##### Stop custom changes ##### prot0$ #Call to 'prot' on SOF before ptlchg1002 (in .psb) prot$ prot$ #Call before ptlchg1002 (in .psb) psof$ #Start of file for non-zero tool number ##### Custom changes allowed below ##### sof_flag = yes$ the_day = day$ the_month = month$ the_year = year$ if ntools$ = one, [ #skip single tool outputs, stagetool must be on stagetool = m_one !next_tool$ ] if progno$ = zero, progno$ = one sprogname$, "%", e$ "( CINCINNATI - FTV5 )", e$ "( PROGRAM NAME - ", *sprogname, ")", e$ scomm_str, "(CUSTOMER - ", scustomer, scomm_end, ")" e$ scomm_str, "( PART # - ", spart, scomm_end, ")" e$ scomm_str, "( DESC. - ", spartdesc, scomm_end, ")" e$ scomm_str, "( PROG BY - ", sprogrammer, scomm_end, ")" e$ spaces$=sav_spc spaces$ = 0 pbld, n$, *sopen_prn, "DATE - ", *the_day, "-", *the_month, "-", *the_year, " TIME - ", time$, *sclose_prn, e$ spaces$ = 1 pbld, n$, *sg00, *sgplane, *sg40, "G80", *sg90, *sgfeed, *smetric, *sg98, *sg49, "M9", e$ ptoolcomment sav_absinc = absinc$ absinc$ = one #prefreturn #xout, p_out not output here absinc$ = zero p_absinc_chng comment$ pcan pbld, n$, "G5.1 Q1 R1", e$ ##### Stop custom changes ##### psof_tlchg_blck #Start position block #Save the current brk_ in prv_brk_ for next loop pupd_brk absinc$ = sav_absinc p_absinc_chng pe_inc_calc # This call to 'pcom_movea' has been commented out to avoid # double output of canned text #pcom_movea I am guessing I have this info in the wrong place but nothing I have tried so far has worked.

I have my post setup to prompt for all of my standard header info and it is working other than when I post it asks the questions 6 times before it posts. I can not seem to find what is causing it to repeat. It is a modified Generic FANUC 5X MILL post. Any help would be much appreciated!!!

Thanks again John for taking the time to help me. I have been experimenting with that myself this morning and you are correct. When I use the lower radius I am getting much better results. The multi surface paths are very powerful but with so many options I have found it frustrating finding the right combo of parameters and settings for each toolpath I am working on. Through some trail and error I think I am headed the right direction.

Thanks guys. John, I looked at your file, thank you. That is what I was looking for. Just for future knowledge I would also like to figure out how to accomplish this path using advanced multiaxis so I may have a few more questions coming your way. Ron, I tried selecting the drive geometry a couple of different ways with the same results. I selected the solid faces and then created surfaces from the solid and I was getting the same results both ways.

I am having a problem getting a 5-axis path to machine all the way to the floor of my part. I have a toolpath that looks pretty good other than it does not make enough passes down the wall. I need it to machine all the way to the floor and finish the radius at the bottom of the wall. I put the file on the ftp in the MCX2 folder called DG_MOLD. Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks for the info Dave. I downloaded the file from my resellers page but it looks like the documentation is still being put together so I think I will just be patient and see how it develops. With the features you have mentioned it looks like it will be a nice addition.

My reseller has a download on their website for the Mastercam machine simulation add-in. Has anybody used it yet? I have not seen it mentioned here or on the mastercam website. How useful is it going to be. Will it verify G-code or just the nci. Should I hold off on the download until I see something from mastercam???

Yes I am kind of jumping back and forth right now between UG NX5 and MCX2. A lot of the files we receive are native UG so it makes it kind of nice to have the model history on the more complex geometry.