Hi - I'm working on an undercut surface. From my understanding my choices are flowline or morph? I have gotten pretty close with the flowline path, but the issue is which of my three surfaces it wants to start on. It always wants to begin on the middle surface segment circled below, instead of the end. How is the flowline start position determined when you have multiple surfaces - can I control this? Is it pick order? Thanks Dan

Curious about this answer - Haven't had much of a chance to use 2018. Is there a difference between using the machine sim through verify vs launching the stand alone? I assumed they were identical? Thanks, Dan

Sorry for jumping in but I have a couple of questions related to the topic: Will the vericut / mastercam pluggin work with the Mastercam mill/turn product? If the pluggin works - can vericut read the lathe tool definitions, or do these need to be built in Vericut? Thanks

How about this: In the directory containing your encrypted post file you need to have: file_name.psb and file_name.pst or file_name.mcpost and file_name.mcbpost No worries Ron - this isn't the first time I've written something confusing. Just like program comments - I usually have to rewrite them a couple of times to make everyone happy. Hopefully the next person working under the thumb of their authoritarian IT dept can make sense of this thread. Thanks again to everyone for the help, Dan

Winner and Still Champion - Colin! .pst = .psb .mcpost = .mcbpost Thank you for your help! Dan

They currently have the exact same name. I'm hoping that the binning process is the answer. The current post was binned by the vendor so I'll try and bin my own and see if it works. I'm sure our IT staff could offer a bunch of reasons on why they have it that way and one size fits all in their minds - I've given up arguing. Where does the mcpost extension come from?

Hi All, I'm trying to host a post file on a network server and I've run into a new problem. I'm unable to save a file with a .pst extension since the server identifies this as "is in the "E-mail Files" file group, which is not permitted on the server". There is no chance I'm going to get the server settings modified. I started looking around and I see there is an additional choice ".mcpost". The server doesn't mind this so I get everything linked up (shout out to Colin - I think i almost understand this process now) , pat myself on the back - hit post .... "STARTBIN was found but the binary post file is missing......." The psb name already matches the post name? I'm guessing the binning process only works with the .pst extension. What exactly is a .mcpost? I was hoping the extension was for this issue. Any suggestions? Thanks, Dan

Hi Colin, Most of the errors were due to someone commenting out all of the error messages so every mention of them was a undefined label. The error I was concerned about was in the log, I just didn't notice it right away. Log Message was: 37 - 09 Nov 2015 04:21:38 PM - PST LINE (972) - The post block output type processing has failed!, , Illegal character(s) encountered The spot in the updated post looked like this: #CNC<<ORIGINAL>> pindex #CNC<<ORIGINAL>> $$ pindex #CNC<<MSG-ERROR(972)>> The post block output type processing has failed!, , Illegal character(s) encountered When I go in look in the backup copy of the original post it really had this: ... $$ pindex sav_absinc = absinc$ .... When I look through the original post there are multiple lines with the $$, but all of the other ones have a # sign preceding the double dollars - #$$. At first I thought maybe the "$$" was a old method used for comments, but I didn't see it referenced in the post documentation. Maybe someone was putting it in their comment sections to make it easy to search for? Anyways - the post seem ok. No more errors although I still don't know how it was getting by the $$pindex in the original version? Thanks for the reply, Dan

Hi, I was given some posts last run in X3 to try and update. Most of the messages in the log file were pretty straight forward. I did come across some things I haven't seen before; There is one line proceeded with $$ calling pindex that shows an error. When i look through the post there are multiple lines with this same $$, but all of them are commented out like this "#$$". I'm guessing this is an older version of commenting? The other strange thing is that this error wasn't listed in the update log file? If I search for CNC<, I do come across some other error messages a couple them were also not in the log file. None of them seem critical and were easy to investigate, but i was under the impression if the log didn't mention any problems, the conversion process went ok. Thanks, Dan

I noticed in the original post the consensus is they are of limited value but I'm curious why there are two different colors. Is there something wrong with the underlying operation? More curious then anything else.

Sorry for bringing up an old topic where it seems everyone agreed the tool path locking was of limited value, but I thought it might be of value if anyone else comes across this topic. When you do lock a tool path - What is the difference between a gold colored lock and a grey one? Thanks, Dan

Hi Colin, So this means that your file's the association to a post is stored only at the mastercam file level? Wow - never thought about that. It sure does sound like it would simplify some things. I've been surprised multiple times by the number of "new" post text sections appended on the posts when I've been fooling around trying to figure this out. I'm not sure if this is the best solution for us. Assuming my control definition settings match the default control exactly - if I take the extra step of going to the post and copying my post text to the default section, I should be able to avert any problems when updating? Thanks again, Dan

Hi Colin, First - many thanks for this control and your machine file write-ups! From what I understand - you have shown to modify your existing control file and then export it to the default. But I was curious if I'm modifying the default if I open up the control def manager and I select the default from the existing definitions ? Am I now modifying the "default" control, if not - what am I changing? Also- why can I modify all of the settings except the post text? The grey text at the bottom says system text is active? It seems your method will capture all of the changes, but I'd like to better understand these functions. Thanks again for all your insights, Dan

I think you are looking for mprint. good description in the mp documentation. if ................... [ result = mprint("your error message",optional parameter) ]

Hi Alan - i was wondering about the network settings you commented on. We are a multi-site user and one location has started describing problems. When i measured the connection it was slightly over 125ms - which didn't seem that bad. If we wanted to try using the TCP protocol - do we only have to modify the .ini file in the local computers, or does it also require changes on the license server. Thanks, Dan