Hmmmm... I suppose I see the delima now... I've never played with 5 axis programming. This project has turned from a big pain in the butt, to complete nightmare... Not only do I have that issue to work through, but I also need to find tooling to cut this feature. So far best candidate is solid carbide .750 x 9.0 oal. I'm not sure how to modify everything I need to in MX9, but I guess it's trial by fire time. Thanks for the explanation Colin.

I don't understand why I would. I'm still only working on 4 axis', just not completely sure I know how to make mastercam understand that's what's going on. Lol. (I am trying to figure it out while I'm waiting on ideas. Thus far, I've noticed I can go in my machine definition and put a tilt angle in... Not sure if this is going to land me where I need or not, but gotta try something. )

I have found myself in a situation where I must lay my 4th axis down where it's at a 5° angle... How would I go about making MX9 recognize that I've done that for some rotational milling? As always, any and all help is much appreciated.

I emailed Techniks a week or so ago about getting a tool holder list, they never got back to me. Many thanks JParis!

And BINGO was his name-o. Was in the post. I've now changed it to zero, as I can't see a reason to not have it at zero. Many thanks!

I didn't modify to get to the minimum of zero, I'll check the post next. Gotta get my machine running first, will reply again shortly. Thanks for the help guys.

That sounded like a good place to look, but... (attached is a screen shot...) New Bitmap Image (3).bmp

I've created my tap, 1/2-13 with a speed of 39rpm and feed of 3. My feed and speed show correctly in the operation parameter, but when I post it, it's changing the RPM to 50 and the feed to 3.8462... My OCD will not let me post a decimal feedrate on an inch tap, it's too easy to go with whole numbers. Why the heck is it getting changed and how can I make it stop? Thanks guys!

Interesting... If this has been an issue for so long, why hasn't it been fixed??? I've never noticed the problem because I've always selected the arcs individually or by windowing...

Ahhh, my machines are set up where it represents seconds lol. For a 5 second dwell I'd use G4 P5. Well in that case, that warm up cycle seems really short, being only 15 seconds...

My guess is your lead in lead out has an arc, which wouldn't be changed by that particular method of changing arc to points...

Undocked mine just now, moved it around, dropped it, regrabbed at the top, drug to the middle of left side, redocked no problem. MX8 though...

Gunna give that a try, thanks for the tip Murlin

I'm curious, G4 P3000 is a 50min dwell, right? If so, that's like a 4 hour warm up cycle... Isn't that a lil excessive? Then again, maybe I'm not warming mine up enough... The code I currently run on my HAAS VF-5 is: % O89998 (SPINDLE WARM UP LOOP VF-5) G00 G91 G28 Z0 G28 X0 Y0 A0 S100 M03 M98 P89999 L5 S200 M03 M98 P89999 L5 S500 M03 M98 P89999 L5 S1000 M03 M98 P89999 L5 S3000 M03 M98 P89999 L5 S5000 M03 M98 P89999 L5 S7000 M03 M98 P89999 L5 G00 X-30. G91 G28 Y0 A0 M05 M30 O89999 (MACHINE WARM UP MOTION VF-5) G91 Y-22. Z3. / A90. X-60. Z-8. / A270. Y22. Z8. / A-90. X60. Z-3. / A-270. M99 %

You have overwhelmed him Jay...

ScottBro, when you verify what you posted, does it drag the drill through the stock? I know you can clearly see the toolpath lines do not collide, but the verify will usually show an issue.

MasterCAM verify can have some issues if you're doing like rotary drilling (cross drilling). The code will be fine, but it'll look like it's going to drag a tool through your part. For me it's good like 99% of the time. Personally never used any other types of verify, so can't input any info on that front.

Long story short, well worth it.

My question is how big is the part and how many do you have to make. If it's small or of reasonable size, you might use a sign plate and cut it as a straight contour... Also depends on material... Too many variables. Could you expand on what you're trying to do? Material, size and what not.

You may try a "Delete Duplicates" and possibly a "Find Overlap". When I've ran into this issue in the past I would trim/extend both entities to each other and it would usually fix my issue.

It's trying to roll it around a cylinder, by making it where your letters are perpendicular to the cylinder it'll roll the way you want. If you have any issues let me know and I'll try to help. (tested the process before posting the lil "how to") Best of luck!

Ya know, I don't know it there's a help list or not... I imagine if you work through the book the definitions might become clear, but, Tplane is Tool Plane, Cplane is construction plane, translate is move.

Ok, if you're wanting to do what I think you wanna do, have your letters where you can read them in front plane view. If drawn in "Top" view go to right view, rotate 90°. Ok, now go back to "Top" view. You wanna go to XForm, Roll. Select your letter geometry, pick the starting point as the end of one of your outer letters. Roll about the Y Axis, put in your diameter you want this rolled to, and BAM! you now have letters created about an arc. You just need to rotate them back to where you can read them from the top, and I'm sure you can figure that part out. Hopefully, (if this was what you were going for, this helps)

I think what he's looking for isn't rolling the lettering around a shaft or cylinder (as you would do with project), I think he's looking for more like making it circular like the way words are written around the edge of a coin. Am I right Random Machinist?

On the helix bores, if you have a perpendicular entry checked it won't have an issue with the start of the cutter comp. The only way I know to fix it at the end is hand edit. Or, you could use a ramp contour in place of the helix bore and as long as your lead in lead out isn't too big you won't have an issue. Same should prove true for 2D contours. As long as you have ample space for the lead in and lead out, you shouldn't have it placing cutter comp values on arcs.