quote: If you go that far why not go all the way. ZX14 A neighbor of mine just got one at the end of last year. He put a pipe, air shifter, extended swingarm and Nos on it and was running 9.06 in the 1/4. Still had the paper plate on it. Pretty impressive.

quote: He said hardmilling not "Sheep"

Me too!

Me too!

Positive backash: rotary encoder advanced relative to the table (traverse movement of the table is too short) Negative backlash :rotary encoder retarded relative to the table (traverse movement of the table is too long) For every direction reversal the TNC subtracts or adds the value from the machine parameter MP710.x to the value resulting from the encoder signals MP710.0-8 Backlash compensation Input: -1.0000 to +1.0000 (mm) or (degree) HTH

Hardmill, My bad, you are right. I found it in the book. I'll see if I can find it online before I type it out.

Isn't backlash a machine charecteristic such as a worn ball screw, loose gibs, etc. and not a control issue? Perhaps I am not understanding what you are looking for. If I can get myself on the same page as you, I'll see if I can come up with anything.

jmayo, We have 5 horizontals here with heid controls. I physically checked each machine to see what the difference in time would be pecking with the spindle vs the table. There was absolutely no difference in time. All the acceleration rates on the spindle are the same as the table. We tried bumping up the acceleration and rapid rates on the spindle and had no luck. The machine itself kept getting gross positioning errors. If you want the spindle to peck, just make the working axis "w" or whatever it needs to be after the tool call. We left ours as they were with the table doing the pecking. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

quote: what happened to aprentiship programs you rarely see them anymore? The company I work for currently has 18 people going thru an apprenticeship program. I did my 4 years of schooling 17 years ago. You pay for your tuition and books, make proper grades and at the end of the 4 years when you graduate the company reimburses your schooling expenses. Kind of a nice incentive. Many different shops from the area have people going to these classes to get there journeyman's card as a millwright or a machinist. Usually about 1/4 of the people that start out there apprenticeship program actually finish though.

quote: What is the Mastercam X2 ATP download??? Look here

See if perhaps that cutter you are talking about can plunge at say 1/2 the feedrate, keep it contained and have it plunge inside the boundary if that is an option? or perhaps ramp into the part? HTH Have one for me tonight.

quote: I have one more question for "Bala". Where do you buy and how much is a U81B4U82 lead center Aren't they the ones who sang Red, Red, Wine? Should be able to get that at any record store on CD for about $9.99

Here's something. Anything in particular you want to see? By the way, this is the conversational .h file. This is how we program them, we do not use the .iso. 10 ; 4" DAPRA TOROID CUTTER WITH HFDCH-43-T-DMP25HP INSERTS 11 TOOL DEF 32 12 TOOL CALL 32 Z S859 13 L W-4 R0 F MAX M3 14 ; 15 ; ROUGH 18.500" DIAMETER AND 1/2" DEPTH TO +.005" PER SURFACE 16 L X+14.255 Y+2.75 R0 F MAX 17 L Z+0.115 R0 F MAX 18 L X+14.255 Y+2.75 Z-0.015 F3600 19 L X+14.255 Y+5 RL 20 CC X+14.255 Y+0 21 C X+9.255 Y+0 DR+ RL 22 CC X+0 Y+0 23 C X-9.255 DR- RL 24 CC X+0 Y+0 25 C X+9.255 DR- RL 26 CC X+14.255 Y+0 27 C X+14.255 Y-5 DR+ RL 28 L X+14.255 Y-2.75 R0 29 L Z+1 R0 F MAX 30 L Y+2.75 R0 F MAX 31 L Z+0.085 R0 F MAX 32 L X+14.255 Y+2.75 Z-0.045 F3600 33 L X+14.255 Y+5 RL 34 CC X+14.255 Y+0 35 C X+9.255 Y+0 DR+ RL 36 CC X+0 Y+0 37 C X-9.255 DR- RL 38 CC X+0 Y+0 39 C X+9.255 DR- RL 40 CC X+14.255 Y+0 41 C X+14.255 Y-5 DR+ RL 42 L X+14.255 Y-2.75 R0 43 L Z+1 R0 F MAX 44 L Y+2.75 R0 F MAX 45 L Z+0.055 R0 F MAX 46 L X+14.255 Y+2.75 Z-0.075 F3600 47 L X+14.255 Y+5 RL 48 CC X+14.255 Y+0 49 C X+9.255 Y+0 DR+ RL 50 CC X+0 Y+0 51 C X-9.255 DR- RL 52 CC X+0 Y+0 53 C X+9.255 DR- RL 54 CC X+14.255 Y+0 55 C X+14.255 Y-5 DR+ RL 56 L X+14.255 Y-2.75 R0 57 L Z+1 R0 F MAX

TheePres, Check out surfcontour1 on the FTP. I just added a containment as Bernie suggested. You'll have to tweak it to get what you want, but I hope that is what you are looking for.

:BUMP: John, Thanks for the offer. Were you looking at the programming aspect of the part? We do not have any machines here capable of doing this type of work. We are looking to sub the whole thing out complete. Anyone? Any places that can do this?

Anyone interested on quoting one or know of any shops that can make one of these? Material is gray iron, about 24" Ø x 8" thick. Thanks.

I have the only one out of the three up here.

+1 On all the responses

Bump quote: So I let it go and created a new toolpath with the solids and the new surfaces and that's when I got the error. It seems this is what my coworker did and is getting the same error. He got past the problem now, but I was wondering if anything came about on this error.

Has anyone ever seen this, SN 200/T1, callout on a drawing? I searched the net and came up empty. It's got me stumped and I was hoping someone here might know what it is and be able to help me out. Thanks.

So when is....... j/k . Thanks for the heads up.

Does anyone have an idea on a time frame when we will be able to open up the native Inventor 11 .ipt files? Thanks

Didn't try to look up anything in a catalog, but how about a lathe boring bar with a threading insert?

stealth, I could be wrong on this, but I doubt it. quote: my main goal is that they can open my file in inventor (10 I believe) and see my 3D part as it will come off the machine. Tooling marks and all would be awesome. Is this possible? I do not think there is any way to do this. All you can save after verifying is an .stl, which is nothing but a bunch of lines, connected with surfaces I believe. What the others were stating is what you can do with a solid model in general so that they could open it in Inventor since there is no way to export an .ipt.

Rick, You have mail and welcome to the forum.