LMAO - good one

abstemious. Not sure if it's right or not. Not sure if this is true either, but what one word has 4 vowels in a row?

Wwhhheeewwww!

This place rocks! Thank you both, gonna tweak in the post a wee bit more and make me some little parts now!

I have a few more issues if any of you fine folks care to spread your knowledge my way. I have made a very simple program that uses two tools. I am not prestaging them and have been able to get my post to do want I want it to do, I am just not sure what it is that I do want it to do. If I post out these to operations seperately, each program runs fine, but when I post it as one program, when it goes to do a toolchange, I get an error "296 toolchange imp. (no axis in atc)". What is either missing from or needs to be added to the code for this to work? I also have the machine understanding the mazatrol tool table when running eia/iso programs as described in snowman's post. My question is, does the machine care if it sees the "h" and "d" codes in the program with the Mazatrol tool table being utilized? O1(PROGRAM - 1) (DATE - 24-02-06 TIME - 09:54) G20 G0G40G80G90G94G98 G0G28G91Z0. G0G28X0.Y0. (5" CARBOLOY OCTOMILL TOOL - 15 DIA. OFF. - 15 LEN. - 15 DIA. - 4.92) (SKIN BOTTOM TO +.005") T15 M6 G0G54G90X-14.Y2.3975S398M3 G43H15Z5. Z.105 G1Z.005F32.6 X14. G0Z1. Y-2.3975 Z.105 G1Z.005 X-14. G0Z5. M5 G0G28G91Z0. M01 G0G40G80G90G94G98 G0G28G91Z0. (2-1/2" X 1-5/8" DOC DAPRA SQUARE SHOULDER TOOL - 8 DIA. OFF. - 8 LEN. - 8 DIA. - 2.5) (MILL BOTTOM TO FINISH) T8 M6 G0G54G90X-14.Y2.4375Z5.S917M3 G43H8Z5. Z.1 G1Z0.F37. G41D8Y-.0625 X14. G40Y2.4375 G0Z1. Y-2.4375 Z.1 G1Z0. G41D8Y.0625 X-14. G40Y-2.4375 G0Z5. M5 G0G28G91Z0. G0G28X0.Y0. M02 % Any help is greatly appreciated.

Best wishes on your newest adventure. Thanks for all your knowledge you have shared to make this place what it is.

quote: Tool Change needs to be T25T14M06 if you want to stage the next tool. If you don't then the M06 has to be on a line following the tool call. T25 M06 That works exactly as descibed and I actually have a tool rotating in the spindle now. quote: The correct extension for a Mazatrol control prior to the 640 Fusion is .NC I put a .iso extension on the end and it took it. I helped one of my buddies get a haas running recently and it wouldn't take any kind of extension at all This mazak seems to not care about the .iso extension, but I will throw a .nc and see what happens. A big thanks to all of you, and thanks for the emails snowman. I've got to try out some tools for the rest of the day but I will get back at the Mazak in the morning and see what I can make happen. Thank you all for getting me off on the right track!

Snowman, If you don't mind, I would really appreciate if you could send me something that runs for sure so I can compare and make this thing work.

I have searched and searched and read and read on this forum and I am in need of some help getting our vertical mill to run. It is a V550 with a M32 control made around 1990. I have a few questions I hope you guys can help me with. 1) As stupid as this sounds, what is the definition of EIA vs ISO programming? It's all grouped into one button om the machine and looks as though the control wants to see an ISO extension on the file to run. Is this correct? 2) I have serched and read through the previous posts talking about using the Mazatrol's tool table when posting ISO/EIA programs to it and for the life of me can not get it to work. Jack Mitchell had to previous posts about changing the f91-f95 parameters and I am having no luck getting the machine to recognize this. Can I use only the Mazatrol tool table to program the machine successfully with Cutter comp set at the control this way? Do I need to use some kind of different tool list in the machine? 3) I post a program to the control using either one or two tools and the machine runs and moves but the toolchanger brings out no tool so I have (tool 0 maybe?) an empty spindle spinning. Here is just a bogus rectangle I programmed trying to get the machine to run. 105 (DATE - 22-02-06 TIME - 10:25) N25 G20 G0G40G80G90G94G98 G0G28G91Z0. G0G28X0.Y0. (1-1/2" APFT TOOL - 25 DIA. OFF. - 25 LEN. - 25 DIA. - 1.) (ROUGH ID) T25M6 G0G54G90X3.6667Y0.S100M3 G43H25Z5. Z.1 G1Z-1.F10. G41D25Y-1.3333F30. G3X5.Y0.J1.3333 G1Y5. X-5. Y-5. X5. Y0. G3X3.6667Y1.3333I-1.3333 G1G40Y0. G0Z5. M5 G0G28G91Z0. M01 N14 G0G40G80G90G94G98 G0G28G91Z0. (1" APFT TOOL - 14 DIA. OFF. - 14 LEN. - 14 DIA. - 1.) (ROUGH ID) T14M6 G0G54G90X3.6667Y0.Z5.S100M3 G43H14Z5. Z.1 G1Z-1.F30. G41D14Y-1.3333 G3X5.Y0.J1.3333 G1Y5. X-5. Y-5. X5. Y0. G3X3.6667Y1.3333I-1.3333 G1G40Y0. G0Z5. M5 G0G28G91Z0. G0G28X0.Y0. M02 % I know very little about Gcode as all of the machines I program for are Heidenhain conversational, so maybe I am missing something very simple here. I got from previous posts that I needed to get rid of the M30 at the end and throw in an M02. No percent sign is allowed at the top, but it needs one at the bottom. The program above is beeing drip fed (Thanks to this forum )from a PC as that is how we will be running programs through the machine if that makes a difference. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated to help me get this thing up and running using mastercam.

quote: what is that about? I thought it said 40 days and counting earlier today. Spade, It did, I'm not real quick on updating my profile everyday. I'm not real computer literate either because I bet there is some way to make it update itself. And the answer to your question. That's when the DAYTONA 500 is. WOOHOO!!!

quote: We run a simple test if we are worried about the fit of a part. We will rough one cavity in MDF. Then check if the part will fit if so we will machine the mold out of aluminum. I personally think this is the engineers responsibility. Our engineers design entire mandrels that go together without problems, not all the time, but most of the time. They can see what has interference and clearance on the assembly drawings they make. The reason I asked the question to begin with is right now I am listening to a mill, roughing the he$$ out of 17,000 pound piece of 4340 forged steel that I programmed. When it's done it will weigh in the vicinity of 8,000 pounds and I definiteley could not see them making this part out of another material to prove out my program. They pay me to make a program, and that is what is expected of me. The topic just got me thinking is all and I respect everyone's opinion and insight to help me from having "tunnel vision" on how "this is the way we do things". When you know how you do it, it sometimes hard to see that there are actually other ways to do things.

I have a quick question that is bugging me so I'll just go ahead and ask. If you quote one part, but are scared to cut the actual material, aren't you technically making two parts for the price of one? If the job was quoted high enough to do this I still can't understand doing it. That is pure profit being wasted on a non value added activity. I do not mean this to be rude in any way, so please don't take it wrong, I am seriously asking because I just don't get it.

How about a button cutter and step it off haulin' a$$. Then you don't need such a big cutter and have tool pressure issues?

ssaualts, For the application you are talking about, I'd use the button inserts. The high feed do not like cutting on there sides, but the button geometry it doesn't matter if you are facing or profiling. m2c.

I personally having been using these . I'd try running about 1100 sfpm at .010" chip load per tooth with a .030" - .060" infeed. I'd get an appopriate cutter size that would allow you to helical interpolate the hole to say .005" - .010" per side, depending on what your machine can handle at those feedrates, and then go in and take 1 pass with a 1" carbide end mill to hit size. The chip must be going bye bye as millman stated or the tool is gonna have an explosive nature to it. jm2c.

MillingMan, When drawing up roundy round parts it might be easier for you to draw 1/2 of the profile and then use the revolve command. Give it a shot, you might like it.

Also, on a HBM, start the threadmill in the hole at 180 degrees to help avoid double cutting chips.

Greg < << My bad. Mental note to self, PAY ATTENTION

Main menu > Files > Converters > Xform file. You have to "know" where you are physically moving it or rotating it about/from. You can't pick the entities because they are nothing but triangles with endpoints everywhere. Click done and save it, then when you go to verify pick the file you saved.

Here are the sockets

One more quick note... It also depends on the users rights on the computer. If you are an adminsitrator, there are no issues, and it works fine. When are IT person went thru the whole issue with our reseller (something about adding a new user?) it could not be corrected to open the file, even when changing the path in the registry, without the user having admin rights. Rumour has it they logged it as a bug and the problem was supposed to be fixed in X but they were not going to correct it in V9

Thanks Randy. I had Julie, our IT person, break into Drew's email and all is good. I have been messing with "X" for the last 5 hours at home. All is well, Thanks again!!!!

quote: Must wait for new update codes. ARRRGGHHH. My boss is on vacation and won't be back for a week. He is the one that gets the codes emailed to him, then forwards them to me so I can update the hasp. Guess I won't get to play now either

Just got mine off the UPS truck I have a question about the "update codes". Are there new codes that you must have for X to work, or if your sim is updated previously (maintenance, changed from hasp 3 to 4, etc.) will X work?

I was hoping the same thing Jody