ok so these parts finally came back from heat treat again.i tried roughing them somewhat to shape(just square from a solid i made in mc)1st i tried a 4 flute insertmill.worked ok for a while but didnt like coming out or going back into the cut and it faile after a bit.then i tried a 1 in carbide rougher which worked but took forever and i used 3 of them for 1 part.if this were aluminum i would know exactly how to tackle this but being 35 rockwell in 4340 is leaving me stumped.we had a meeting about the job today(im the new guy here)and i was just going with the flow of how everyone else thought they would tackle it even though i thought that is was not the way to do it.i made a complete solid model of the part in mastercam and it looks great but i could not bring myself to say let me surface machine it from the solid because of how hard it was on the machine and tooling just roughing one pc.i am now roughing most of the material off on an old cincinati manual mill with a 6 inch facemill and leaving the threaded end square for now. am i wrong for not speaking up? im not familiar with machining hard steel like this. in my heart im thinking just rough this with small cuts driving off of the solidmodel but all i can think about is tool failure and being the only one who wanted to do it this way.we have several 3/4 and 1/2 inch multi insert cutters but im not sure how they would do in this material. any advice is greatly appreciated.

not sure if this is what you are looking for but on the startup screen it says...... BMC20-50 Eng V8.5 1

sweet! i didnt know i could do that.ill give it a shot tomorrow!

sorry i still dont have online computer access at work or at home.ill see what controllers they are tomorrow.i assume there is the conversational side and a g code dide to this controller.

no im not using millturn or rotary.i can surface machine the side i need and then save that but i thought there might be an easier way.thanks for the help!

ok so i googled "machining a large turbuckle"and came up with this. why does these things only happen to me? may not be work safe web page

we have several of these in our shop.some guys are very good and quick at them but im having a hard time getting used to this control.its especially fustrating when i have to draw the parts anyway in mc 9.1 to get all of my points and geometry!it would only take a few more minutes to generate toolpath.

sorry but im a little confused. wont i have to actually "cut" the surface before i can save it out to an stl?

there are some high finishes required on the thread and the undercut area after the treads.also they are "j" threads with a controlled radius at the thread root.i dont have confidence in myself holding the tolerances required here holding these upright in a haas mill(maybe its easily obtainable but ive never done it) these parts are going to go through a very strict inspection.

i have a surface that is ,say 10 in long with a 5 in radius on one end and a 8 in radius on the other.this is in the x axis not z (up and down)i created text above the part and used surface project to get the toolpath onto the part.it works great and looks good in backplot but i cant get the cone to show up in verify.ive saved parts out as stls after verify but never before.when it prompts for stock can i somehow use the surface i created as the stock?or can i somehow save the surface as an stl before it is cut? thanks mark

i have to machine some big turnbuckle eyehooks similar to these but not nearly as big.the blocks are 5 in tall by 8 in wide by about 14 in long heat treated 4140 or 4130.they are about 30 or so rockwell range.ive never done anything like this before on this large scale.i can do this anyway i want but there are only 4 of them(2left-2 rights).i have a haas tl3 (toolroom lathe)with a big 4 jaw chuck and a tailstock.i also have several haas and hurco cnc verticals to use.they have never done these type of parts here before and i was told the way to prolly do it is to chuck it up in the lathe and turn the 3.5 in 12 threaded end 1st.then hold it in a celf centering chuck on the thread (with an alum sleeve)to do all of the milling. im thinking of maybe trying to get a solidmodel of it and surfacemachining one side then flipping it and surfacing the other side leaving .100 all over.then finish the milling end and lastly holding on the milled end in a 4 jaw and turning the threaded end. does this sound logical? any advice is greatly appreciated. i have mc 9.1. thanks mark

i got it. it was se to 256 colors but there was an option to 256 true color.i picked that and rebooted.now its working.

i have this installed at home on my old dell at home and it works fine.i installed it on an old computer at work today so i can do some projects at lunch break.this computer is very old and is set (i think) to 256 colors.it installed fine and worked once i plugged my hasp in but the graphic is very choppy and looks kinda blocky.this is really not important to me because i can finish things up at home. the problem im having is that when i create geometry it seems to be there when i draw it but once i hit enter or escape to finish a spline it turns black the same color as the background.the current color is set to bright green or yellow and in the level manager it is set to visible.if i try to create toolpath on it, it is there even though i cant see it because i can select the chain and see the direction arrow. any ideas? i really dont want to have to bring my own computer in. thanks mark

if i post this on the ftp site will others be able to open and see it if they dont have engrave?

thanks ill try it 2nite!

im making a plaque and its got several large rings on the outside of the design.they are about 5.5 radius.im usind a pointy 82 deg engraving tool and would like to go about .06 .08 deep.i dont want to just plunge straight down and leave a witness mark.can i ramp down into this with a leadin that follows the arc?im pretty sure i can extend the start and end of the profile(although im not sure on a circle) this is still mc 9

this is a department of defence plaque.i searched this design on the net on military sites and almost everyone i looked at was different as far as the fonts and how the spacing was! i redid the whole thing myself with a good truetype font and its looking very good! ill pst the whole thing on the ftp site when im done but some of it is done with mc engrave. i never knew the power of engrave untill recently now i just cant stop using it!

i have some engraving to do and the supplied letters are all choppy segmented lines with no arcs.things get even worse once i blow it up to the size i need.i was going to just redo it with a similar good trutype font but after about an hr of messing with it last nite i gave up.how can i smooth these letters out and create arcs in the corners?i seem to remember something called "polyarc fit" but i cant seem to find anything like this on the menu. this is on ver 9 thanks mark

im trying to retrieve one of these dept of defence files.they say they are eps files but when i download they say they are ps files?????? any ideas? can i convert in coreldraw or something? web page thanks mark

thanks ill try it tonite

ca i do this in mc 9?when i ran esprit i could do this.i have a very detailed dxf of a tire and i want to bring it into another file i have of a vehicle.the prob is that the vehicle id turned so i also have to turn the tire.can i rotate it and then project this view normal?sorry if this sounds confusing.

ill look at it again tonite but i think thats the one im trying to use(the unzipped one)if you turn the model over and look at the corner of the lips you can see where they dont extend all the way out to the head surface.although it does not "gouge" it does try to get into this area. you can only see it if you flip it over and look at this area. thanks mark

ive cut the file of the human head that is on the ftp site under ver 9 files.its pretty impressive and comes out great except where the lips meet the face surface.in the corners there are 2 deep undercuts and when u get down to the final cut with the smallest ballmill it gouges tring to get into this area.is someone who is good at surfaces please take a look at this and let me know if it can be fixed easily?ive tried everything even converting all of the surfaces to one solid but just cant seem to fix this area. its under ver 9 files and its human head zip. thanks mark

ill try to get a pic but it might be a while. i dont have the 1st one done from surfaces because i just recut over that one -.08 when i did the solid

i machined a human face into a block of aluminum.i think i got the file from the ftp site.it came out great but there was a problem where a surface seemed to overlap itself in the mouth area.mc warned me of the problem and asked if i wanted to continue which i did.the final parallel passes are done with a .125 ball and then a smaller ball comes in to just finish the eyes and the mouth area.the eyes went fine but the mouth gouged in the problem area and did not look good.i made all of the surfaces into a solid within mc 9 and remodeled and remachined. to finish the eyes and mouth now i had to use parallell w boundries.this worked well but the entire model seems to be faceted which wasnt there when it was just surfaces.i had the code optimized and it was outputting arcs in z x in both the solid and the surface model.the stepover was just about the same too.the code was the same because in both cases i kept changing the stepover untill the whole prog would fit on a floppy to load in my haas. why did this come out faceted on the solid model? what could i do to get it smoother? thanks! would ver 10 have handled it differently?