Got your attention didn't I! OK, now before everyone flames me, this post is Dave approved. We have a Fadal 6030 with a Creative Evolution control on it. I am just asking if anyone has a good post for it. We have a working post for straight milling but its missing a lot of the canned cycle stuff. Dave did some work to get the Drill cycles working right but I thought someone out there might have a more complete post. Thanks

I have used a lot different CAD/CAM programs all windows based interfaces - rhino, powwermil, worknc, autocad, inventor. All have there good and bad points. I have not been using X for long but I have to say it has one of the worst interfaces I have ever encountered. I am sure once I get used to it I will be able to function in it - at a decent speed. But you'd think that this late in the windows-CAD/CAM game these guys (CNC software) would be able to produce a stunning product. But instead I find backwards ugly pictogram / icons that dont make sense. I think they tried to hard to keep the interface consistent with version 9. Some of the issues involved here - like printing and bad video drivers - should not happed today. Maybe ten years ago when everyone was starting to make windows programs or even 6/7 years ago when opengl became a video card standard. But definitly not today. That's my two cent worth - take it for what its worth.

I have used both - we chose mastercam for its 5axis abilities and strong 2d machining. But it depends on your needs. If you need that rapid editing ability - mastercam can't do it. It can do a hell of a lot more than Worknc in other areas. But if that rapid editing is what you need mastercam can't do it. But it can do better in other ways - more of a change in how you program - set it up right first not fix it after. It took us a little while to get over that but now we dont think about it. You don't miss it. That's my two cents worth - oh - remember mastercam now has an annual maint. fee too - not 8k but its there.

Its an extruded T of aluminumn - not sure on the spec. How did you set your programs? Two cycles - smae tool? Or a single cycle with peck depth for drill then tap?

Yeah, I hadn't heard of anyone programming for one either but I thought I'd ask.

5/16 - 18UNC holes if that helps. part is only 1/4" thick holes straight through

Anyone out there tried a drill/tap combination bit? What are your thoughts on these over a 2 tool cycle. How do you set it up in mastercam? Just looking for some ideas- we are drilling a short run of 36 parts - 48 holes each - thought one of these might shave some time off. Thx Jimi

here - not as often lately - to much other crap to do!

I was going to suggest something from Xi - we have used them for the last 2 years - they are great CAD systems - designed that way. And since you're in California they are kinda local. Doing the upgrade thing for all my CAD/CAM systems in June - planning on using Xi again - just haven't settled on the specs yet - so this thread gives me food for thought. Thanks everyone - keep the ideas coming.

Zero - if you can do it geometry wise - you can do multipe surface fillets by joing the surfaces together and then make your fillet. Does all the surfaces at once. The cool thing about Rhino - if you have it setup you can use the Blue Moon rendering tools and get photorealistic renders - its awesome.

I use Rhino everyday - I do 90% of my surface work in Rhino - its top notch! We deal in automotive parts - all kinds of odd shapes - and we build checking fixtures - we generally tear apart a part file and modify the hell out of it. The IGES and STEP translators are great. It has some of the easiest tools for surface creation out there. The rhino plugin for mastercam has its quirks - all entities in Rhino are NURBS - so lines and arcs come in as splines or broken segments - lots of broken segments. But its not that hard to deal with.

Finally signed up for HP Photo!!! Here are my missing pics - I have some of the finished job I'll add later today, once I get them off the camera. There I hope it works this time - I did email the pics to Jay but I don't know if he got them?? The block is stainless and the shape is about 2mm thick at the ends - 1.5mm in some spots. Blocks were cut with one physical setup and about 15-20 programs. EDIT:: do the images shoe up?? All I see are the links? Thanks for the interest everyone. [ 04-05-2004, 09:58 AM: Message edited by: pimij ]

Rekd - what do you do to create images for a setup sheet - do you make them manualy via printscreen or a capture program - and then waht to use them in a setup sheet. The little bit of playing around I did - I used a program called imagemagik to convert eps files created through a mastercam chook - it works and is callable through a post - but its a bit messy - not automated through any regular posting method. You have to backplot each toolpath and make an eps - or you get all the toolpaths at once in one image. The quality of the images is outstanding though - best I've seen. Email me and I'll send you a sample of what I did. Maybe it'll help a little.

A-ron -- I dont follow all of this well enough to comment anymore - I follow some of the war efforts but not the political race. I like Jack bow out of this one.

I think if the facts compared the size of the military forces and the strengths of their weaponry it would be more realistic comparison. The relevance of past wars cannot be compared to today - there is no country with a military force like the US - in technology - in numbers maybe China but that's it. I think you have more helicopters than we do people in our army in Canada!