I hate that the CD eject button is under the tray, so when you open it, you cant hit the button to close. Yea I know if you give the tray a gentel push it will close. But who designed this thing? Someone who never had to used it. Mike Mattera

I LOVE Tiger Direct. Great prices & web site. Good selection. But mostly because their warehouse is in Chicago and I'm in Milwaukee. If I order first thing in the morning and use regular UPS I get my stuff the next day (most of the time). When I looked at parts for my new box, I couldn't build it for as cheap as I could get the whole thing (already built) from Magicmicro.com . Mike Mattera

Put an indicator on the bed and set it to zero. Write a program to move around XZ and go back to the indicator. You might want one indicator pointing X+ and another X-. If it is a bad encoder or bearing you sould see different numbers each time. It's simple and doesn't cost a lot to do this (except time). Mike Mattera

MR0304: Besides having a crappy name ,has been working pretty well. And I installed it on top of my old sp2 with all the maintenance patches. I'm pretty happy. Oh course therei s the NCI problem, which is already fixed. Those guys are "on the ball". Mike Mattera

Harley wont even send me the part drawing when their having trouble with the toolpath. VERY confidential. S & S Cycle is also one of my accounts and it's not likely they would let anything out the door. What do you really want? The solid of the head? Solid of the entire motor (all the parts??)? or just something that looks like the motor? Mike Mattera

Be Careful, But get as much documentation as possible. This guy might be the owners 2nd cousin and that makes him bullet proof. But these days you have to TRY to do what's in the best interest of the company you work for. Your right with sky rocketing cost, the work may end up overseas. This guy wants his money now before he ruins the American manufacturing community. Remember who signs your paycheck. Thats who you work for. Mike Mattera

I use the EA Manager to sort out my geometry AND my colors. Although you cant name the level, I understand there is a VB script for that. Left menu - Attributes - EA Mgr. Pick the Geometry/Level/Color you want to use for each type. Mike Mattera

The rotary in V9 is much more stable that in V8. You had to specify the plane and 4th axis center line properly in V8. V9 make some assumptions (good one's ). Is your part on the centerline of the axis your rotating around. That's also a common mistake. If it's an A axis rotary the part sould be on the X axis center line. Mike Mattera

Time is money. In this case money saves time and makes more money. You have a choice: You can do it Fast or You can do if Half Fast but Level 3 is the way to go. Mike Mattera

Cimco supports the LSV2 format, which is what Heidenhain uses. The Heidenhain has excellent communications capability. Very fast. The new Heidenhain is Windows based. Mike Mattera

Great Place top buy a pc. I recently bought a new demo box there. It was so nice I bought 2 more AMD 2600's. For almost the same money, you can get the AMD 64 bit 3200 CPU. It IS faster and worth the money. They also have systems on Ebay. Mike Mattera

Program it in Heidenhain format. In the long run you'll find it easier. Their language is much more graceful than plain G code. Mike Mattera

One of the most powerful and fastest processing controls on the market. Nicest control I've ever used. What machine are you looking at? Mike Mattera

Kill the slave traders! OK I'll go for that. But, "There migh have been a good reason get these prisoners naked and stack them in a pile" ???? Can imagine why?? War is hell. These guys would kill our people and their own without thinking, in an instant. I really dont feel bad for them. Taking pictures of the whole thing was just stupid. There's a reason they call it "war". If they called if "fun" everyone would want to do it. Mike Mattera

Ron: Well The people that hang here are the people with passion. If you really want to laugh, Just think about what Bob Coughlin must be thinking as he reads these posts . Well Bob, Welcome to the place filled with genius, madness and passion. Oh and we also know a thing or 2 about Mastercam also. If I cant inform, I guess I'll just have to amuse . Have a good weekend, Mike Mattera

Yes it was stupid (if its true), but It's probably the best treatment anybody ever got in that prison. Mike Mattera

Chris: Software piracy effects EVERYBODY. You think it doesn't effect you because you work for a larger company. You didnt have to pay the price for your seat of Mastercam. Ask the guys on this forum who did buy their copy if they think it's fair, that the guy down the block (their competition) is using Mastercam for free. They paid the price for a technical edge. When you buy your seat of Mastercam your looking for a competative edge over the other shops. Your purchase is contributing to the technical development that makes your companys products stand out from the competition. I'm sure if the technology of your Research and Development department at Harmonic Drive, were stolen and then used by your competition, you'd feel different. After all "it's just data". Who cares if your company spent millions of dollars developing a revolutionary new drive system. Some one posts your new drive specs on the web, no one should worry about it. Right. It's stealing. People will always steal. I dont have to like it and I definately dont want to help them do it. Believe it or not, I post these questions because I'm looking out for YOUR intrest as a customer. Mike Mattera

AHHHH! WIRE: That slipped by me also. I dont know of anybody with a universal wire post. Let alone one that supports subs. The Charmille does subs. Do we know the machine type? Mike Mattera

Yes Bob welcome to the forum. This is not Really about you, so dont be offended. You did nothing wrong and I'm not picking on you. Just using your post as an example. My question was not about how this was handled. I have no problem with anybodys reply, but rather how can I help people? Where do we draw the line? Not to pick on Bob, but from his initial email, we dont know who he is and yet we offer him MPMaster. Which (from what I understand) is a highly versitle post. Chris: What your telling me is if a bootlegger asks his question the right way, he can get a free post. If he asks for a free post, he gets the boot . Ron: Some people need a good roasting. No arguement from me there . I have my own Fanuc posts that I make available to my customers. Im sure it's a lot like MPMaster. Highly configurable for a wide range of Fanuc compatible machines. If it's something simple and the customer can accurately describe what he wants to do, we can fix it over the phone. It makes them smarter and lets me get back to my real work. Selling Software. So here's the question: Why should one newbie who asks the question wrong, NOT get MPMaster. And one newbie who asks the question Right, get MPMaster. They may both be legit users. They may both be bootleggers. I would like to see a respones to all newbies like: Sounds like you need the MPMaster post. What's your sim number or customer name? Mike Mattera

OK maybe someone can explain the difference to me: A guy comes on the forum with no company name, no email address, no sim # and asks for a post. He get beaten to death. Same basic guy comes on and asks how to fix his post and we tell him about the posts he can download from the ftp for free. No offense Bob this is not being directed at you personally. I'm glad to see you used your name (I assume it's your real name ). I just want someone to explain the difference. I personally dont mind sharing posts. But I want to know that they are a legitimate customer in good standing with their dealer. Mike Mattera

The wireframe toolpaths are GREAT! Sometimes they fit where nothing else will. Also keep in mind some of those work in Mill Level 1 (Swept2 and Ruled), Giving the guy with a basic Mill package the ability to do some fancier toolpaths. Mike Mattera

Transform will rotate the toolpath and if necessary create a new Cplane. I use it for rotary indexing all the time. Transform - Rotate - use Toolplane for the transformation type. On the rotate tab pick plane to rotate around, number of times to do it, starting angle and incremental angle. It even increments the fixture offset for each new plane. If you do a lot of this type of work you may want to consider this training CD http://www.tipsformanufacturing.com/RotaryV9/RotaryV9.html Mike Mattera

It's like Ive always told myself "your never alone when your schizophrenic". Mike Mattera

The minute I read the first 2 sentences I knew you were a musician. Every spindle will sound different. I dont think it will work. Although the pitch of the running spindle would make a great sample for a synth. Mike Mattera

OK time for Mike's .02¢ This is the mastercam Forum. I find O/T's very distracting. But I respect if people want to do it. I dont participate if I dont like the topic. Free will and all that. Having a seperate area for O/T's: Why? The web is filled with chat rooms for any topic you like. Go there if you want to chat about football. Pooh, you creep me out. To come into an adult information site talking and acting like a child is just wierd. You can do it (free will and all), It just creeps me out. As for ther multiple names, same thing. I agree with Ron on this one. If everytime I went to talk to my neighbor, he wanted me to call him by a different name, I would be concerned about who I was dealing with. I respect You, The Person, and I can easily see you have an extensive knowledge on MANY cadcam software's and topics. I would hate to see you leave the forum. You are a valuable asset. You've taught me some things and I appreciate it. I have really grown to love this forum. I come here for Mastercam information. If some of you get pleasure from the O/T stuff, that's cool also. But this a place to get/give/share information on Mastercam/Machines/Machining/Computers. We dont need a seperate area for chats. Mike Mattera