I’ve used them once or twice years ago. Thought it would be convenient since it’s over there on the right of the screen anyway. Versus hitting the tab for levels then right clicking and select all. Since it would only be once at the beginning of a job I guess it’s no big deal really.

Imported a Kurt vise model from their website. Selected the moveable jaw and it's socket head screws, the moveable block it bolts to and the carrier underneath and made them Group1. If I select that group it works correctly and I can move them all together. I saved that file and merged it into a job, selected Group1 but only the socket heads and I think the carrier underneath are selected. Not the jaw or the moveable block. Never really used groups before but this seems wrong.

Awesome! Thanks for doing that!

Are you saying you have operation libraries saved with just a spot, drill and tap for each tap?

You have 7 programmers each with their own mill?

Line 775 of your MPFAN-3X-M5.pst file, someone changed: fmt "D" 4 tloffno$ #Diameter offset number to read: fmt "D2" 4 tloffno$ #Diameter offset number

Funny you mention that, just within the last couple months I stopped creating edge geometry when it's not necessary, but for many years that's how I did it.

Thanks! I did not know it worked on solids, I assumed I had to use surfaces so I created them. Power surface is one of those things that I saw in one of the "2 Minute Tuesday" emails from Cimquest and forgot all about lol

Would you do it on another level so you could go back to what you covered up later? Or is that "cheating" or a bad habit?

That's how I learned the 2D stuff, just practicing and changing parameters and seeing what it does. It seems like there are a ton more options in 3D though.

Maybe it's because I've never been formally taught, but some things I do I always wonder if it's the best way. For example: I just machined the top of a curved surface, like the top of an airplane wing, and it had a recessed feature in it which also need some 3D contouring. I didn't want the tool machining the surface to go down into the recessed feature. I copied the model to another level, converted in from solid to surface so I could delete everything except the surface I was machining and used the "Fill Holes" feature to make it smooth. You think that's bad form? Copying models to another level to modify them to get the tools to do what you want?

Not multi-axis, just the toolpaths listed under 3D in the ribbon. Books from here? Class from the reseller? Youtubes? Trial and error on my own time like I did with the 2D stuff? All of the above? Every so often I have to make a 3d prototype before it gets cast or forged or whatever. I'm always able to do it and the company is very happy with what I give them when it's finished. But man it's like pulling teeth going through all the settings trying to get the tool to do what I want. It's also a waste of time. I need to become as comfortable with all those toolpaths and their settings as I am with the 2D stuff. How did you get good at the 3D toolpaths?

Thanks

Can anyone confirm whether a USB dongle will work if you have Mastercam open already, or will it lock you out while you're running and it checks for a license? Work set me up to VPN in, and Remote Desktop to my PC from home. Yesterday I closed everything and tried to get in from home and it said it couldn't find the license. Not sure if IT will set up a USB anywhere. I could ask if it's necessary. The reseller wants $3500 to "reconfigure" my license and turn in my USB key, and it's just rubbing me the wrong way.

Just tried it, very cool. Did not know you could do that.

Unfortunately I don't. It's hard to find information on compared to milling. My boss showed me what I needed to get started. There is an EDM subforum on practicalmachinist which can be helpful, but even that isn't nearly as busy as the other boards on there. What machine is it?

Depending on what the jobs are, the learning curve is minimal for easy stuff, not so minimal if you are doing more complex work. I came to this job about 5 years ago with no EDM experience at all and was able to pick it up quickly due to the fact that we mostly wire shapes into plates for the pressroom. Punches, punch holders, stripper plates, die plates etc.. So it was very easy. If that's similar to what you're doing, it's no sweat. If you are doing more complex stuff with stacked parts or multi axis stuff then it will take longer to get up to speed. In that case I suspect your learning curve will be at the control, learning how to finesse the settings to get a good cut.

I just got the lower tier of that same system (Precision 3660) a couple days ago, Nvidia RTX A2000 instead of your A4000, half the ram, half the HD space and an i7 instead of an i9 I couldn't be happier with it. I think the RTX series video card makes a huge difference. One thing you should be aware of though, I had to go in to the Nvidia Control Panel and set the "OpenGL REndering GPU" from Auto Select to Nvidia RTX A2000. Right now I have a model of a fixture up on the screen, with 5 part models, 5 clamps, screws, washers, pushers... Even with Translucency turned on I'm flipping this model around looking at it from all angles and it's so fast and smooth. It used to look like I was watching a slow flip book animation.

If your model is not dimensional but more aesthetic like the octopus or something like that, I recently used a month subscription to Carveco ($50 I think) for something like that, you might want to look at. It is what Artcam used to be. The tools to smooth out surfaces are so intuitive and easy to use it was a pleasure to work with. I had a hand made medallion with some artwork 3d scanned and had to machine it. You can Smooth, Sharpen and even add material with tools very similar to "spray painting" in Microsoft Paint. You can zoom in and do tiny areas alone if you want. There's a lot more it can do like copying sections, separating sections with a "cookie cutter" tool of your own shape... Really great piece of software for meshes.

This is from our resellers website:

You have to tell us what "not properly" means. Are you getting an error? Is it not working at all? Solids instead of surfaces? The other way around? Computer lock up when you try?

Awesome, thanks again. Just spoke to my direct supervisor who has to sign off on this, and he asked why I spec'd an i7 instead of an i9, and why 32 gigs instead of 64? He seems to think it's worth it to spend more now, especially after I told him all these little glitches I deal with are likely a result of the system and not Mastercam itself. Looks good....

You know... Sometimes but not often, when I Verify, the stock model doesn't show up. It's just blank space. I'll close verify and reopen it and it's there. Also, when I resize a bunch of wireframe holes at once with the new "Propagate" button, sometimes only the first one I picked will redraw at the new size. They'll all analyze at the new size but they will still appear at their original size unless I reload the file. That's if it doesn't crash outright and force Mastercam to restart. I'm interested to see how much of this is because of the system I'm running. So if I can pry another $100 from them, do you think I would be better off with an RTX-A2000 vs the Quadro P2000 I was hoping for?

This GeForce seems to support OpenGL and OpenCL *edit* only up to 4.6 it seems. Maybe they dropped it in later cards? I hope they factor in the time I'm wasting looking into this stuff and tell me to just buy what I want.

Thank you for taking the time to search that out! I'm going to go with that Dell Outlet if they don't let me build my own. In order to get more bang for their buck I submitted a request to put one together for around $2k, from Newegg and Amazon which would have: 12th gen core i7 32 gigs ram 1 tb ssd drive and a PNY Quadro P2000 with 5 gigs of ram. We'll see what happens. I believe the biggest issue with my current system is the Geforce card. Our resellers website specifically lists Geforce as one to avoid for Mastercam, and specifically states a Quadro as one they've seen the best performance from. I looked back at old emails and in 2017 I asked for a Quadro because Mastercam was actually crashing at certain times and our reseller logged on to my PC and said the video card was the culprit. IT had this one laying around I guess and wanted to try it first. It worked! I couldn't complain. It's just not up to the task anymore as of MCAM 2022.