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.

On 10/21/2022 at 12:14 PM, Aaron Eberhard said:

Yep.  I made a little video to show how to do it:

 

Awesome! Thanks for doing that!

On 10/19/2022 at 9:25 AM, Aaron Eberhard said:

Agreed, this is great advice.

The other part of this is to really leverage import/export, and set up material specific operation libraries.  If you import an operation, you get the correct tool with the feed & speed already loaded, all stepovers/etc. set up, and all you have to do is select geometry.   For example, every time you run across a 1/4-20 or M8x1.25, you should be importing all N operations and have your geometry selected so you can choose the first operation, then drag and drop the geometry to the other ops.  It should take you less than 30 seconds to get that programmed in any material you've done before.

I completely agree with Matthew above.  Learn to use wear comp for any finishing passes, and learn how to jump into a program on your control and resume.  Make anything critical (especially round bores & bosses) have a separate toolpath for a finish pass with wear comp on, so you can immediately probe your critical feature on the machine, adjust wear comp if necessary and re-run the finish passes.   I know a lot of people who re-ran an entire 20 minute program because they never figured out how to jump directly to Op#18.

I was just onsite with a customer doing some training and showed them these two things above (toolpath library creation and figuring out how to jump directly to an op on their control) and we estimated that they're going to save at minimum 6 hours of programming and 2-3 hours of machine time per week!  Every time they were encountering a 1/4-20, they were defining the tool, setting the speed for the materials, defining the drill toolpath params, etc..

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

33 minutes ago, Tkrohn45 said:

I am making this topic to kind of get an idea of how other Job shops may be set up. A little information about our shop: We have 9 Mazak Vertical mills, and a wire edm. We currently have 8 guys running those machines, and 7 seats of Mastercam (one guy just runs the mill using Mazatrol or programs we post for him.) We run a plethora of jobs and materials. Sometimes bouncing a job between two people. We currently use a tool library that one guy created back in like X9, and only use 2 materials (6061 and A-2). This tool library, material library, and all defaults are saved on the server and used by every Computer. 
Anyone have any ideas on if there are ways to improve our productivity, besides just running two machines per guy. Running two machines per guy works well if we are running something that will take a while. Most times thats not the case. We have thought about the idea of only having a couple guys program parts then just have guys only run machines, but we are thinking that would be a hassle with smaller orders or if there has to be offsets made. 
If there are any ideas as well about tool libraries, making them better/more efficient. What we have works now, but it might be outdated and I feel like improvements can be made specifically with organization. We don't really use one brand of tooling, or have a tool crib. We find that default material and tool library just doesnt seem to work right, feeds and speeds are always messed up. We have it set up where if we import a tool, itll work but its not for every application.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

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

16 hours ago, JoshC said:

Like for example some users may have learned to create edge curves or wireframe off solids then toolpath off the wireframe, nothing wrong with that and they may be super fast at that but still not as fast as just solid chaining and not even worrying about creating wireframe,

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.

On 10/6/2022 at 5:39 PM, cruzila said:

The cap holes feature works on solids in MC. When you select both solids and surfaces the software knows to just keep going and in essence its all one surface or looks like it.  Pretty cool now it does that vs the older/other software that either won't let you combine those types of geometry or forces retract at every edge when the tool passes over.

 

How to get good??? Do it eleventy billion times.... just when you think you git it, another better way will pop in to your head.

Thanks! I did not know it worked on solids, I assumed I had to use surfaces so I created them.

On 10/6/2022 at 6:24 PM, Leon82 said:

Power surface can be handy with split holes. I have no idea how to use it but for roughing it is good

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

Just now, Leon82 said:

In that case I make a surface and un trim.  Or surface fill holes is an option if it's a full hole

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?

7 minutes ago, JParis said:

For me, it was really just practice....none of the available material will cover all the scenerios that you run into from part to part to part....

After you've done it for a bit, you get a really good idea of which toolpaths react best to the surfaces that you're going to apply them machine.

To the best of my knowledge, there's really no one tutorial or video that will cover all the info that you'll acquire from experience.

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?

11 minutes ago, JParis said:

 

To really be able to program efficiently remotely, a network license is really necessary....

Thanks

On 1/16/2021 at 5:53 PM, #Rekd™ said:

If Mastercam is not already running you won’t be able to launch it (that was my experience).

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.

On 9/15/2022 at 11:51 AM, BradyCNC said:

We're the same here. All tool and die, 2D, Cuts and Forms. Do you know of any resources I can use to learn? the one guy we have isn't super open to teaching lol so I'm trying to do it on my own as a backup in case the company ever needs it.

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?

On 8/31/2022 at 1:54 PM, BradyCNC said:

My shop currently has only one EDM wire guy so I've been thinking about learning myself on the side to be able to help out when necessary. Is there anyone on here that has done both? are they similar to program for or can I expect a learning curve? Do you have any reliable resources for learning?

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.

52 minutes ago, gcode said:

perhaps my info is dated

back in the day Geforce cards supported Open GL via a software emulator and did not play well with Mastercam.

At one point I spent a young fortune on a high end GeForce laptop and never got it running properly in Mastercam

I've stuck to Quadro cards since.  

This is from our resellers website:

On 6/10/2022 at 7:45 AM, TMS said:

We got a second seat of Mastercam for the floor and it's not converting step files properly. Basically I was told to use our older version for conversion to Mastercam file then use it on the 2022 version. You would think that after all these years file conversion would be straight forward. I've been to to wait fot eh 2023 upgrade for the fix.

Anyone else having this issue?

 

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....

9 minutes ago, gcode said:

I believe GeForce OpenGL support is via software emulation

Quadro OpenGL supports OpenGL via hardware

Way back in the day you could hack Geforce cards to emulate Quadro cards

but it was a waste of time. The Geforce card just identified as a Quadro with no actual performance gains

The GeForce/Quadro debate has been going on for about 20 years.

The difference is speed and stability is real.

You are not saving $$$ buying the GeForce. You may save some $$$ with your initial purchase,

but you will give it back daily via degraded performance, graphics glitches and crashes.

 

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.

10 minutes ago, gcode said:

even more so today

I'm running an RTX4000 at home and it is way faster than the Quadro 4000 I used to run, especially in Verify and Machine Simulation

 

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?

4 minutes ago, gcode said:

 

Quadro's support OpenGL, GeForce cards do not

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.

15 hours ago, Mr. M said:

You can get something for close to that price on the Dell Outlet site. Remember that adding/replacing ram is pretty easy so make sure the video card and processer are up to snuff and upgrade the rest when you get it

https://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?c=us&cs=28&l=en&s=dfb&brandid=2801&sign=PXhcOSHtr1T4IOw%2fPR7UdeDN5vNJYPW20YZmXUrl2KUa1uwyvFPkQswZ%2bGQ%2fRKZbIWeeHap%2fCghPxeLTlJFGQpJZLFtJBhx3MAPIvskVG80%2fD3%2fOqsl%2b7mgXod3ntI0O5xPVSaZgldN85k6mMAaD2RH0cjvndydui%2b2Z1NZH5AJTRQ%2fHi%2fEIBOInxZzfv0SjC%2fmirH1ZHDS1qXt5A%2fAstPX9ZfLHinJjLJFkTGdDB1VeWiXNVi8jGk5Hq2eRott7ihJQsojK6Xbo2pmIKvThe7AUcryGzsMHXepUxKSAvO8MiNDRU4yGCi38zFjGVUGNsxasmfw%2boPQzv7II%2fJN9AqYs8OKvXruwDuw62s3rPcJpGbcErezx1%2bJXwmORy8fBF%2bAot9NERKZejvcs%2bKK%2fK%2bi8IN5PH4Rdaeshi7BNqqCTbrtiaEnQf7dKEcFnXIHO0LHlxBZxYUH0kuqf1yYvNmJ0BmyAM7DXkFQ3BwkN9cb238lbLepoEN1RPDfQfaNbbPD7fOMSyQk%3d

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.