One of the things I though about doing was collect a hefty bag full of the chips, then somehow hike up a mountain that overlooks our town, (its 2500 vertical ft up to the top) and light a campfire, dump the chips, and run. I imagine it would light up half the valley. Doing it at night in the snow would complicate the effort, but minimize the fire danger. It would be a bitch of a hike in the summer during the day. Winter at night....gotta be more devoted to pyro than I am to do this.

As stated before, it will destroy any water soluble coolant, causing it to separate and become worthless. Plan on draining your tank & putting new coolant in every couple of weeks. There are some makes of coolant which supposedly tolerates the magnesium better, but I have yet to try. We have a reoccurring job once a year that runs for about a month, we add in a couple of days of cleaning and a new drum of coolant into the cost of the job. You gotta get all the magnesium out of the machine or you will be fighting coolant issues till you do. The fire hazard is a real thing. One of the few jobs in the shop where we do not run lights out.

There is a switch for that in the generic 5 axis post. frc_cinit : 1

Try this: pbld, n$, "G43", "H", no_spc$, 35, no_spc$, "517", pfzout, e$ 35 is the ascii code for "#". I know newer versions allow the use of the # sign, mine have been updated from versions that did not allow it. It works, so I never bothered changing.

Nice machine. I've got a few hours on those.

A large percentage of our parts require our CMM's to duplicate what the customer CMM's read. This presents a huge challenge to on machine inspection, Sure, it might be possible, but the cost would be enormous. It would require multiple probe heads with multiple configurations of styli. I have yet to see a machine tool that can change styli...so figure on some of our parts 6 or more different probe heads. Then say you have a couple of different operations on the part you are working on, it would be impossible to measure features that workholding would restrict access to. So then you would have to come up with a whole separate operation just for inspection, fixture the part like you would on a CMM so you can access all the features from both operations. All the time you are doing that you are losing the main thing a spindle is supposed to be doing, making chips. The cost of that downtime would pay for another CMM, nevermind the hardware cost. Now for doing a quick check, something like measuring a bore or position on a first article part, yes, we will do on machine.

I would be amazed if Kuraki didn't have some sort of starting point for you parameter wise. Yes it is a big machine, and while you don't see them everyday, there are a few out there....and there has got to be more than one with this relatively common option. Have you reached out to Kuraki for the parameters?

Like I said, we try to use .stp, but the cmm software converts those into surfaces and sometimes flips the normals on those models. At least with an iguess file one can open it in mastercam & see if the normals are flipped. Next step is to try their parasolid translator & see if that gives us better results.

Ok, this should not be tough, but it is giving me fits. When I save the attached revolved solid as an iges it flips the normals on half the surfaces. Plays hell with a cmm program that is looking for the top of a surface. We try as a .stp file also, we get the same result in the cmm program (it apparently converts the solid into surfaces) What really sucks is you can fix all the surfaces in the .iges file, resave as an iges, and it will still open up bad. I suspect this is because of the untrimmed surfaces that are hidden. Just wondering if anyone else has seen this behavior ever...and if there is a fix. test.mcam

I'm pretty sure they do. The autodesk website sucks...no mention of machine makes Camplete supports. I remember years and years ago going to training for Camplete & there was mention of Mikron & Heidenhain.

Regard the CAT40 & BT40, on that machine with the tool matrix, it does make a difference. The BT racks are different from the CAT racks. If it was a chain style all that would be different would be the claws or fingers on the tool change arm. I have priced out changing the matrix racks from CAT to BT...and the price per rack is steep. That being said, on a new machine, Matsuura has always changed them out for us at no charge. (Note, we are primarily a BT shop & have picked up a few used CAT Matsuura's over the years. Every time I price out changing over a matrix from CAT to BT, the sticker shock stops me) As far as holders, see above about getting a voucher from Kennametal. Theirs is by far the easiest to get and use. ER holders and "standard" stuff from them are a very good deal with the voucher. And seriously look into heat shrink. Once again, with the Kennametal stuff, the heat shrink are very reasonable. For the shrinking unit, look at the Haas offering (or Mari-Tool). A very economical way to get your feet wet. I am a fan of Lyndex SK collets for more picky stuff. Pioneer also has them (they call it an SX collet, they are the same thing)

This is still an unresolved bug & is easy to recreate if anyone wants to try. Open a control definition that you are already using & add a post (something like MPFAN will work fine) Save your control definition & close. Now, once again open your control definition. Delete the post you added. Save & close. Open control definition again...and the post you deleted is still there.

I believe you have to play with these settings: #Primary axis angle description (in machine base terms) #With nutating (mtype 3-5) the nutating axis must be the XY plane rotaxis1$ = vecx #Zero rotdir1$ = vecy #Direction #Secondary axis angle description (in machine base terms) #With nutating (mtype 3-5) the nutating axis and this plane normal #are aligned to calculate the secondary angle rotaxis2$ = vecz #Zero rotdir2$ = vecx #Direction The above settings are for a table that tilts around Y. Depending on which way it tilts you will have to adjust.

Are you using the "Generic Fanuc 5X mill" post?

I am seeing this in 2024 also (Update 2). Open machine definition manager from the ribbon bar, then open control def from the machine def manager. Delete the unwanted post. save the control def, close that window. Open control def again, the post I supposedly deleted is still listed. I get the same result if I open the control def directly from the ribbon bar, The file location for the old post doesn't even exist anymore, so who knows what or where it is coming up with the one I am trying to delete.

Just checked this in Mastercam 2024 Update 2 This is still broken.

I do this kind of stuff on occasion. Like gcode said, a custom post is required. In my case I use Camplete to get the rotary substitution.

For the fun of it I tried creating a new holder in 2024. (Toolpath parameters/holder page/new holder) Result was the same as the screenshot I posted. Really strange the sample file I posted is behaving differently for you. That works nicely, thank you.

Odd. The tools are buried up in my holder in verify.

Did you change the projection or anything? I tried doing what you described and get the same crash. Were you able to get the 2023 tools to work?

See attached file. First 2 tools were created in 2023 or earlier. Last tool was created in 2024. All backplot just fine. When you launch verify, the tool disappears into the holder. Holder slams into the part. 2024 threadmill.mcam

We do this all the time. Productivity+ writes the "X" error to #140. Knowing that, you can now populate whatever Z axis offset you want. Example - #5203 = #140 would write the X axis error to the Z axis common offset The above would work on a fanuc controller. All of the cycle outputs are listed in the Productivity+ manual.

So the fix for this is to use the "5AxHeadHead" as the selected external machine. in 2023, the "Use machine definition" worked fine.

Simple G0 U-300. W-2000. enjoy

I posted this on the official forums, however with many being lucky to even log into that forum without seeing some sort of error I thought I would ask & post here also. So are we now forced to do use the "Use selected external machine" instead of "Use machine definition"? (Machine Definition Manager - General Machine Parameters - Simulation tab) When I try to launch verify with the "Use Machine definition" checked, I get the error "Cannot load the machine configuration files. Please check the configuration files for ." If so this sucks. The lag that it takes to populate a preview of a machine that looks nothing like our actual machines is both annoying and worthless.