Multiple WCS's along with user defined tool/contruction planes. The ability to select a line or tool plane for the rotation axis would be really sweet if it was in all 5 axis operations. The "Backplot rotary axis" setting under 5 axis is just odd.. lol! it's almost like it was an afterthought.. The "Swarf milling" under the 5 axis Custom App has more of the type of control I was looking for. not sure why they are now called "Custom App".. I guess MC just likes to change things up every new release.

That is exactly what Im trying to say.. You explain it much better. Thanks.

I have not found any way to use the new Multiaxis swarf toolpath on a 4-axis horizontal machine with anything other than the original real world WCS. Under "Tool axis control" I can select 4-axis, but it only give me the choice of the 3 main rotary axis's. It makes no difference what I have for a WCS. It only will use one of the three main axis's (X,Y or Z) for the rotary axis. My goal is to get similtainous 4 axis swarfing toolpaths with multiple setups, while leaving the part and stock locked in its real world coordinates so I can run verify through the entire job and see the part being machined from start to finish. This just makes more sense then moving the part and exporting and translating an stl for each setup. Maybe I am missing something here... If there is another way to do this, I would love to see an example.

Why the heck cant I set up a 5 axis toolpaths (set to 4 axis only) with anything other than real world coordinates.? I’m using 5 axis swarf on a 4 axis horizontal. Rather than keep the part stationary and move the WCS around for the different ops so I can verify the complete job, I am forced to move the part and fixturing to reflect the real world WCS, export an .stl (huge memory leech) and then only verify each operation independently.. With NX I was able to program any 4 or 5 axis on any WCS and even keep the part in its original "airplane" coordinates. Moving parts around just to make a toolpath work seems extremely antiquated.

Thanks..

One of my operators just asked if I could work this into an old post. I’m sure its not too difficult and I could figure it out eventually.. Just wondering if anyone has any tips ideas or post sample so I don’t need to reinvent the wheel? Thanks in advance Randle

OK, not sure if this type of formula will work. Looking at some old jobs I get anywhere between 5 and 45 cubes a minute. Dang.. I thought I was on to something here.. Maybe a spreadsheet based on part complexity?

Anybody using an average material removal rate for quoting purposes? I was thinking that if I found an average MMR for aluminum I could just calculate how much material needs to removed from the stock size and determine a pall park machine time. Does this sound plausible? Does 3-4 cubes per minute sound unreasonable for aluminum? That would of course factor in finishing passes. I suppose I could go through some old jobs to determine an average MMR. Just a thought......

Of course.. just after I finished doing it the long way!! Thanks for the tip. I will try it on the next parts.

Thanks for looking into this Gcode. This was my quick fix I used Verisurf's hole axis to create points and axis lines, projected the points onto an untrimmed surface, trimmed the axis lines to the projected points and then used Point/Lines in the operation under "cut pattern". I picked the new points and I got the desired results..

Yes it is a Horizontal. Aww Yes.., I seem to remember this "Four Outlet Right Angle Aggregate" work around before on another job. After some more testing it looks like this fix still will not work when using surfaces as tool axis control. Geometry modification still looks the best solution. Thanks for the help!!

Anytime I use a Surface as Tool axis control I get this error.. what gives? Does not matter what rotary axis I use.. Also tried multiple machine def setups with both FRONT and TOP horizontal setups.. Even created a 5 axis set-up and tried limiting to 4 axis.. get same error. The only way to use this toolpath is to use POINTS/LINES, Using a surface or solid face does not work at all, even with very basic geometry. I can do it with Verisurf's hole axis, projecting points and a lot of geometry editing and trimming, but this is ridiculous.. Mastercam's 4 and 5 axis toolpaths are still a joke.. and they dont seem to be getting ANY better.

This works great to fix that annoying bug!!

I had the same issue. When upgrading to MU1 some Machine Def, Control and Post files were written over.

Use a ballmill rather than a chamfer tool. It will be slightly concave, but just use a large enough ball mill to keep it within the required tolerances.

This just bite me this morning.. I saved a file and opened another before the first file saved completely and Mastercam changed the new file to the old (file being saved) name and saved over it. What a PITA! If I didnt have file backup and previous versions on the server, I would be screwed.

The degreed engineers coming out of the school system nowdays are pretty much worthless.

That would be nice.. I have a couple to share.

Feed/Speed sound about right on. I did a couple passes @ .01 and a spring pass to keep tool from breaking and maintain consistency.

I threadmill all threaded holes in Ti. Works great. Add a couple spring passes for smaller threads as the tool will deflect more. Program to nominal then comp out till threadgauge fits.

You need to build a new machine or replace an exhisting machines components with your own geometry. I think there is some basic info in the help section within simulation that can get you started.

I cant stand Active Reports.. You can make a tool list for all tools used by going to tool manager, detail report. This only works if you want every tool in your library listed. The other way is to customize the set-up sheet which is a huge PITA since it will try to take a screen shot of every operation, even if you dont want them.. Huge waste of time.. X+ is ok, but it is only semi customizable.. I sure miss the old GUI tool lists in X4.

Build your own machine model and set-up simulation exactly like your machine. Its a lot of work but well worth IT.

check IJK's, sounds like a radius issue

What about forcing a toolchange? (under "Tool" in the operation parameters) Then the tool will retract between every operation and have the required S and H codes.