Im looking more along the lines of profile milling tool bodies similar to those made by millstar. They have the inserts that can be aquired with different corner radiuses and work very well for profiling work. On the sites listed above I saw more of shell mills or face mills than I did any profiling or copy milling cutter bodies. Millstar and Dapra are the only ones I have found but both are very pricey. These are what are used at work and what I'm looking for but in a budget line the CB CYF series in a HSS or Carbide body. http://www.millstar.com/millstar-tool-holders.php Lovejoy tooling has a 558 series tool that is similar to what I'm looking for will have to email them on pricing. thanks again..

Are there any other companys that sell indexable Bullnose cutter bodies like millstar and Dapra but for not quite the cost but similar in design ?? Looking for a good profiling tool for a VMC but on a hobbyist budget or maybe little higher in cost just not at the price of Millstar for the time being. Millstar tooling is great but you do pay for it.. just looking for a cheaper alternative in a 3/4 and 1 inch range.. Thanks in advance.

thanks to all of you for your help.

Zoober do these adapters work with the adapter just on the DB25 machine side of the cable and then utilize the network port on the back of the computer since most if not all newer computers have no serial ports. I found some on newegg but I didn't know If I just need the db25 for the machine and the Ethernet port on the pc or both ends and a serial port add on card for the computer itself. Thanks..

I used to work at a place that used dnc to feed there programs to the machines. They had these adapters that plugged into the respective ports and utilized plugging a simple cat5 network cable into the ends of said adapters but the crossover or null modem cable effect was taken care of via these adapters thus preventing having to build your own cable for those not very good with soldering in tight spaces like the pin outs on the back of the connectors. Does anyone know what these are called or who makes them ? thanks in advance.

What would make the points that are created from a drill toolpath stay visible on the screen when you pick the center of the hole or many holes. We have points at all different levels of our geo and this only happens on one seat of mastercam but yet stays with the geo because it is part of the path. Cant be deleted or it corrupts the path. I have never seen this nor do any other of our 15 seats do this when using drill option. Is there something to make the points go hidden like they do on all the rest of our seats. Or possible corrupted mastercam install. thanks.

Maybe it's our firewall or antivirus causing on my company's end. I have the x8 version from long ago but wanted the updated version for X9

No I did not will do that shortly.

Is it just me or is anyone else having problems downloading the X9 version of the MD_CD rename utility from the mastercam web site. I keep getting error saying the file is empty when I try to extract it. Thanks in advance.

This is a display issue not back plot. The button between the lock and the ghost if pressed will show a display of the toolpath and direction, tool dia, and depth etc.. when you leave the display turned on using a drill path and Regen the drill path this is when the dia of the drill is displayed. X9 does not show this on the screen anymore. Also the color of the lines in the display seem to be translucent until zoomed right up on to them. We don't use backplot to much at this shop as we do not do 3D work in mastercam. Only 2D there for this display works as a quick way of backplotting our paths. Now we can hardly see the feed lines no matter what color we change them nor does the dia of tool show up anymore. Thanks in advance for any info. Also the quick verify mode with shade selected helps but not as great as the display.

Thanks for the reply. I'm actually referring to the display option for the toolpath. In X8 when regenerating a drilling operation with the display for the toolpath turned on, it would show a cicle equal to the drill dia. at the bottom of the hole. In X9 it blinks on when generating then goes off.

When u had the display turned onto X8 and Regen a drill path it would show the diameter of tool at the depth it was going to which worked as a great double check that one had the right size drill selected. In X9 how ever I cannot seem to get this function to stay on. It shows for a spilt second during Regen completion then it's just the feed and rapid lines being shown and how deep they go. Is this graphics card related or something I have not got turned on or off in my settings. TIA.

Yes I'm importing from an ops library that I created in X7 that has always worked with no problems until the latest update. I tried to go into my op and edit it to turn it back on but the coolant drop down menus are blank in all of the paths in my ops library. I also just noticed that my diameter offset is changing back to match that of the tool number instead of the number we use on our machines when using cutter comp. Thanks in advance.

So we have just started using X9 update 3 where I work and when I import paths now I no longer have my coolant options set like they used to be in X8. I used to be able to import the ops and it retain the coolant settings I had established for certain paths. It mainly loses them on the drill paths no others that I have noticed yet. Thanks for any help.

Does the tool step, peck, & coolant option not work when importing OPS. When ever I import ops I get no coolant at all. thanks

It didn't give me the option to reload the machine def like it does if I change something on the fly. I was in a new session though Also. Just closed out and reopen and it stuck.

OK jparis tried this method at work today and it's not sticking for some reason. Any thing else I may need to check or change. Never mind had to close out mastercam and reopen. Thanks

Thanks Jparis. That's the way I assumed it was done but reading through the instructions above had me scratching me head..

Operation defaults are unavailable from the machine def manager if pulled down from the settings drop down tab. Do you mean machine def manager from the tool path manager then access the edit function to the machine def from there?? I'm curious as well as I want to set my machine up the same way.

some machines have paremeters set in the control that will override your retract and feed plane distances that are specified by your toolpath in canned drill cycles. Might check into this and see what you find. HTH..

I use those self adjusting hold downs that have a swivel nut in the center to hold our vises down. not sure of part number but I know MSC carries them as well as other tool vendors. https://www.mscdirect.com/browse/tn/Clamping-Workholding-Positioning/Adjustable-Self-Positioning-Strap-Clamps?searchterm=hold+downs&navid=4287922195

We currently use Sumitomo carbide TSC drills at our shop right now but we cant get one in a 3/32 diameter. Sumitomo dosent seem to go less than 1/8 diameter on fractional sizes. I was curious what other drill companys are out there that I can check with their web sites to see if they offer something in this size. TIA..

I was wondering how people that are in charge of machine scheduling go about setting up a job schedule ie, job numbers, machine it goes on, date its due etc..currently we are using excel to achieve this and it gets the job done but its protected so only the scheduler can modify it and only updates when the scheduler saves it and the operator re opens it. would like to be able to add a comment at end of the job to allow the machinist to enter the current status of the job at machine as well as other info if needed but not sure if it can be done in excel. Just curious how other shops are scheduling there work loads with excel or other software. maybe examples or does a job shop software need to be put in place here.. thanks..

OK no go with either ways plus I'm still using X8. Thanks again

When I use 2D restmill paths I find that if I say that Im using a cutter that is .010 or so bigger than what the actual last cutter I used was it tends to pick up the areas it should where as if I tell it the actual tool size and regen it hit and misses areas I know that need a smaller cutter run through it still. so say Im using a .250 cutter as my driving tool for my restmill op. I will call it out as a .260or .265 just to make sure MC sees everything that needs to be re machined with my next smaller cutter plus a bonus is this provides just a hair more of a lead in on the re machine cuts .. this is just how I have had best success with restmill ops. your geo and pathing techniques will determine the end results you wish to achieve. HTH..