I’ll try that. The reason I ask is I have some documentation on a UMC 750ss post that states it can be done another way. It kinda piqued my interest. Lets see if that attachment worked. If not, I’ll try my darndest to get it uploaded tomorrow. thank you gcode, - Meldas

I’m looking for an easier way to update a part in space for a 5X. As it stands right now, I’m doing it the best way I know how and that’s by offsetting the part in 3D space relative to the distance of the MRZP. Luckily it’s only in the Z direction. Now, I have seen other people use two planes, one for MRZP and the other for part origin. This particular machine is a Haas EC1600 with a Troyke rotary table, I think it’s a TL-20. It has a 20” table. This machine doesn’t have DWO/TCPC... bummer. The parts I’m programming on average have 170-210 toolpaths tied to them. Needless to say it’s a pain to move the part and regenerate them. so could I program it with TOP/ SHIFT PLANE/ ROTARY POSITION PLANE? Top being part zero, tool plane or (shift plane) being the delta from part zero to MRZP, and comp/construction being where I need to orient the tool? Maybe tool and comp plane need to be switched? Thanks in advance, -Meldas

An incremental feed plane is referenced from your driving geometry.

Try this: With the solid model in an unshaded view, go to create/ curve/ curve on one edge, and select the intersection where the two threads meet. that should give you a nice spline following the profile of the thread.

UPDATE: my company went with mastercam. I want to thank you, all for your input on this subject.

"I bought a copy of Mastercam V7 a couple of weeks later." I only wish i could purchase Mastercam for myself. My dream job is being a contract / free-lance programmer. I haven't heard of CAMworks til I heard of it from my boss. just the other day, the rep from camworks called me and tried to bribe me to say yes to the purchase. that, in and of itself, makes me wonder, "is camworks really so good that they have to bribe me to say yes?" I am a man of morals and taking a bribe is not what i stand for. but im looking past that and trying to see the benefit of adding that to my resume' I have worked with a stand alone seat of Mastercam and yes, it has its glitches too but all-in-all, Its a wonderful product. I like the legacy 5x paths better than the "advanced multiaxis - Module works" paths in addition to Dynamic Motion. I have taught myself 5 axis programming thru books, Mastercam U, Streaming Teacher, ect... all out of my own pocket and on my own time. Im invested in Mastercam, I just need my own suite and ill be good to go. I, like you gcode, have done my research on Practical Machinist and CNCzone and I dont find a whole lot. I agree with you that " the CamWorks userbase must be pretty small" nonetheless, I'm trying to be open minded to what lies ahead. The company is gonna pay for training despite what is chosen so thats a plus. but I have a post processor for mastercam that works very well with a 5 axis machine thus, I have a good relationship with my Mastercam reseller. However, my boss is going thru some other reseller, which sucks.

Hello everyone, I recently started a new job. My responsabilities will be to program a HAAS umc and all their other machines, Mills, Lathes, and an Omax waterjet along with designing and reverse engineering. The boss, who has no true experience with machining or programming, is running solidworks. He got a quote from mastercam, camworks, and several others. He has since narrowed his choice down to the former two. He has given me the responsability to choose one of the two. I come from a job shop. My main task was to program and run their 5 axis Mazak along with their lathes and wire EDM. Me being a Mastercam guy that is my first choice however, I do like the idea of adding another CAM software to my resume'. The boss says he likes the "logic" of CAMworks and my thought is "you've never ran mastercam" CAMworks comes with the option to purchase multiple dongles which i like very much as we may have someone other than me programming at the same time or I may have to take one home for home work. What i've gathered so far is they lack in 5 axis (just module works 5ax package) and their mill package is scattered by multiple vendors e.g. Volumill for their high speed 2D package, and Module works, again, for their 3D verification. For a nice 9000 extra, you can get full G-code verification much like Veri-cut. To sum it all up, Does anyone have any experience with CAMworks? What do you like / dont like about it? Thanks, Trey B.

@PcRobotic, I was having the same problem so i looked into it and come to find out, it was one of my "Debugging and Factory Set Program Switches" in my post. i simply found the"use_frst_wcs:" switch and changed it from yes$ to no$. That fixed it for me. I get separate offset calls now.

Simply go to your EIA monitor screen, press "Search", then type in the tool number and the staged tool number (e.g. T6T or T6 T, keep in mind the spaces if you use them) press "input" (it should search for it and highlight it in the EIA monitor screen) then, hit the right-most arrow key til you find "Restart 2 Nonmodal" click it then hit "cycle start." Your dynamic compensation and 5 axis codes should be present after each tool change. If you search for the tool change and start from there, you can just pick up your calculation codes and completely bypass the headache. Another thing I do is mark the tool changes with "N" codes. i went thru the post and deleted all the other "N" codes except for when a tool change happens then i can simply search for the "N" number instead of searching for a tool change line. Just in case i have to run a tool multiple times in an operation. if this doesnt help, or if you have more questions shoot me a P.M. and i will try to help further.