I've got about 600 parts a month I just took on that need a small logo engraved on them. Customer spec is .005 min depth x .015 wide. (Intended for a .02 ballnose) in 1018 mild steel. These numbers can be fudged a little. Long story short, I have to take a couple depth cuts to get there, and can only crawl at 5ipm at 7500 max rpm. I've used 60 deg cutters with a .005 r tip from Harvey befpre, but seems like they end up chipping as well. What works for you in steel? Probably more ss is the answer... lol

Awesome! Roughly how did you go about that? Did you get the parts from your local Haas dealer and then crack a book or two? Edit: I didn't read all the way.... lol. Roughly what did that all cost? I know the probing must have been a big chunk.

So in the world of cold saws, what's the advantage to the high speed blade over the slow speed blade? I though all industrial sized ones like Scotchman, Dake, Dorrenger, and the likes cut non ferrous fast, and ferrous slow (different saws for each). But I see Dake's saws are only low speed, but they cut both? It will probably be a while before I can afford any of those though, so in the meanwhile, who likes the Morse Metal Devil vs Dewalt vs Makita? I'm thinking I would get two. One for Alum, the other for steel? Also, it seems like some saws are rated for like 4" square tube, but then say 2.5" square solid max? What's up with that? Thanks

Does anyone know if a 2004 vintage Haas control (VF2ss in this case) with a 3.5 floppy can be upgraded to a factory style USB? 2004 I think is the first year of the round sheet metal and the blue text white screen, so it seems like it should. I know there's retro drives, but they are limited to being formatted to 1.44mb. Also I've heard there's a point in Haas model years where adding probing just isn't doable. Anyone know the year and what's involved? I've hear if you have macros and quick code that's a big step. Thanks!

Man, I need to check my posts more often... good ideas here. I'm looking for an SL10 or SL20 y2000 or later.

Well phooey. We do typically use stock models after each toolpath group, but I just thought it would be cool if you didn't have to re pick for each Toolpath group you were verifying. Maybe I'm just trying to be too lazy...

Is there a way to associate different stock to each toolpath group, so that say when I go to verify "OP3", it utilizes the "AFTER OP2" stock model, without having to manually pick it each time I verify a different Toolpath Group/operation?

I've been trying to get my hands on a lathe with four options. Tool Eye, Chip Auger, Tailstock, and a Parts Catcher. I just found one at a pretty good price, but minus the parts catcher. Is it feasible to add a parts catcher post factory? I suppose anything is doable with enough time and money, but what do you guys think?

Yeah, 7/16 probably would solve the problem just fine, but just so everything still looked good, lol, I went with 1/2" dia x 3/8" length shoulder bolts, and 3/8-16 x 9/16" t-nuts. Will also keep about a box of each on hand for when they inevitably get lost too...

What size T-nuts do you use in the face plate of your HRT210's? It seems like a goofy size to me, we for years have been machining down 5/8" x 1/2-13 T-nuts to .550 to fit the slots, but the always end up cracking. (Maybe it's the gorillas on the machine though...) Thoughts? I cant find anything in any manuals.

Wow... that was easy. Thanks!

I need to bring in some profile scans from our CMM into solidworks to compare to the model. In mastercam you can just open the DXF points and they come in to 3d space, but solidworks wants to project them onto a plan it seems. Haven't gotten the import as 3d curve option to work, says no entities brought in. How can I get them to come into 3d space? Thanks

We are working on convincing management to upgrade us... One guy even did a time loss study with help from our reseller. Most guys have 16g's, but a slower I7 processor. I got a handed down engineering computer with a faster Xeon, but only 8g's.

We're running the software, though I don't know that the Wizard has been run properly. May have to get someone out of IT to do it. Funny, for 5 to 8 year old machines, they sure do lock them down... lol.

I may have exaggerated, I think this may be an Abacus 2.0, and only 5 years old... ... along with an NVIDIA Quadro 2k. Not sure on the Ram.

Hmmm.... sadly that doesn't seem to be my issue. Right side is my primary, and also the one I run Mcam on. I'm sure it's got to be some hardware issue... these computers are probably close to 8 years old now...

This used to happen maybe once in a while with X9, where I would click on my OPS manager which I keep on the left screen, and then my Mcam window on the right screen, would aslo jump over to the left screen. This seems to be happening quite a bit more now in 2017. Anyone else noticing this?

What is "combine to view"? Don't think I've ever seen that...

Hey thanks. Yeah I used to do that with the X versions, but was thinking it would be cool to free up some screen space, no that they can all reside in the ops manager. I have figured out that if you set up a hot key combo for each manager, hitting it TWICE will turn them on and off, but also bring it up as the current one. A little goofy though, and I may just get used to clicking on the tab.

Is there a way in 2017 I could toggle between the Toolpaths/Solids/Planes/Levels managers without clicking on the tabs at the bottom? I tried using the shortcuts, but they just turn them on or off, not switch to display. Thanks

Just out of curiosity, what sort of situations do you picture a company who has both SW and MC already wanting to also have MCFSW? My understanding is it's more for people comfortable with solidworks as a way to break into CAM.

I think what I'm asking for is not something that should necessarily be expected of Stock Model or Compare, but I figured I'd see if there were any ideas out there.

Yes Chris, I am actually trying to find a way to ensure that no sectional thickness of my model is greater than 3 inches total, since that is the maximum that the heat treat spec allows for.

Hey thanks. Not sure if I understand that this will tell me overall thickness, or just difference between the two models?

Is there a straightforward way of finding out if a model that you've created (rough for heat treat part), meets a maximum cross section thickness? In this case it's 7075-O that needs to be heat treated to whatever T-condition , and it has to have a maximum thickness of no more than 3 inches. I've been using the Stock Compare function to make sure all surfaces have at least a 1/2" on them for roughing (large part), but am unsure as to how I could apply this to figuring out max thickness. Any ideas? Thanks!