Taking a look at chip clearing fans, all looks good on the videos, but would like user opinion. How effective are these ? Obviously designed for use on enclosed machines only, but are there any other limitations/downsides ? Do you incorporate into your program with TLO or MDI/Handwheel ? If so, how close do you get to the part and do you include it in program simulation? Thanks.

Programming with NCL on an SGI was the best, absolutely loved it.

René Descartes of course, but the game changer was Douglas Ross, creator of APT at MIT in the 50's- the 'preamble' to all CAD/CAM that followed

Never really occurred to me, but this is a really sound policy. I am in a similar situation, traditionally have been issuing Tool setup documentation generated from catia/mastercam, but recently went all-in on Vericut generated for the reasons you have stated.

Carbide Dagger Drill for reducing delamination.

'With CGTech’s ongoing commitment and investment to drive innovation, we are announcing an increase of our software maintenance rate from 15% to 17% effective January 1, 2022. This update reflects the first maintenance increase in CGTech history.' (10/01/21)

Got to indulge and take the opportunity to vent, from repressed annoyance at how stupid and unnecessary this was by Haas. I programmed a couple of HS1's several years back, and programmers being a fastidious bunch, no surprise and a bit reassuring to know that it irked others too. What the heck was Haas' rationale for doing this?

To continue the aerospace analogy. I would classify this as a'Flight Critical' issue. It needs addressing ASAP.

Did something similar recently using a 2d contour toolpath and post modification. Used our Mazak HMC as a VTL.

Thanks for the reply Ben. The D2 moves are rapids. The first one is what would be a rapid retract in the original 3axis post, followed by a rapid XY positioning move. Seeing as this is a 2axis machine, do not need the first of the D2 moves. Basically want the post to ignore anything in what would've been 'Z'.

I've reworked a 3axis mill post to output gerber compatible code. It works fine, but I would like to eliminate/ignore all blocks that represent Zaxis moves. I'm getting an unwanted block on all retract moves. Is there an easy fix ? thanks. highlighted blocks are the unwanted 'retracts'

This is the end of file on our similar machine- I didn't write the post so it may be a coincidence , but curiously our post outputs an M0 before M30.

the seicos control has 2 options for high speed tapping. G841 and G84.2 - i don't know if you have a programming manual but you might want to try those options.

Someone at cnc software thought they could one-up Rene Descartes, the genius that came up with the original, insanely elegant system for defining coordinate systems. I feel that Mastercam's insistence on Top/Front etc. was a sorely misguided 'new coca-cola' moment.

Colin, Thank you for taking the time to come up with this very elegant solution. I don't know if you have had experienced similar, but the challenge was to use a HMC as a VTL substitute, and incremental moves with a B360. on each line has worked well, so wanted to figure out this little irksome issue. Not being patronizing when I say that having read many of your contributions to this forum, the level of your knowledge and your willingness to assist is exceptional . Thanks again.

I'm trying to get mcam2018 to output a contour toolpath in .02 incremental moves in G91 mode. I'm controlling it with the segment length setting on the Arc Filter / Tolerance page. I modified an existing Fanuc post and the output looks good - Except - consistently on the first entity of the contour (7 line/arc entities total), whatever I do, the .02 segment length control is ignored . If I reverse direction , the segment control is ignored on what was previously the last entity so direction makes no difference . I'm getting around it by adding a piece of fake geometry at the start of the contour, but I am curious as to why this is happening.

analogous to the beatles being the "british monkees"

There once was a speedy hare who bragged about how fast he could run. Tired of hearing him boast, Slow and Steady, the tortoise, challenged him to a race. .....

I am not trying to convert anybody, but I've always programmed toolpaths from the perspective of looking down the tool , and the tool axis 0,0,1 normal to the XYplane is the same on a vertical and horizontal, so what's the advantage in programming them differently? .This is the way it is in the Cartesian geometry of APT.All the Top/Front Top/Top etc loses me, I accept that's maybe how CNC software want to do it but I don't like it.

Thanks Colin. That is very good to know.

Does this mean that the Tool Plane must be the Front Plane relative to the currently active Top WCS, or that it must be specifically the Mastercam 'Top/Front' planes ? ( which would necessitate moving the part geometry) ? Thanks

Thanks for your valued advise. I am really disappointed to be going this route, as I clearly macam2018 works just fine for others, but at this point I think its my best option.

Unfortunately for me, Mcam2018 has been a series of frustrations eg. slow toolpath processing ,multiple buggy issues, crashing, tool library issues, glacially slow verify etc, to such an extent that I am giving up before I waste any more time with it . I don't need any of the 'lipstick on a pig veneer' that the latest release usually has, so I don't routinely install every new version, and I regret installing mcam2018 as my efficiency has dropped significantly . I am not trying to claim that it's bad software, but for whatever reason that I have been unable to pinpoint, it has been a very bad experience for me. I am running on the same hardware and O/S as the previous (mcamx8) version, so I know that's not the issue. I am not a computer guru, and also have the problem, as many do, of working with an indifferent IT dept. I have little sovereignty over my computer settings, and after months of trying, we have failed to find the cause of many of the problems that persist. At least as a short term fix, I am cutting my losses and intend to reinstall Mcamx8, which ran like a Rolls-Royce. I have a very large visibility project imminent and can't afford any time to be continually battling software issues . Again this is not to bash the product which I have used and advocated for many years , but for whatever reason(s), mcam2018 has been a lemon. I still have my mcamx8 installation disk, tool libraries, posts/machine defs etc. I know that there is the issue of backwards compatibility for mcam2018 created files, but I can live with that for now. My question is, will I need to uninstall mcam2018 before I try to re-install mcamx8? Are there any other issues that I may not be aware of?

if (opcode$ = three), pcan1, pbld, n$, *sgcode, *sgabsinc, "G9", pwcs, pfxout, pfyout, *speed, *spindle, pgear, strcantext, e$ else, pcan1, pbld, n$, *sgcode, *sgabsinc, "G8", pwcs, pfxout, pfyout, *speed, *spindle, pgear, strcantext, e$ is how I do it.