+1 to Don S. The factory installed 4 inch extension for the Z axis is a big help. But based on the wording of the original post I assumed the VF3 is already in house

"Southern Ontario, Canada. CDN $25.00 - $32.00 per hour." So that is $22.30-$28.54 with exchange rate?

The trunnions have a larger envelope and are the more ridged of the two.

1.) I do not have those machines but I can not imagine a machine Vericut could not simulate very well. You can simulate almost any movement. You could even add aftermarket automation to simulate robotic load/unload of parts. 2.) I don't have that module but I saw it run on G-code programs that where brought into class by other students. For die's it was amazing. Took almost 12 hours off a 36 hour program just by evening out the chipload. 3.) That will depend on few things. If you contract Vericut to create your machines/controls the way you want them and take the train class and forced yourself to use it everyday. You could be feeling good about the software in a month or so. Like mastercam "setting up a machine" is a advanced user function. I think many users overwhelm themselves buy trying to come back after one week of training and try to create machine definition. Because they do not have them they don't use the software. It never gets used. 4.) Great thru their board or by phone. 5.) If the integration with X is an indication then don't hold your breath for X2. Expect 6-12 week from release none beta X2 (IMO)

IMTS last month I was told by a CNC rep the old MATTS project would be in X2 MR1. PartsMaker with the new full simulator was pretty nice looking.

You guys sure this is not one of the regulars under a new login just pulling our chain? I didn't this it was possible to be this big an a$$. Besides who has 150 seats of mastercam but has a live tooling lath without a post.

Get to know your tool vendor and the Tooling reps. These guys will help you because many of your limits will be in tools not machine. With these machines you will be able to drill well over an inch a second in some size drills. But you can't do that with your old MSC Jobber drill.

I was told at IMTS that X2 MR1 will be the MATSS upgrade for lath. I have no clue of the cost.

No one has one? The HP version with 40 HP and 1800 inch per minute rapids looks good at right around 200 grand

Do you have a Bridgeport Horizontal? Not impressed with. Not ridged? Speed? Accuracy? Reliability?

I am in the market for a lower end Horizontal. I am looking at the Base Mazak Nexus the Haas EC400 I have a pretty good idea how these machine perform but I have no personal experience with the Bridgeport XR 700 HMC. BTW, This machine is for roughing and +/-.002 type work in plastic. I have DMU’s for the precision stuff I do.

No you will not be able to edit the posts at your desk like with Mastercam post. ICAM will have a Hasp with it and you will only edit post on the machine with the editing software installed. If you do not see eye to eye with the post editor you will have issues. Last time I looked that software is very pricy and a bear for a year contract. On the plus side there are no limits to the posts that can be made. 20-plus axis multi turrets. We use to have a Data base of varibles we would feed into ICAM and it would spit out a program.

If that does not work out, I use Manual entry. Something like this: M00 (REMOVE CLAMP) or For setup: /M00 (Check Clearance of clamp) Then turn on Post as Code.

Something to think about. The Haas mini Mill can be a 4 or even 5 axis machine. If you add a HA5C indexer these things become huge money makers. This indexer is designed to receive a chuck and fixtures can be mounted in its place. True 4 axis for under $60,000 is tuff to beat. Look at the Super Mini Mill the 10,000 RPM spindle will be worth it on your parts.

I do not have any at this time. The last place I worked used 3r and the 3r rep could get any model I needed.

"Baud Rate: 9600" arggg so slow That is like a mouse running thru the Lincoln tunnel.

David, Sounds to me like these are all flukes and you should do a reinstall. Atleast that what my tech support keeps telling me. After 3 reinstalls I gave up with them. Here is what I have figured out. Mastercam X is like a mine field. As long as you step in the right place it works great. As soon as you get off the beaten path you start crashing. I logged 4 problems that had not been seen before but where repeatable. They do not grey out buttons when they should be greyed out and variable are not handled well in the memory and their error handling flat out sucks. In Solid Works I can hack around and try new stuff in X that almost alway ends in a crash. So what I am saying is, If you are getting crashs in certain areas ask here for the process that does not crash. I found by changing the way I cut and pasted my Drilling cycles cut my crashs inhalf.

I am sure they will log all the issues that I define and they can repeat and they will tell me that the non-repeatable ones are flukes and I should re-install yet again. You know what I am tired of it. I paid a lot of money for this software and did not sign up to be a beta tester. If CNC is willing to let my company bill them the ridicules amount they expect me to generate every hour I am sure we could work something out. As it stands now I got more hours invested in getting X working right then I do in any one project. I finished the turning part of my current project and looking back I think it would have been faster to program the 2D stuff by my HP calculator. I now understand your first post and will heed your advise Chris on the next lath project.

I am a little worried about reloading cause I had to do that twice already to get my 5 axis working right.

I have been a Mastercam user since 98 and I have to tell you I am about to give up. I have beta testing software since 92. I have never seen so many errors in programming. Their error handlers are almost none existent. Even AutoCAD 13 (which was only out like 11 months) was not this bad. I have at least 4 bugs that where unknown before I logged them at this point and this is the 3rd non-beta release? How can you have a button that allows you to switch from OD to Face operation and never test it using solids? How can I cut and past two drilling operation and the software get the points mixed up? I have been trying to use the Lath program for 2 days and I have had a dozen or so crashes to the desktop. I don't even want to hear its your PC Mine is a intel box with 2 gig of memory and it runs Solidworks and Vericut. In fact I can not remember a crash in either of those softwares. I know if I work at it I can "Find a way" to make the part without crashing but why should I have to. I should not be able to crash this software to the desktop if I tried and believe me I am not trying. When you crash to the desktop it means you did something that CNC did not think could be done cause they should have a handler to give you a clue what you did wrong and you do not crash. A friend of mind is a software developer and he will tell you the different between a professional programmer and an amateur is their error handling. He told me that 12 years ago. It is still true today. [ 06-13-2006, 08:41 AM: Message edited by: DC Gorn ]

Thanks for the informative post Chris. It turns out I was wrong in the first post in that the switching from OD to Face in the turning operation in this model causes an instant crash everytime. I just did it 3 times in a row.

Most of the programming I have done since switching to X has been 4 or 5 axis mill. Today I am trying the Turning side and I am not happy. I have had two fatal crashed in less then 2 hours. Both costing about 20 minute in lost work. First crash I was switching from one size groover to another and X just shut down and one those email requesting info windows poped up. This required a reboot cause when I reopened X I could not regen any operation and I got no reason why. Reboot fixed it. Next I just changed a operation from OD to Face and the software just closed and I got the popup window again. Neither error is repeatable. Anyone else seeing this kind of instability in turning?

I agree 100% that on this form the Rotary Broach is what he was looking for. I just wanted to chime in so some the younger people understood that is not how a SHCS they buy from MSC are made. Sorry if my post sounded rude or know-it-all.

FYI SHCS are not made with a rotary broach system. Tho it is a great tool. They are cold formed on "Bolt Maker" machines. I used to design tools for a OBF-130 boltmaker that made up to a 1/2" SHCS. This machine produced 120 pc per minute less the thread and could run un-attended for shifts at a time. Its the only way to make a bolt, course they are still mostly made over seas now. Only the odd ball short runs are made here in the USA.

Bullet proof translators are CNC only hope. IMO Mastercams tool path is as good and more flexible then some of the big names so if there are not problems with solids convertions then there is no money sayings to justify higher end software.