Mick, Wear comp will work the same as comp in control. For the "second tool operation" do you mean 2 ops 1 tool or 2 ops 2 tools? Did you put the if cc_pos, "blah blah" into the null tool change? Brett

Hey Mick, If you want to automate this do the following. Make sure you have cc_1013 : 1 in your post so your post can look ahead to see if the current op uses cutter comp at the time of the tool change. Then, in the tool change block just put if cc_pos, "blah blah" and you should be all set. Check it out in the V9 post manual for more info. Brett

Yeah....gouge checking tool holders = lots of work. I was hoping for the easy way out....not having to make them. Thanks.

Someone has asked me for help locating a tool library for Sandvik's "Capto" line of tools. Anyone know someone who has lots of tool libraries? Thanks for the Help.

You should call In-House. I hear they have killer lathe posts......Oh wait....that's me.

Dave, Cutpos2 is MP's flag to tell you where you are in the cut. Cutpos2 = 3 is the last point on the surface/chain of the cut. This flag updates itself each time through you post. Cutter comp would generally still be active at this point. I wouldn't even go to that postblock until the end of the tool or mtlchg0. You could also try cutpos2 = 4 (after end of cut). A lot of posts aren't very good at cutter comp and lead-in/outs on polar interp. Brett Brett

Guess I'm a little slow...

Steve, You need to set arccheck to 1 in your post then set your ltol. Arccheck = 1 will convert an arc into line segments if the arc is below the length tolerance (ltol). arccheck : 1 #Check for small arcs ltol : .002 #Length tolerance Brett

quote: The problem with laptops is most feed the same screen to both monitors; you can't dedicate different apps to different monitors; at least with the Dell's.I have a dell and that's exactly what I'm doing. My video card is the NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 and has dual output support. Brett

I could finish at least 100 posts a day with one of those bad boys! Brett

Dual monitors is the best thing ever! My productivity has increased exponentially since getting another monitor. I've got e-mail and cimco on one, and mastercam on the other. It just works like a single huge desktop. If you click maximize, that app will maximize on the monitor it's on only. You can drag windows between monitors. Also, your windows will always open up on the monitor on which they were previously placed. True dual monitor out video cards are the best. I've got a laptop monitor as the main and the second monitor plugged into a regular video card. Just check out your screen properties to set this up. Brett

In-House....you guys are amazing!!!

Hmmm, what's your machine config? Have you done routing operations in planes other than the top before? Brett

Roger, Thanks for the buffer methods. These will come in handy. I prefer the single buffer method. When testing the 2 buffer method I found that if I did not output a file descriptor I did not get the first op comment to appear. I guess it's only writing to the second buffer if it sees the end flag. Works great....thanks again. Brett

Avs_Fan, Not sure why it's not working for you. I think it's because your sof = 1 (not start of file anymore) flag is in the wrong spot. It's jsut going through and outputing everything on the first pass through the pcomment postblock. It's using rc6 as an automatically incrementing counter so it shouldn't output anything twice. Roger, I'm learning a lot from you here. I didn't know about the 'comm_cnt = 0' command. Nor did I know about the pscomm0 postblock. This will come in handy. Also, I like the way you check through the whole buffer and set a flag if the descriptor was actually used. Brett

This method needs a little tidying up. If you don't a descriptor it doesn't work so hot. To make it great you would really need some method of telling the post if you're using the descriptor or not. There's is no internal flag or anything in the nci file to indicate this. Lot's of ways to do this: using * before each line in the descriptor would work good, a misc integer, or if you were really ambitious you could write all of the comments to a buffer and then look ahead to see if the word "end" (in this case) is contained in that buffer. Then just output where desired. Brett

You got it. Just pop in that sof : 0. Yes, you can put the call to pcomment into psof or pheader. Your post goes through pheader, then psof. So it's really just a question of where you want the comment to show up. Brett

Your reseller could certainly arrange that for you. Brett

5K?! Where did number come from?...The Delcam guy? Brett

This may not mean much coming from a Mastercam guy but as far as posts are concerned.... 5-Axis Powermill (Delcam) posts will cost you a lot and you will have a difficult time getting customization/modifications and support. A Mastercam post will also cost a lot however you will get EXACTLY what you want, and support/post tweaks will be easy to get. I see this all the time. Brett

Here it is. This problem came at a perfect time as one of my customers was looking for something similar. Just enter the string "end" as the last line in your descriptor. eg. part no revision end code: pheader sof = 1 comment ptlchg_com sof = 0 pcomment if sof & gcode = 1008, [ if scomm = strend, [ scomm = wbuf(6, wc6) buffer_flg = 1 ] else, [ if buffer_flg, scomm = wbuf(6, wc6) else, "(", scomm, ")" ] ] else, [ if gcode = 1008, "(", scomm, ")" ] ptlchg_com if sof, [ sb6_scomm = rbuf(6, rc6) "(", sb6_scomm, "(", e buffer_flg = 0 ] comment # ------------------------------ # Buffer 6 - Operation comments # ------------------------------ sb6_scomm strend "END" buffer_flg : 0 rc6 : 2 wc6 : 1 fbuf 6 0 80 0 Brett [ 02-20-2004, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: Dave Thomson ]

Yes, good call on the buffer. I guess it's more generic that way. Could just clear your external or auxilliary program although it could definitely get confusing/cause problems if using these elsewhere. Brett

Hey Guys, Their are several work-arounds that I know of for this problem. If you are a wiz with posts then you can do this. Yes, both the file descriptor and the Op comments come out in the nci file as gcode = 1008 lines. So, the best way to go about splitting them up is as follows. Place a call to the comment postblock in your pheader block wherever you want the first comment. What happens is the post loops through this comment postblock until it is done all of the comments. So, you would have to have some sort of character/flag in your descriptor as the last line (eg. * ). Then as you go through your comment post block you check the contents of the string scomm to make sure it doesn't equal * . If it does, you simply use the subout command to send output to an aux or ext program. The Op comment (the next thing out after the * ) goes to this ext or aux file. Simply place a mergeext, or mergeaux in you toolchange postblock where you would like the comment to come out. You'll have to make sure to use an sof flag to avoid this from happening later on by mistake. This trick is very handy if you want a custom header and don't want to be prompted with any questions upon posting. Later, Brett

Tom, Go into your .pst file Search for the ptlchg postblock Look for a line that looks like this: pbld, n,*sgcode, *sgabsinc, pwcs, pfxout, pfyout, pfcout, pfzout, *speed, *spindle, pgear, pcan1 Change it to look like this: pbld, n, *sgcode, *sgabsinc, pwcs, pfxout, pfyout, pfcout, *speed, *spindle, pgear, pcan1 pbld, n, pfzout, pcan1 So....just move the call to pfzout or pzout to the next line. Thats it.