Wow guys! I thank you for sharing your experience. I haven't considered filtering the coolant no more often than I have this task to come to the table. I have been roughing the holes with a carbide endmill and a helix toolpath but it seems that I need to leave less stock in the holes. This is good food for thought. Thanks again. roger

Matt, thanks for the reply. The grinding head is rated between 50,000 and 65,000rpms. Sometimes it may take 30min to an hour to get a hole to size and to make sure it does not bellmouth at the top. Can you enlighten me on how to choose grinding wheels (finishing; roughing; grinding on the bottom; anything that I have overlooked??)? Most of the time the holes are for die buttons. There is a through hole, but it is a smaller diameter. roger

Good morning everybody, I am wondering if anyone does any jig grinding on a CNC mill? Occasionally I need to grind button holes after heat treat and all wire EDM work is completed. It seems to take me too long to grind the holes to size. My request is for any information that would make this task more efficient such as: types of grinding wheels, speed, feed, ect. My procedure is to program a boring cycle, use a boring head with an air-operated jig grinding attachment and a borzon wheel mounted in it. I will use a programmed speed of 400rpm and a feed rate of 15.0ipm and override as needed. After the program is processed, I will copy and paste the location of the hole about 15X, use a G99 to shorten the travel and program the tool to exit the hole on every pass. I am using MCX3. Generally, the hole sizes range from about .500 diameter to 1.000 diameter. Thanks for your input. roger

Thanks for the response. I suppose that 'plan A' will be the route I will continue with.

Hello all, I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on a wire path issue I have encountered? I am using MCX3 mill level 3; Wire level 2; Solids. I have a Mitsubishi FX20 WEDM. How do I cut a die opening in a detail that has a contour on the surface of the part and keep a constant land around the cutting edge? I generally leave about ¼ to 3/8 land and taper the relief .5 degrees. Thanks in advance for your input.

In the operation manager, the wavy line icon (toggle toolpath display on selected operations) located beside the pad lock will highlight the path of the tool. Is this what you are looking for?

Thanks for the information. I hope to get some time to try some of the suggestions mentioned soon.

Hello everyone, I have installed MCX3 and have ever since had problems with it and MCX2-MR2-SP1. First, when I opened the first file in mcx3 there was an error message that the file was corrupt and to contact my reseller. Then when I went to MCX2, I got an error message that my machine definition was no valid. I first installed MCX3 without migrating. After I started having trouble with the mill definition, I uninstalled MCX3 and later reinstalled it, choosing to migrate with MCAMX2_MR2 SP1. That hasn’t helped either. I have since tried to redefine the machine definition without any success. I am currently waiting for a response from the seller of the software but until then I was wondering if anyone could explain how to set a new machine definition for a 3 axis vertical mill. Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks rog

Machine Group 1 is for the mill operations. Each toolgroup is labeled as to the setup to preform and each nc. file is saved as the same as the toolgroup (i.e. Bottom setup toolgroup is Bottom setup.nc). Machine Group 2 has the WEDM machine defination and all WEDM toolpaths are in this machine group. I have noticed that when I close MX2 and then open it again that at the bottom of the screen in the tool bar the Mastercam tab opens in the mill definations and then quickly changes to the wire definations.

All of the mill operations are in the machine group for the mill and there are 3 toolgroups(bottom setup, top setup, and edge setup)in this machine group. The WEDM machine group is seperate with all of the wire paths in this group. I have tried regenerating 1 toolpath and all toolpaths in a toolgroup with the same result.

Can anyone explain to me why I cannot regenerate a mill path in Mastercam X2MRx SP1 and possibly help overcome this problem? This file has mill and WEDM operations. The times I have had this problem occur in the past I would delete the 1 or 2 WEDM Operations and the mill path would work. This file has several openings that I do not want to delete. The error message that I get is: DrillCounterbore-G81G82 Operation is incompatible with your current MasterCam Product of level. Thanks for any help with this problem. rog