CAD, Don't have the ability to upload pics from work, but here's a better description (I hope). These are thermoformed clamshells, male and female sides. To hold the package together, there are female slots/undercuts on the male side of the package, and male protrusions on the female side of the mold that fit into the slots on the male side. Downside of a flowline is that it can't use boundaries, right? The undercuts aren't full length, just spaced around the cavity and boss. Haven't tried blend yet. I'll see what happens. John

We used to use contour for making undercuts, but it would take a danged long time to process. We recently "discovered" wireframe swept 2D for the female undercuts, but it doesn't work for male undercuts. the swept 2D only takes a second to process, compared to sometimes hours for the contour. The angles are usually 45 degree at top and bottom of undercut, with a 0, 3, or 5 degree face. Usual method is to make a boundary box to contain the tool, and make the bottom of the mold a check surface. Using .001 stepdown for polishing reasons. Tool is a 45 degree dovetail. So is there a faster toolpath for male undercuts? John

Thad, Trying to clarify for myself, when I say solid (such as a mold), I mean one or two solids each of which have several faces. I can pick one face or the whole solid to create curves or surfaces. When you say "600 solid sheets or bodies", you mean like several seperate mold solids in one file then? John

We have MR1 here. The engineers save their solidworks files as X_T format, so we import that format. Then when we need to we just click on the "create surface from solid" icon on the toolbar (or you can click on create-surface-from solid in the drop down menu. The solids toolbar when "lights up", and unless we change it to just faces, the entire solid will be chosen from one click.

For that matter, are there any VB docs with Vx? I just checked, I didn't see any in the documentation folder. John

While we are using X2 for our mills, our milltronics lathe is currently using V9. They'd like me to convert the VBS setup sheet I wrote for mill to work with lathe. My V9 VBS docs for MC don't list any specific commands for lathe. Are there any? Does X2 for lathe have VBS commands? They will be upgrading for lathe eventually. Right now, it looks like they'll have to manually input some desired stuff in the word document the setup sheet generates. John

Well, way back in tech college, we were using V7, and the instructor claimed the level 3 version cost $13,000. Who knows what it is today?

How do I do something similar in Netscape 7.2? I can't access the FTP from home.

Sorry, but I don't really see a benefit for certification. So you have a certificate, and a part in an archive. How likely is an employer going to be calling up you guys just to verify the user is proficent with MCX? I would think that it would be better for the potential employee to put his money where his mouth (resume) is. If nothing else, the references on a resume could be called and asked about MC usage. I agree on the nuts and bolts classes of the more obscure things. Sometimes being shown something is better than reading about it.

So whats the best way to learn how to write/modify posts? I have the MC9 post docs on CD, but there are hundreds of pages combined. We have posts for our fadals, bridgeport, makino, and 5 axis DMG. What we don't have is a decent post for a milltronics lathe. Some of the other posts could probably use tweaking IMHO. John

OK, thanks! I'll have to see if the IT guys will go for this.

We have several different PC's, and they are catch as you can. Everyone has their own configuration for X. Is there some way to run a batch file when a person logs off windows XP? What we are trying to do is shuffle the configuration files for each user between the C drive and a network drive. Any ideas? Thanks, John

I gave it a try in MC. pretty simple. Is there such a tool in the tool type list? I don't see it in the tool types we have listed. John

This will be an external thread,and I'm sure I'll move on to externals too.

I've never cut threads on the CNC mill, so I'd like to know, what kind of speeds and feeds should I use with a carbide single point cutter in 6061 aluminium? The thread in question is a 1-13/16 x 16tpi. Anything special for programming it in MC9.1? John

What people are calling thumb drives or pen drives I call a flash drive. mines 512K. I just put the old laptops 40gb hard drive into an enclosure. Now its a 40gb USB drive.Its pocket portable. Did the same for a "spare" 160gb hard drive, just not so portable. I also have this adaptor that will change any IDE device (HDD, CD/DVD, ZIP, etc) into a USB devise. Comes with a power supply for the bigger drives and USB cable. John "remember when floppies only held 720k...double sided?"

We haven't officially recieved ours yet, I think (we did do beta), mostly cause we need the cimco HSM, and the transition period. The HSM isn't supposed to be ready for awhile yet. John

Boy, some of your places sound like downers to work at! Cell phones are OK at break time, or when you reallly need it. Time is very flexible, as long as you get your 10 hours a day (4 day week) and any overtime required. Yeah, we got the slackers...mostly the senior guys though!

huh. I was qouted $275 or something like that for MC7 or 8 when I was in tech school. 9 months also. Didn't go for it.

I too wish there were demo versions of high dollar software like MC and solidworks that could save. Or at least low cost ones that could. With MC, perhaps the posting could be disabled. Dunno about solidworks though. John

Glad it worked for you Dennis...Right now, ol' Buss did something to our files and we can't get VB scripts to work (missing)...if he should visit, could you arrange for him to have an "accident"? John

HAH! shoulda done this first...did some searching on the forums, and made this modification... code: 'Load Graphic into textbox graphic="c:temptest.emf" Call SetBackGroundColor(mcCOLOR_WHITE) Call RepaintScreen(True) DoMetafile graphic .Selection.ShapeRange.Select .ActiveDocument.Shapes.AddTextbox(msoTextOrientationHorizontal, 115, _ 480, 390, 302).Select .Selection.ShapeRange.TextFrame.TextRange.Select .Selection.Collapse .Selection.ShapeRange.Line.Visible = msoFalse .Selection.InlineShapes.AddPicture graphic,False,True Call SetBackGroundColor(mcCOLOR_BLACK) Call RepaintScreen(True) Works now! also tried the open GL off (already was) and turning down hardware acceleration. neither worked! John

I take that back. Forgot to make a slight change in the code, went back and did it. I don't get an image at all now, just a blank box with a cursor. The bitmap file isn't being written (its a .bmp file, right?) FWIW, heres the code that does the graphic and puts it into word: code: 'Load Graphic into textbox graphic="c:temptest.emf" <--replaced with .bmp DoMetafile graphic <---replaced with DoBitmapFile .Selection.ShapeRange.Select .ActiveDocument.Shapes.AddTextbox(msoTextOrientationHorizontal, 115, _ 480, 390, 302).Select .Selection.ShapeRange.TextFrame.TextRange.Select .Selection.Collapse .Selection.ShapeRange.Line.Visible = msoFalse .Selection.InlineShapes.AddPicture graphic,False,True

OK, just tried DoBitmapFile()...same thing, black image. Also just checked the temp file it saves to, its a black image. Somehow, its not capturing the screen image, just a black shape. John

Yes, thats it. One black box. Works fine with machines that have win 2K and word 2K. John