Thanks for the responses. I am using zig zag but it looks like with this tool path it just continues to go around and around, it zigs but never zags. I'll look some more into the post and trying incremental. I'm using mpmaster. Thanks again, David

Thanks for the reply JParis. I tried the settings you suggest however I'm still getting the large degrees posted: (example) N7280 Y-.1148 Z.6797 A-10340.612 F1815.15 N7290 Y-.12 Z.6784 A-10341.071 F1802.55 N7300 Y-.1847 Z.6292 A-10359.35 F2000. N7310 Y-.1887 Z.6283 A-10359.74 F1975.99 I tried with the newest mpmaster post and have this set in the post: one_rev : 1 #Limit rotary indexing between 0 and 360? (0 = No, 1 = Yes) Any other ideas? Thanks again, David

Using X5 I just tried the multiaxis rotary tool path on a part. The tool path works very well, however when I post and run at the machine I get an error for any of the rotations past 9999 degrees. The alarm leads me to believe that it is a Fanuc problem with more than 4 digits for the A move. Does anyone know if there is a way around this problem within Mastercam? Thanks very much in advance, David.

For me, this problem started after install when I set a new location for the Shared Data Folder onto a network drive. There wasn't a permissions problem in my case. To correct this error I simply went back to the original Shared Folder, which was located at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\shared mcamx5 and copied all the contents, including insert.tbl to the new shared data folder. Try checking under your configuration -> Files -> Data Paths -> Shared Data Folder, and see if the directory pointed to is different than the default install location. If so you might benefit from this solution. Hope that helps.

Thank you very much MasterShake. The method you demonstrate seems to work very well. I haven't had much time yet to test, but so far no problems. Thanks again, David

Does anyone know if it is possible to change or set the workoffset through nethook or vbscript for a given operation? Thanks much, David

Good day everyone. I have a nethook that imports operations for me into a given file. The file already has some work offsets tied to different WCS views. The imported operations also contain work offsets that match the offsets of the different views. The problem I'm having, is that when the operations import I get an error message stating, "#X work offset already used! Work offset number reassigned to #Y". Does anyone know a way to suppress this behavior so that it doesn't kickout the error and change my offset? If I do the the import manually I can check the 'Assign current system tool and construction planes', however I don't have this option through a nethook so I'm hoping there's a configuration change I can make. Thanks for any help, David

Good day everyone. I have a nethook that imports operations for me into a given file. The file already has some work offsets tied to different WCS views. The imported operations also contain work offsets that match the offsets of the different views. The problem I'm having, is that when the operations import I get an error message stating, "#X work offset already used! Work offset number reassigned to #Y". Does anyone know a way to suppress this behavior so that it doesn't kickout the error and change my offset? If I do the the import manually I can check the 'Assign current system tool and construction planes', however I don't have this option through a nethook so I'm hoping there's a configuration change I can make. Thanks for any help, David

It also looks like the nethook.dll provides a class for linking mastercam with Excel. I haven't tried using it, but just noticed it was there in the object browser.

Oops, it looks like I pushed return and it posted before I was ready. Anyway, after creating a new CToolRef object, I can assign it to an COperationRef just fine, however I can't figure out how to get the new tool that I created to showup in the tool manager as an actual created tool for the current part. Any ideas on how to do this. I've tried saving the CToolRef to the database, but still nothing appears in the tool manager. Thanks much, David

Using C# I use the following command: Mastercam.CToolRef toolRef = new Mastercam.CToolRef(tlDia, crRad, tlNum, tlType, lOffset, diaOffset, tlLngth, fltLngth, tlComment, tlName);

On a nethook, I've been trying to get the minimum Z depth value for a given operation using: Mastercam.COperationRef.GetNCIMinZ(). The results of this method are confusing, and don't seem to be the actual min depth for the operation. I can't seem to see where the results are acutally coming from. Has anyone tried this function with success? Thanks, David

Thanks for the reply Mike. Can you take a look at my posting "Import Toolpath - Nethook" and tell me if that functionality would also be covered by X2 Nethook? Thanks, David

I'm using the COperationRef.ImportFromFile method in my nethook and don't see any options to 'Assign current system tool and construction planes' like there is when you manually import in MasterCAM. Basically, I'm looking for a way to do the operation import from file and then make sure the operation is assigned a specific work/Tool Plane instead of just creating one aribtitrarily like it does not when it sees a certain number already exists. To me, the way that would make sense would be to 1) set view/work/tool plane using a given name such as "TOP" or "ORTHO1", and 2) import operationRef from file using the current system planes. The problem is that I don't see that the system currently has this capability. Any suggestions??? Urgent. Thanks, David

Chad, I believe your first question depends on if you want to write C-Hooks or Net hooks. If C-hooks, I believe you need to use either C or C++. For NetHooks you can use C#, Visual Basic, and I imagine the other .Net languages. I prefer C#. My experience so far has been with the NetHooks side, and I'm just trying to get my arms around this. I've had pretty good luck browsing through the Mastercam namespace in the object browser using visual studio, and reading the summary descriptions for the Classes and Methods, however I'm with you on wanting some more documentation and examples. I'm sure it will come with time as I understand the nethook feature is fairly new. I'm also hoping for X2 that there is additional functionality added to nethooks. Good luck to you, David