We do use big tanks to catch coolant and add volume to the system on our verticals. And yes we are not doing much rotation but do need to get to all 4 faces. I found a simple union on McMaster-carr that should work. Just wondering how others do it.

I'm looking to tool up my Kitamura machine with vacuum chucks. Does anyone know where to find large rotating union fittings? Or how have you seen it done? I've attached an image of one of our vertical machines' vacuum tables.

I double checked and am in fact running 19.0.15109.0

Version 0.28.0.143 It claims there is no update available

When trying to update drill size to a new size from the standard sizes list I get this error: "Object reference not set to an instance of object" It used to work back in X9.

How would you approach it? save as geometry and chop out the collision areas?

I want to use a key cutter with dynamic motion for an undercut part geometry. Is there a way to have the shank "keep away" while still using the correct cutting diameter in the tool definition? Help!!

I export out my tool list into a word document template I made. everything fits on one page and it's fairly easy to fill out the necessary details setup sheet template revb.docx

Same thing happened here. Our engineers updated to SW2017 and now we have to switch to using MC2017 or get a parasolid file out of SW. Kind of a bummer. I was holding off on switching to MC2017 but I guess now is the time. It's too bad there isn't a patch.

Thanks for everyone's input on this...still looking into all options and best practices. It may come down to a custom post with macros.

When I contacted IHS they said the last version they had it working on was X8. That seemed like a red flag to me as I figured a lot of people would want that nethook's functionality. They said it could be updated if I wanted to buy it, but since they didn't have a lot of interest so it got mothballed.

I see a lot of videos of Haas machines programmed at 800 ipm but I doubt they actually reach that speed. We do a lot of high speed machining but due to short stroke lengths and accel/decel it never actually gets above 100-200. The other thing is that you won't see that on the Haas control. Probably the one thing i don't like about Haas. Mitsubishi control actually shows instant real time feed rates on the screen.

Basically yes you can do what you want to do in MCAM with a TON of transforms...one for every tool grouped by operation. A dialog box to simplify this would make the tree much cleaner and less confusing. Macro statements will basically do the same thing with variables that the transforms are doing (if they are at even spacing.) This seems very cumbersome especially with a lot of tools, but once setup all you have to do is adjust your seed toolpaths. I was hoping for a clean method, but for now this is the best I can come up with.

I think it is the same as what Sticky was referring to in the beginning. I basically have a seed toolpath that all the Transform and translates point to for all the various scenarios I want to post. I have the "assign new" checked in the rotates to create unique offsets for every face. Unfortunately in order to get the correct work offsets I don't wind up with best efficiency because it does redundant tool changes due to the order of the transforms. But at least since everything has unique NC file names so it posts out all scenarios at the same time without unghosting.

I'm mostly looking into tombstone best practices. Most of our vice work is done on verticals.

Can you give me a little more detail on how you do that? Here is what I currently have setup:

Thanks for the responses. I don't think hand editing is a good solution for our shop. As for the grouping idea that is exactly how I was approaching it, but it gets tricky when you want to post out "prove out" programs for a single part calling for correctly unghosting the proper toolpaths. That is why I was hoping that there was a cleaner solution like a zero transform or a better way to organize. Can you give some insight into what it took to get that macro working properly? I'm sure that this isn't a unique problem and someone out there has a good solution.

What is an example of the macros you are using? I would love to empower the operators rather than reposting all the time for every odd circumstance.

Why does this not exist in MCAM?

What is the “best practice” to structure the groups and transforms/rotations in order to be able to post out 8 different programs from the list below? I’m looking for the cleanest way to accomplish this. It seems that being able to post out “shared tools” between operations and individual operations (using transforms) by themselves are in opposition as far as group structure. Is it possible to do both cleanly? It also seems that toggling the ghost on and off may be one possible solution to accomplish without using redundant toolpaths. A Zero transform pointing to seed operations may also work. Here are the programs I’m looking to generate from this file: 1. Only one part instance for op1 top (to confirm setup / offsets are correct) 2. Only one part instance for op1 bottom (to confirm setup / offsets are correct) 3. Only one part instance for op2 (to confirm setup / offsets are correct) 4. One entire pallet of op1’s top 5. One entire pallet of op1’s bottom 6. One entire pallet of op1’s top and bottom sharing tools 7. One entire pallet of op2’s 8. One entire pallet all operations that shares tools for best possible cycle time I am interested in learning more about the Tombstone wizard C hook, and possibly a custom post if needed. However file size if not a driving factor so it may not be necessary. I don’t mind changing the stock origin plane to verify each of the different ops, in fact I’m alright with not seeing the entire tombstone in verify as long as each part looks good on its own.