Ron, So you have let mazak know of this problem in the past? What amazes me is that they think we can control where the chips go when we have 25000rpm spindles. It bounces around everywhere before coming to rest. As for cleaning the machine regularly, what do they think the chip conveyors are for? We clean out after each shift anyway, but these are supposed to be a high speed, high production machine. Halving production to keep one eye on the "hook" defeats the advertised purpose of the machine. Bruce

Jimp, no I don't. I will sit down and try everything tonight. Does inferencing have anything to do with this??? Bruce

I know there are a few variaxis users out there so I would like to know if anyone has had trouble with the pallets falling off. We have had 2 of these machines installed recently and about 4 weeks ago the pallet fell off one of them when it rotated around to the loading door. No big drama. We put it back on and contacted the supplier and they told us that swarf/chips had built up on the "hook" and that we should try and programme our jobs with the tools throwing the swarf away from the front of the machine. We thought that was a bit silly then, but just last night the SAME machine dropped BOTH pallets during a pallet change and now we have an absolute shambles. The supplier is telling us that we are not keeping them clean enough, but we have chip conveyors and coolant flushing chips away. We have about a dozen other machines with pallets and have never had this problem. Is this a one off problem with this machine or should we try and alter our programmes to keep chips away from the front? Any thoughts welcome Bruce

Since upgrading to 2005 when I sketch I cannot get the snap mode to work. It is enabled in the options and all the sketch entities are ticked. The grid option is off. Is there some other setting that I am missing? Bruce

Greg, You beat me! I will give this a try. Bruce

Steve, Yes it does have this set as 0. I have moved the pzout in the rapid motion settings to a separate line and this seems to work, however I end up with a line with nothing but G00 on it. No drama but a bit messy. I will need to run a proper test job in this machine as we haven't sorted this all out yet. Thanks for your help. Bruce

When in the corner, feed out and up to the top corner of the chamfer. If you do this from both directions the corner will be as sharp as the tip of your 45 degree tool. Bruce

Here is what I get code: O1030 (1030) (MASTERCAM - V9.) (MC9 FILE - T:MASTERCAMQLDD2282-01REVAD2282-01-102-ROTATED.MC9) (MATERIAL - NONE) (PROGRAM - 1030.NC) (DATE - NOV-16-04) (TIME - 10:47) (POST LIC - Ferra Engineering) (T3 | 8MM ENDMILL ROUGH | H8 | D8 | D8.0000mm | | CONTOUR....) N100 G00 G17 G21 G40 G49 G80 G90 N102 (MAX | Z50.) N104 (MIN | Z-9.5) N106 M08 N108 S10000 N110 G00 G90 A0. B0. N112 G43.1 H8 Z50. N114 X-1021.784 Y-13.43 Z-2.85 N116 G01 Z-3.85 F2000. N118 G03 X-1020. Y-13.85 I1.784 J3.58 N120 G01 X-920.1 Z-4.597 N122 G03 Y-13.35 Z-4.603 I0. J.25 N124 G01 X-1119.9 Z-6.097 N126 G03 Y-13.85 Z-6.103 I0. J-.25 N128 G01 X-1020. Z-6.85 N130 X-920.1 Z-7.597 At line N114 the machine is going straight to the start point and feedplane in one move. The answer must be staring me in the face, but I just can't seem to work it out. How do I get it to mave to its start point at clearance before going to feed plane? Clearance is set at 60mm abs, retract at 40mm abs and feedplane at 1mm inc. The path is 3axis only. thanks in advance Bruce

212 ops 30 tools 5 headaches Bruce

X has been available in at least 1 asian market for months. Bruce

Thanks somename, we will give the k a try. Greg, did mazak dump a shipload of these machines here in Australia???? Every one seems to have one. Bruce

On our new variaxis machines G64 is the default, but if we run any parts they end up scrapped because the tolerance is too open. If we run G61.1 the parts hold size but the cycle time blows way out. We have experimented with an M825 which has improved the motion while using G61.1 but the machine is still very jerky with no smooth motion. Has anyone used the PCfusion control with ISO programmes and had the same problem? We have this control on other machines and don't seem to have a problem. Is this, as I suspect, a parameter that is setting the "dwell" at all intersections? Any help appreciated. Bruce

I am having some trouble with multi sessions. I cannot do a regen on the first session I opened. I need to close down all sessions and open it up again. Bruce

Hardmill ta = thank you. Bruce

ta

No dramas yet, but shouldn't I see MRU0904 at the top of the screen instead of MR0304???? Bruce

Greg Same security. I will try and nut this out with IT. All the same any suggestions are welcome. Bruce

Thank for the reply, but I am not exactly sure what you mean. Do I need to reset something. What is db.obf? Immediately after this error it says Not enough memory and then closes. Bruce

I have been trying to clean up all of the configs used here and have come up against a problem. In c drive there are folders mcam9 and mcam91. We are running the new september update and I have changed all of the paths to folders under the mcam91 folder and renamed the mcam9 folder to old. Now when I attemp to open MC I get an error stating that c:mcam91tempdb.obf cannot be found. There is no such folder or file anywhere. If I rename old back to mcam9 it will work, but I need to try and standardise the 3 pc in the cam office. Thanks Bruce

Roger, You can open an existing xls file. All you do is create an excel template and save it in your chook folder. Bruce

0.15mm is only 6thou. No hope of thru coolant. Be carefull that you do not have a lot of pressure from the coolant as we once had a job that had 0.35mm hoes in it. We couldn't work out why the drills were snapping as soon as they touched the job. Turns out they never got that far. As soon as the coolant was turned on the drill snapped. Bruce

Bunny, Champion!!!!!!! I have been trying to sort out configs and personal preferences for ages. I will see if I can get everyone to try this. Bruce

James, This is how we do it also. Hooray we aren't the only ones. Only select the first operation in each group. This way you end up with a list of tools in the order that they are used. As for the nci names, tick the "grouped" box and add the O to the nci name field. Put 1001 in the sequence start and 1 in seq inc and if you select your ops as above, you will get what you are asking for. If you put an excel template in your chooks folder you can really tweak what info you want. Bruce

Thanks Rked Burce