About .177. A great rule of thumb is major minus one over pitch. works for all threads. Metric is even easier, just subtract the pitch from the major for the tap drill. Do a little math and compare it to your chart for normal threads, you will see quickly. I haven't used a tap drill chart in about 25 years.

How about the X6 MU2 in your upper left? How did you do that? Did MU2 slide by me?

OK That did work, it takes much longer (at least 4 clicks to one and can only do one at a time) but it works, thanks. Checking out all the suggestions.

OK I see my first problem, that "ABC 123" bar doesn't appear on mine after clicking line icon or create line in the menu. I purposely left the menus stock until I could get through the learning curve, though I did add a couple 2d toolpath bars on the right top where nothing is. Or I thought I did. Thanks for the reply, how do I get that obviously handy bar back?

Been trying to draw simple 2D geometry in X6 and I'm finding a lot of the "way" that I used to do it in 9 simply does not apply in X6. I can fly in 9 but are clunky at best in X6. 1. In 9 I could throw a gob of dimensions up, if I needed to add more and they overlapped or looked ugly what I would do afterward is create/drafting then I could click on the dims and drag them wherever I wanted within reason without having to do anything fancy. How in X6? I delete the dimension and make darn sure it is in the right place before I do another because where it is is where it sits. Create/drafting forces you to select a sub menu. Is there a way to do this in X6? 2. I used to be able to elect to "edit text" which was handy for adding notes with dims or taking away trailing zeros so employees didn't spend too much time paying attention to stupid meaningless dimensions. 3. Create/line/horizontal. I know you can create a horizontal line, just doing that is easier now since it snaps horiz or vert. BUTTT I had a "method" if you will for making a series of horizontal lines from a side view, many some times and with horizontal you could use anything as the start point for placement then drag it across to the end point of a line at a different y level and autocursor to the end of it effectively ending it in the same place as the previously drawn line. Then on round parts I could create circle 2 points weaving up and down getting it done in seconds. Well the circle thing still works but I have to draw a vertical line and trim all my horizontal lines to it first with X6. Or do I? Where is create/line/horizontal? I saw the toolpath advantages the first day with X6, but I'm finding myself at least 4 or 5 times slower creating geometry and making stuff "look good" on prints with dims. Drawings, not geo for toolpaths. I hope I have once again overlooked something simple.

I'll be watching this thread for sure, our trunnion comes in next week and though I don't have any 24 blade with splitters and splitter splitters planned I am going to get to play with Blade expert. I hear you don't have to be a 5 axis guru to use blade expert, so I'll fit in nicely. Blade expert itself doesn't seem to draw any excitement on this board.

In his defense we rarely do tenth work, but I would like to do thousandth work and 4 is too much for my taste. It isn't difficult to hold plus or minus one or two on a mill. I would rather set everything with a gage and add one offset for the part Z just like setting X and Y. I have some ideas for the department but are waiting for the right "time" to drop bombs. Hard to get support from upper management being since they have never been in manufacturing they don't know they could spend less money per part. The machining game is new and like magic to them. If it happens it is good. It's me and maybe 2 more people in the place that can clearly see what is actually happening. Didn't mean to hijack the thread, sometimes I really wish I worked someplace else.

I didn't even know there was a plunge toolpath, I've been using drill path for plunge since the beginning of my career. I don't see it. OK just found it in surface paths. Anyhow +1 for drill points for plunge roughing, works awesome.

Thank you, we bought another mill just assuming our minimill wouldn't have room for a 4 and 5. Not enough time to change our minds now but the future can change things in a day.

I have seen that exact error, a few years ago posting an old anilam program to a haas. I had limited it to 3 decimal place output due to program size restrictions on the anilam. The haas was confused and gave that error. Added the 4th place and all was well.

Hi Joey, I wasn't aware a trunnion would fit on a mini mill, would be interested in seeing how much room you have left under the thing and the range of part sizes you are making. If you have some time and it isn't proprietary parts I would like to bat a few e-mails back and forth with pics, Jim

Leave stock and send it to the jig grinder?

I got one of those also, most of the time I could hug him and sometimes I want to shoot him. No presetting mill tools, he insists on a .004 shim stock one at a time so if I want a pocket an exact depth I have to program it at least .004 deeper. Rapid is always on 25%. I took over a department with 3 existing employees, all 3 have their own circus acts. If ramping in with a 4 flute it has to be a shallow long ramp, I've scraped a few boogers accidentally with a steep ramp. Dang a plunge is almost better, or a peck drill cycle to define an entry point. I plunge rough sometime using drill points and a drill cycle. 3 FL or 2 FL is the way to go but if you think chip evacuation is the issue nothing like a stronger stream of coolant. Pinch it with a smaller diameter tip and point strategically.

This is the exact way I do it and it always works well, I like it better than the staircase approach. The only time I feel rough is better is when you have an existing profile and are turning it in to something else, saves tons of time. We do that a lot where one profile becomes another. Tag both lines and MC figures it out, or at least it did in 9. I haven't tried that "exact thing" in X6 yet, but I bet it works the same.

Wow I knew the answer to that one. Hard to believe I actually knew something. I think you will like X6.

If you don't have a quadro yet Newegg has a quadro 600 on sale today, lowest I've seen it. 139.99 free shipping. At that price get one for a spare in case your better one goes out! No I don't work for newegg. Jim

At only 60 bucks looks like a winner. The more I read Gcodes first post in this thread it looks fool proof. I guess if you have 30 seats it would be the way to go, we get everything off a linux server that has been running flawlessly non stop for over 4 years straight. Rsync is an incredible tool for backing up only what has changed, Samba dishes out to Windows machines as good as windows does, and I run 2 hard drives in raid 1. Total cost for CentOS, Samba, Rsync, Cron and the raid routine... nothing.

Speaking from experience? Now I have to try the MCX editor to see what it does, but basically I am comfortable with post processor editing. ConText is a pure text editor, no fancy formatting like MicroShaft products. Can I use the MCX editor for PHP, SQL and HTML files?

Uhhhh.... Mastercam. I was the guy they hired that liked Mastercam so they bought it for me Previously there were NO cnc machines, and prints were drawn on the back of lined pieces of paper, put in plastic covers in 3 ring binders. My favorite saying the first 6 months there was "You have to be kidding". Most of the staff would reply "this is the way we have been doing it for 20 years".

Baud rate would be my guess, if it is small programs slow the machine baud down to the same as the older ones so you don't have to change settings at the DNC'er.

Guys seriously just convince IT to get rid of it. Our IT department uses it and I refuse to use it on my computer so if they want to keep me it stays off. I have fixed a lot of computers where MSE has let major viruses just dance through, including a manager that shares an office with me. He was hit incredibly bad, long story short he has a new computer now and will not run MSE either. I can't say if it will interfere with mastercam because it will never be on my computer.

Glad you like it. It's free, I use it for PHP, HTML, PST, I even compile the grocery list with it.

I always use an external editor outside of MC like ConText or simply note pad. Have never had a problem, save/post and changes are always there. ConText has some awesome highlight routines that you can adjust, and it's search features are very good.

Looks like you might be right, we can fool it into tracking up or down with shims but it "wants" to stay at the top or the bottom. Why is the belt half the width of the pulley, and why didn't they do like the Fadal does and use radial ribs instead of a timing belt? I mean I see the logic in timing belts, but at 3 inches wide a crash that causes the Fadal to go out of time would certainly warrant stopping the program and replacing something. I'll probably use it like that till it snaps the belt then get a set of pulleys and 2 belts. Thanks for the input!

Spindle on the mini was making a little noise, took the cover off and the belt is tracking toward the top, hitting the lip on the motor pulley and making a noise. Looks like the motor is on 4 rubber mounts, and the front 2 have a set screw through the side. I imagine loosen the set screws and adjust the front 2 mounts Is this how to get the belt to track in the middle or am I missing something obvious?