I never believed in Haas machines either... till I ran one. One shop I was in had gear head mills and they cut 304 stainless all day long. The next shop I was in also cut 304 stainless all day long, except for tighter tolerances ( +/-0.0005" and true positions of 0.002") and those machines did those tolerances without a problem. That same company bought a Mazak Variaxis 500, that could not cut to those tolerances... I do understand that the Mazak has additional tolerance stack due to the addition two axis.

That's what I like about Mastercam... more than one way to skin a cat !!

Fred, You will have to open up the control definition, then open the operation defaults. You should now have all the operations listed. Open each operation individually and turn on the coolants. (I know it's a pain, but you will only have to do this once.) While you are in the operation defaults, un-check the "use tools step, peck, coolant." in the tool settings page. When you are done setting all your coolants be sure and "save default setting" *tip* You can also set your operation page parameters to the defaults you like here also. Hope this helps, Mike

Actually, you can make the coolant work like a "default" setting. I have found that if you turn on your coolants in the operation defaults, then un-check the box that says "use tools step, peck, coolant." you will get the results that you are looking for. ( you can also set this in the operations defaults so that you only have to un-check it once ! ) You won't be able to take advantage of the tools step and peck by doing it this way. ( I never liked setting the step and peck here anyway, even in V9.x ) As others have said "save default setting" after you have made your changes. Hope this helps, Mike

Kevin, I just thought of something, but I will need your file to comfirm. If you can place your file where I can get to it and I will run it thru my post and check the output. Mike [ 04-10-2007, 05:22 PM: Message edited by: mgsanchez ]

I have used the MPGEN5AX post. Unfortunatly the MPGEN5AX post will not work the way you are hoping that it would. Don't take this wrong, but you are going to have to live with it. Let me explain, when the post performs the the calculations for your spot drill position it finds multiple solutions, so then it freaks out and then picks the first solution. When you change tools to your drill it follows the same exercise and does the same thing as the spot drill. You can "trick" the post to find only one solution and work the way you want, but your part accuracy will suffer. What really needs to be done is to write a postblock to so the MPGEM5AX post works the way you would like. This can be done, but it is not an easy task. Expect to pay lots of $$$$$ or spend lots of time for this one. Hope this helps, Mike

Maybe this might help. Haas supports Fanuc 10m macros. For a Haas, Variable #3026 (Tool in spindle, read only) Mike

The ability to sort the tool table's output would be nice to have. Thanks

Ron Thanks for the hint, I found the problem, our post is missing the ability to utilize mi10 like the generic MPGEN5X. I was unable to get our post to work by adding the mi10 function. I was able to rewrite the MPGEN5X post to match the post we purchased from Mastercam. It was a long day at work testing the post, but well worth it. Works great! Thanks, Mike

Thanks Ron, I have looked in the 5 axis PDF for some answers. I have also looked in my Mastercam Handbook Volume 3 and the post manual for answers. I probably skipped over the most important parts. I sometimes can't see the forest because of all the trees. I will look again. I will also look on the FTP site. Thanks, Mike

Thanks Ron, I tried to set the machine Y+ limits, but that did not work. up_y_lin_lim : 6.1 #Y axis limit in positive direction The original value was set as up_y_lin_lim : 20.0 I also played around with adj2sec : 1 #Attempt to adjust the primary axis from secondary? #Allows primary axis to flip 180 to satisfy secondary #0 = Off #1 = Use method when secondary is out of limit #Use with pri_limtyp = one to keep secondary as controlling #limit when limit tripped #Use with pri_limtyp = two to allow 180 degree reposition and with #Set pri_limtyp and sec_limtyp on following conditions #0 = Less than 180 degrees #1 = Equal or greater than 180 degrees and less than 360 degrees #2 = Soft limit at 0-360 degrees with hard limits slightly beyond #Set limhi-limlo to hard limits, inthi-intlo to 360 degrees total #limhi-limlo are expected equal amount from inthi-intlo #3 = Greater than 360 degrees auto_set_lim : 1 #Set the type from the angle limit settings (ignore these) pri_limtyp : 0 sec_limtyp : 0 My guess is that there is a combination of things to set, I am just not sure which ones. I have not contacted our reseller. The problem has not been a show stopper for us. I was just hoping this would be a quick fix from the guru's here. I met Mike Rosa, Applications Manager, from Masteram at Mazak's "Touch the Future" last year while we were waiting for our Variaxis 500 delivery. That is when I learned of the post for the Variaxis. Our reseller then contacted Mike Rosa for the post. I am guessing that Mike went to IMTS since I had seen him again at Westec. I am planning to send an email to Mike Rosa this week. I just thought I would give him a chance to settle back in if he did indeed go to IMTS. Thanks again, Mike

This is my first post to the forum. I would first like to thank everyone for all the great information available on the forum. I have been able to get our posts the way our programmers and operators like to see the output to the machines based on the information available here and from the post manual. We are using v9.1 MR0304 Mill level3. We purchased a post for our Mazak Variaxis 500 from Mastercam thru our reseller which worked good right from the start. The post looks like it started life as a MPGEN5X. The post is coded to our hasp. I have come across on problem that I have been unable to solve. The machine travel in the Y+ direction is 6.1" and 13.98" in the Y- direction. When trying to drill a bolt hole circle of 12.2" or greater diameter the code is correct but, the machine alarms because the the output is greater than 6.1" Y+ direction. We have been MDI coding to get around this problem. I more thing I noticed, regardless of what quadrant the first hole picked is located the output for the first hole is always located in the Y+ direction, if this helps. Now for my question, how can I get the post to rotate the C axis 180 degrees and change the A axis (when drilling at an angle) when the hole is located greater than Y+6.1"? Below is a single tool example of our output as posted: :0001 (VARIAXIS PLATE POSITION TEST ) ( SEP - 17 - 2004 , 13:54 ) ( Programmer: MGS ) (X0,Y0,Z0 = Center, Center, Top ) (STOCK ORIGIN = X0. Y0. Z0. ) (MATERIAL TYPE= STEEL inch - 304 STAINLESS ) (MATERIAL SIZE= X17. Y17. Z.5 ) ( T10 3/8 DRILL 304 STAINLESS ) M912 G0 G17 G20 G40 G61.1 G80 G90 G94 G98 G0 G28 G91 Z0. G0 G28 X0. Y0. T10 M6 ( 3/8 DRILL 304 STAINLESS ) M01 ( DRILL HOLES @ 67 DEGREES ) G0 G54 G90 X0. Y6.4435 C-90. A-23. S611 M3 G43 H10 Z5.7351 M8 G83 G98 Z2.1851 R2.9851 Q0. F3.5 Y-6.4435 C-150. A23. Y6.4435 C-210. A-23. G94 G80 M9 M5 G0 G28 G91 Z0. G0 G28 X0. Y0. G28 C0. A0. M911 M30 Sorry for the short story long. Thanks for your help. Mike