Hi ,Folx ! After working for Elad for some 8 years our roads took different directionS. And thats for good . Enough is enough . Anyway I work in the nearby machine shop with Cimatron which I have not touched for same 8 years . My second incarnation as Cimatron programmer is very different from the first one - actually I have a lot of welded frames ,constructions and same stuff requiring 2.5 axis mostly and 4 axis horizontal positioning ,while at my first incarnation I was making molds , When things come to simple toolpathes Cimatron is ugly . I and some other guy who worked a lot with MC can whine all day long comparing what we had in MC and what we can do now. Things like pocket ,contour ,drill ,verify .backplot and so on are very primitive and basic at most. And it is very unsafe I mean you can easily make a mistake you will never catch before the g-code . IN two words for the stuff I do now I hate Cimatron . It is great in mold design and I knew it from the first hand . It simply not for the type of production I have.. Nevertheless I will not campaign for swaping it with MC. It has too much issues of it`s own and you know them too . And the price .... I know the rules so I will not tell it but the difference is huge.. I stuck with Cimatron and find my relieve in my lame poetry. BR

x PLUS TOOL LIST PRINTS ONLY SELECTED TOOLS HTH

Why I can not use axis C for programming in 5 axis post ? Substitute Y for C ?

More than likely your post needs a tune up. I ran into this problem with a trunion and limited tool clearance. Had the post tweeked for option to output rotate around Z instead of X,Y contour moves ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ May be you r right BUt why MCX5 and MCX4 do this with no problem At least I mean the backplot rotates the part and all James simultaneous machining is not a problem I mean rotary axis positioning or 3 axis rotate around Z Make simple drill operation enterrotary axis control page and select rotary axis positioning rotate around Z if your 5 axis Table-table machine limits are different say X is big and y is small than you can use C instead of y - am I right ? Therefore you need to switch on rotary axis control Best regards Alex

It can be any machine 5 axes VMC table-table and all rotary around Z axis

Please verify the bug- rotary axis positioning or 3 axis rotate around Z not working for simple toolpathes like contour or drill . No backplot and code Was working good in X4 and X5 . Loosing some damn important functionality Best regards Alex

Depends alot what you are doing on what machine how much memory you have and so on. Because most of my machines do not have possibility to work with huge programs and because hsm can not produce subroutines(even while we have this option in operation parameters )I work aggressive with sidecuts I mean they are relatively huge and feeds relativly small Most folx here use smaller sidesteps and faster feeds . My message is this all this is very dependant of your local conditions Test your conditions and find what way to choose smaller cuts and faster feeds or big cuts and relatively small feeds It works great both ways My operators love HSM it is fast and great tool life . I use it on everything from alluminium to stainless .

Moderators . This guy is teh spammer . Look at his posts ! Thumbs down

trim toolpath is the legacy operation. It is from the time when check surfaces not existed Do not ecxpect it to work perfect I would build check surfaces instead

Hi ,folxs ! Looks like the possibility of crash much higher if I use viewsheets . At least that`s what I suspect. Anyone can share his thoughts on this ? BY the way ,without viewsheets in use X6MU1 looks more stable than X5 BR , Alex . On my way to Hell

someone made sort operations by mistake Try to sort by creation order

Mine are same place as the tools

Nice explanation Teh Bear . Cheers ! ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Not mine copy=paste rules

you can write c-hook

Looks like holder files are not where Mc looks for them or it can not open them Can you open your holders library at all ?

Try this Area clearance toolpaths Area clearance toolpaths are designed to rough out cavities, pockets, or other areas that can be most efficiently machined with an inside to outside toolpath. They are generated from a set of surface profiles that describe the shape of your surfaces at different Z heights, plus a set of offset profiles that rough out stock as the tool moves away from the center. Area clearance toolpaths maximize the amount of time that the tool is in contact with your part, and can result in significantly fewer retract moves than a standard pocket toolpath. Typically, the only retract moves will be when the tool is moving from one pocket or cutting region to another. Area clearance toolpaths share most of the same parameters as core roughing toolpaths. The major difference is that area clearance toolpaths cut inside to outside, while core roughing cuts outside to inside. If you have no problem entering from outside try this Core roughing toolpaths are designed for machining cores which can be approached from the outside. They minimize the need for helical ramp moves or full-width cutting. Core roughing toolpaths are generated from a set of surface profiles that describe the shape of your surfaces at different Z heights, plus a set of offset profiles that let you rough out stock as you approach the part from the outside. Core roughing passes can extend horizontally beyond your surface boundaries by a small distance; this ensures that all the material lying within the boundaries will be cleared. Another important feature of core roughing is that Mastercam can change the machining strategy within the same operation if your part has, for example, a mixture of bosses and cavities. In these cases, Mastercam will cut the cavities inside to out (like an area clearance cutting pass), and machine the bosses from the outside like in the preceding picture. Use the Minimize burial option to have Mastercam automatically insert trochoidal loops in your toolpath in areas where the tool might be fully buried—for example, in the valley between two bosses. The top set of profiles is not typically included in the toolpath, since Mastercam assumes that these lie on the very top of the block. To machine these profiles, set the Minimum depth on the Steep/Shallow page to a Z height above the top of your part. BR Alex

It won't be until Tuesday though, I'm out of the office. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Me too Celebrating Shavuot I`ll do it ASAP

Colin This prob must be solved one of the first and fast ! BECAUSE OF IT WE BREAK TOOLS ! same problem happens in 3d hst toolpathes too ! Alex BR

. It would be nice if we had another parameter to dictate that so called fin size. Eg: "Min fin size = 10mm" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Great Idea Also I would like to see something like do not roll over the thin walls sharp ends and use conventional milling for thin walls

Peon BR means Best Regards Alex BR

Use only conventional milling ! more chances not to break tool!

Hi ,folx What I mean is this algorithm does not takes in mind real material properties Suppose I mill 316l stainless with 16 varimill and take cuts of 35 mm depth In area milling you can easily get the situation were you start to mill the rest of material that is high long and thin walls looking like fins If you use climb milling you gonna break your mill when this stuff will get under the mill tooth rolling over the sharp end . So you can use only conventional that pushes it out of the mill but still you can breake it when you move your mill with fast feed from the other side of the fin Still this is a problem I use high speed on everyday basis and this is huge problem for me Do you see what I mean? BR

Hi ,folx ! Who else saw this in X6 MU1- After moving the geometry and regeneration MC lost masks in masked operations I saw this third time in a row and this thing gets me nervous. Smells like bug BR

In most cases you can blank entities If you do not move your model that`s will be ok and you can unblank them any time Only some 5 axis toolpathes like 5 axis drill needs the entities to be on the screen to regen them so 5 axis drill geo and blank is not good combination . I practice this all the time to preserve my solids geometry from accidents HTH BR

Lwn produced when result is not water-tight JMHO