I have a 4020 with the Fanuc 18i control. I've been pretty happy with it, but without experience, I cannot offer a comparison to the Siemens 840D.

An important consideration with this machine is the the control itself is not stand-alone. The boards and motors on this machine are also GE.

Thanks again Moto

Would anyone be willing to help convert a single Solidworks file? I am getting a "cannot find parasolid" error.

create/curve/one edge should give you something you can measure. You could also try analyse/surface/curvature or analyse/dynamic

Eastek, thank you for the offer. I will look for a suitable picture tonight.

It has been a nice tradition to make and give a Christmas ornament as a gift. Below are a few of previous year's ornaments. The weave had the year (01) machined and attached to make it look like a tree. The block had a corner removed and a polished aluminum corner glued in it's place. (to hang it from)

If anyone would like to start their tradition and would like a copy of my geometry to get them started, I can place any of them on the ftp.

Rather than buy something they don't need, each year I machine a Christmas tree ornament for my in-laws.

This year I was thinking of a 3D relief of their grandson.

I'm wondering if someone with MastercamArt would be willing to work with me on this. (A paying gig).

Is it posible that the solid is a open-sheet-body? Try choosing analyze and click in the solid.

I don't think solid-drill will work with open-bodies.

We do a Hastaloy-C job with a 5/16 drill, 5 1/2 deep.

The stuff is tough to drill. When drilling, the material seems to work harden. No problems turning or milling, just drilling. We have tried a lot of different tools and methods. What we settled on was drilling with a generic (Greenfield), center-cutting, jobber. 40SFM .0003 FPT. Yep, that's a pretty low toothload, but with that material, it is more of a chalenge getting through-the-day than it is getting parts-out-the-door.

John, your thinking is correct. 3 axis machining involves moving in the 3 axis silimtanusly. 2 1/2 moves in no more than 2 axis at any given time.

I was reading that it pushes a big burr. The article seemed like they were causely recommending tools with a high rake angle, but they were turning.

The holes aren’t a big problem with this part. Mostly surface machining with a 1/8 ball. I was thinking I would be ok with a sharp AlTin coated endmill and running it with high-speed speeds and feeds. Something like 450 SFM, .05D DOC and feeding a little heavy .0015-.002 FPT.

I'm quoting a job, milled from nickel (pure) 200/201. Does anyone have any experience they could share?

For anyone interested, I found a shareware program to convert PDF to DXF at http://www.freedownloadsarchive.com/

Like Bullines was saying, it depends on how it was saved, but this program may get you by in a pinch.

Bullines, is that posible? It was my belief that PDF was raster. Even if the file was able to be re-saved in a vector format, it would not have the accuracy of original CAD file because it would require conecting the tiny dots.

I hate to take a perfectly good vector graphic and turn it into raster. Perhaps you could try to break the drafting into lines/arcs (Modify/break/)before saving to an AutoCad (dxf/dwg) format. Also break splines.

I think that you will find that the files look closer to "the same".

Create rectangle. look at options

There is some sort of an association between the lines I was erasing and a blanked entity. However since they were blanked, I would not think that there could be an association.

I can erase everything, which was unblanked without affecting the solid and since I was just trying to get a solid and because the solid was unaffected by erasing anything else, I guess this will consider this an unexplained phenomenon.

This morning I imported an Iges file into Mastercam. After convertion, the file contained 62 lines, 12 arcs, 10 splines and 17 trimmed surfaces.

I created a solid from the surfaces, (solids/from-surfaces)deleting the origional surfaces.

What was interesting is that when I attempt to delete 2 of the lines, MC asks if I would like to also delete associated entites.

I said "yes", and did not notice any ill effects, but I was wondering what the association could be. Is there a method to see what those lines could be associated with?

Isn't there a bunch of videos on the Haas website?

http://www.haascnc.com/news_videos.asp#news

Good Morning all

I will need to try the *.SAT method.

The following is the reply to an earlier thread, from Pete Rimkus from CNC Software.

Yes - this is a known bug. It can crash if you read more than one DWG/DXF file which contains solids within the same Mastercam session.

Unfortunately, it requires, release of a new V9 .EXE to fix it, and there are currently no plans to do that in the near future.

It had been corrected for X.

Sorry if this has been a problem for any of you.

Bill, there is a known bug when converting more than one file in a single session. MC crashes. I was told to wait until X.

iowajim, which version of MC are using. I am using mill 9.1mr105

I haven't touched AutoCad in 20 years, however I am told that they are using Autocad. The file can be imported as a surface or a solid. I asked them if they could try a different format, but the export options, which I am told are available to them, are not surface-type files.

A customer sent me a bunch of AutoCad Files (DWG). The files contain a dimentioned solid with a paperspace border.

I am able to open them using Voloveiw, however when they are converted into Mastercam, the part which I was able to see in Volo is not the part which opens in Mastercam.

I have tried using a combination of import options, but haven't had any success.

I can live with the fact that MC crashes when converting more than one file, however I cannot figure out what is happening here.

All levels are viewable.

I uploaded one file (7634-02.dwg) to the FTP and place it into the Files_to_be_converted_to_mc folder.

Any and all sugestions are welcome.

modify/trim