Be carefull what you ask for cause here it is. TweakGuides.com

I have worked on lots of PC's and found when something works here but not there it's usually something your not being told that's the problem. My step father's Dell simply stopped working he said. So when I turned it on I never heard the beep indicating keyboard will now function. I moved cable to another USB port & still no go. So for grins I picked up the keyboard & turned it upside down. Wine came pouring out. Oh I cleaned that all up he said. Some users may have bad toolpaths but not tell us that there were 2 or more instances of MCX4 running when this happens or it's a network license and there was a network glitch during. It's like we need binary detectives to find why on some PC's an app won't run right. We haven't had much of a problem with X4MU1. We have 2 new dual quad core machines coming so I will not have any previous version on mine.

It's a serial number on opposite ends of 2200 parts that will be stressed to failure. It's a job involving several man years and there's plenty of money for a part marking machine vs. CNC engraving. Sending parts out for marking not a option. Am hoping to find one that doesn't need anti-reflective paste.

We are quoting a job for tension testing that has 2200 15-5 SS parts and all parts must be marked or engraved twice each so the broken pieces can be matched later for inspection. Anyone have experiance with laser etching machines used on Stainless steel parts? I've seen a C02 type and a YAG type but I don't have a clue which I should look at for this job. Or maybe some other type of part marking. [ 11-16-2009, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: bogusmill ]

We use the same post and MD for all our Haas machines in 3 or 4 axis that was modified mostly by Trevor. Two of our Haas machines are 5 ax capable and we use the MP 5ax trunion post with out much change when making 5ax parts.

That's how I'm seeing it on my Win 7 x64 machine too. No XP mode just stright in.

No matter how we set the tool home position for tool change the post outputs G28U0.W0.M05 and the machine goes to machine home position. How do I change the post to get this move to do what I'm telling it to? This is MCX4 MU1 with a Haas TL-3 post we got from MC dealer.

I have some mice of different brands and to get them to work right I had to chose "other" for wheel button. Then a menu came up where I could seledt the middle button option.

I have run it in Win 7 Ultimate x64 and the only problem I've had is it will hang a while when you close it. I also am using it in a version of Win 7 that was release candate 1 which is not quite the same as the retail version.

You might want to look a little closer. Are your video cards for 1 VGA & 1 DVI port? If so you may have trouble. That type viedo card did fine for me with dual 21" CRT's but wouldnt run dual 24" DVI dual link wide screens. Your monitors have 1 of each port but your better off using just the DVI ports. Forget using the buttons on the monitor to switch between inputs. I bet you have to push a button several times to navigate menus and select input. So since you must use a KVM switch you gotta find one that will work with DVI-D which is a dual link digital connection. The switch you want says its VGA and DVI (analog) and other switches state DL or dual link. this one doesn't. You'll need a different KVM and some DVI/VGA adapters. Have fun!

Virtual memory or page file is what is set aside on the HD for those times when memory is full. The overflow goes on the HD. A 32bit OS can only address 4GB ram so if your ram and virtual memory add up to 4GB any more is a waste. Also what ever your video card memory size is will be matched by system memory. So with 4GB ram and a vid card with 750MB ram your system will only say it has 3.2GB ram. A 64bit OS is a whole other thing. It can address something like 128TB of ram so just put in as much ram as will fit.

I was working away on a 5ax toolpath when suddenly MCX4 was gone. I launched it and brought up the file I was working and my last 45 min. of work is gone and didn't make it to the auto backup. MC event viewer said Exiting App - Configure X. I couldn't find Configure X on any other line. So I'm hoping someone else knows where or what that is and how to keep it from losing my work.

RAID 0 all the way option C6 or C7. If one drive goes you lose all your data unless your backed up and I do that automatically with a D-Link NAS. There's always the "You'll lose all your data if a drive fails" warning with RAID 0. Same thing with a single drive. Modern drives have an MTBF of 1 million hours and a annual failure rate of 0.34% so your pretty safe with a 2 drive RAID 0.

We have an new TL-3 and have had no luck getting anything done with it. I make a lot of complicated shapes for friction stir welding and the canned cycles are worthless for that. Just got off the phone with local MC dealer and he's sending a TL post so maybe I'll get lucky.

Actually it's a little better than that. Look at total time on the other side of the page.

MLS came to our shop and went over some things that didn't seem right but still worked when I first started running 5 ax parts. He said the machine has at least 2 or 3 ways to resolve any tool vector and it can be hard to tell what your actuall going to get at the machine. We do research work, not production so we operate somewhat different than most of you. One thing I've learned is to leave force tool change checked at all times. I've had near crashes trying to guess how far to retract between cuts and force tool change gives me the max clearance I can get. I've also seen what I expected to be a simple B axis rotation to the next cut turn into the head trying to flop over to the backside usually causing a crash but definately being uncomfortable to monitor. Those same cuts so far have remained on the operators side of the A axis when I added the force tool change command so It's part of my default definitions.

I manually input M11 and M13 early in the code when using our Haas trunion post and it works great. It sounds like your engageing the brake for 5th axis work which obviously doesn't smooth up your cuts. The sticker on the box under the control reads: M10 engage 4th axis brake (A axis) M11 release 4th axis brake M12 engage 5th axis brake (B axis) M13 release 5th axis brake

In addition to the ghost lines I'm getting phantom drill point selections. I tried a 4th axis drill (1 hole) using the Haas 3-4 axis MP Master post and machine def's. Geometry showed 1 point selected but backplot had 3. So I tried same thing with 5 ax post and geometry showed 9 pt's selected and backplot ran nine moves, six of them at various Z height on right hole, the rest are scattered about but occur in open space, nothing to select. Also a linear surface cut using A axis for positioning output F9999.9? feedrate using 3-4 axis def's, and errored out with 5 axis def's saying one hole exceded axis limit's when no limits are set.

I brought these in one at a time. I didn't know you could default to a group that way. Never has before. Anyway I deleted the red entities and them brought them in again in same manner as before but this time it worked like I was expecting. Thanks guys, I'll hopefully remember this if it occurs again.

I have brought in 3 STEP files generated in Catia R19. The first one is normal but the second and third items are bright red and will not change color no matter what I do including restarting MCX4. Why?

I use both MCX4 and Catia at work and home. For my main work PC I have an Intelimouse Explorer 3.0 This one works better than any I've had. The wheel doesnt tilt and without drivers works great with both but it's not wireless. My Dell M90 laptop has a MS Bluetooth notebook 5000 mouse. I love that I dont need a dongle for it because the laptop has Bluetooth. It also doesn't have a tilting wheel. Wireless Intellimoust Explorer 2.0 is what I have at home plus there is one here. They work pretty well but the side tilt wheel is always finickey. Now with MC installed on Windows 7, with or without Intellimouse software, the scroll wheel zooms out no matter which direction you rotate it. A friend is taking Catia courses here and he has only Logictech mice and with Catia they absolutely will not function the center button (wheel) correctly. He resorted to finding a real 3 button optical HP mouse for Catia use. Those are hard to come by. This has made me sceptical of Logictech but I've wanted a MX Revolution since I first saw one and my house mouse is wearing out so that will probably be my next rodent. I'll cross my fingers and hope the middle button works right.

That unit looks awesome! You can get one for home at Newegg,(educational license) for $52.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16826154009

The Xeon has a slight advantage in the way it's cache is shared which might have made a difference when the bench times were 3 to 5 minutes, but at the speeds we have now the C2Q's are probably the better choice.

I had a space navigator here at work and had problems with it so I took it home to practice with it and have different problems there. At work it is jerkey but sometimes so is my backplot. We have the Internet, Microsoft Exchange server for email, and Communicator for instant messaging. It seems all these apps are looking for a network connection and when they can't connect everything stops until it connects or times out. It can sometimes take 30-40 seconds to regen a tool path that usually happens instantly so this is not Navigators fault. At home it works smoothly but not all the actions work and sometimes it just keeps moving. Almost everytime I go to use it I have to redo the settings. The Z actions are not checked so I have to turn them on and relaunch the app to get that to work. The settings don't stay put from one boot to the next. I also have found the part sometimes just floats off the screen. I expect it to stop when I release knob but often it keeps going. I have to bump the knob for it to stop, kind of like bumping a toilet handle when it keeps running. If it was problem free I would love it but it just isn't so it sits unused most of the time.

Here we have 4 PC's, mine & 1 other have twin Dell 2407wfp's & the others have twin 2405wfp's. At home I have twin Dell 2408wfp's. If you are considering purchasing a 24" monitor take a look at the 2408. I love mine and according to this article is still one of the best available. http://www.anandtech.com/displays/showdoc.aspx?i=3584