I was doing a finish cut on my 2000 Haas VF2, trying to avoid polishing by making the cut very fine. But the machine was running code so fast, it was stuttering. I had to slow the feed rate was down to stop it. My tolerance was set to 0.001. I was using surface project blend. How do I reduce the code so the machine can swallow it fast enough to run without stuttering.

I use Haas right now because of budget, but the best bang for the buck I have ever had was Daewoo. Good support, built really rugged. Daewoo does the basics right. I have had their lathes, and VMC's. Both rugged, reliable machines. Everything is Fanuc, so it is pretty mainstream. And the Korean currency makes the machines affordable.

I'm trying to using Cimco Edit to communicate with a Haas via RS232. I have a 9pin serial port that is configured as Com1. I keep getting an error message saying "Unable to Open Port". Using XP Pro and there are no other serial port devices. Bios has Com ports set for default. Com1 is 3F8 and IRQ 4 I believe. Am I missiong something simple? I am going through a switch box, 9 pin out of the PC to 25pin at the switch box. Thanks

I fixed it! All of the recomendations were helpful. What I did wrong was extend my chains out beyond the cavity, thinking it would extend my toolpaths. When I trimmed them to the cavity boundaries, the gap parameters worked as suggested. Another simple problem, but I have been told I am a simple man (I take it as a compliment!!) BTW: Is it better to be a simple man with comples tastes, or a complex man with simple tastes?

Gap to Smooth, Tangent line to 0.5, still wraps.

It's me again. My cavity cut went great. One quick question. I have an open ended cavity. How can I get my tool to start 0.5" outside the cavity? I want each pass at that end to come out to this dimension. The work from my reseller does this. I don't see much difference from his parameters and mine. I tried to change mine to match his, but no luck so far. He used a gap setting to do it. But when I do that it does not extend horizontally out, it wraps down the vertical face.

My reseller(MACDAC-Brian Duprey) just called to see how I was doing. He walked me through what a branch is. It is where there is more than one entity to choose. I had somehow made duplicate geometry, which he showed me how to detect and erase. Bingo! That solved it! Great timing on the call. Again I appreciate all the help. Thanks for your patience, too! I'll get there!

I'm playing with the chain mask options. Right now I have the entire top plane entities extracted from the solid. I must be choosing my masks incorrectly, because it always stops at the branch. I can do with the solid, as suggested by Winnie, but I am adding lines to limit the boundary, so I am using the entities, not the solid. Color mask, entity mask, etc, still have it stopping at the branch.

But do I have to pick each entity at every branch point? Can't it "autochain"?

I've learned how to extract geometry from a solid to use for chaining. I had a phone session with my reseller but I didn't want to have him just do it for me. I stopped him when I thought I had enough info. My question of the day is about chaining. I've got the curves extracted from the solid and put in a distinct color. But when I try to chain, I get one entity, it says "Branch point reached" and it wants me to pick one at a time. I know I can pick the first and last, and get an open chain, but it stops at the first intersection. How do I get it to automactically continue picking entities to chain?

I used Sdrc Ideas. It was an integrated CAD/CAM package. Cad was good, though very hard to do layouts. CAM was an afterthought. Every question I had was answered with "That will be addressed in the next release". And it was nearly impossible to install yourself. Its PDM was very powerful and installation required someone from the reseller. Ford Motors might need that kind of PDM, but the two of us here just tell each other about ECO's. I do know companies that swear by it. I switched to SolidWorks for CAD, and of MC L3 solids for CAM. I really need a good rainy weekend to sit down and play with MC. But I just can't seem to stay off the motorcycle. Between Americade in NY and Laconia last weekend, and a quick 600 mile run tomorrow, there's no time! I'll get there, though!

I had a number of difficulties, all minor. I find working with the solid to be tough. If I change it to surfaces, at least I can choose them in a window. As a solid I have to pick them individually. The "hold down both mouse buttons" doesn't get the small fillets. My problem is the chains I need to create after I have my drive surfaces. I am unsure why I need two chains. I have selected the boundary of the cavity, but what do I choose for the second chain. I have a phone session scheduled with my reseller. Incidentlly, I got my best path using flowline. The only surface it did not like it the one that is perpindicular to the workplane. I'm going to go in and draft that surface and see what happens. I really appreciate all the tips. I need to get this work done and I deleted my previous CAM system to force myself to learn Mastercam(Like Cortez burning his boats when he reached the new world: his men were well motivated!)

I just uploaded it Rick-cavity.mc9. Its in the Solids folder.

How do I surface/blend? I don't see that as an option.

I'm a real newbie with Mastercam. I'm trying to cut a open-ended mold cavity. Surface cut using flowline seems to produce the best results. But I can't get it to keep the tool down on the part. The part is a solid from Solidworks. There are 89 surfaces total. The results are acceptable but it jumps around. Do I need to pick the surfaces in the direction of cut? Or can I just pick them all in any order? And how do I extend my cuts out past the open end? Do I need to artificially make the part longer? I'm sure its simple once you get used to it. Thanks