Is there any way to do it in mastercam? As in through some dialog box instead of going in to modify the post processor. I've never done that. Not in my wheelhouse yet.

On my Haas ST lathe post. How do I define G53? Right now it posts G53 X0. G53 Z0. I'd like for it to be G53 X-3.5 Z-8. Been using G28 forever cuz it's safe, but now I'm trying to shave seconds off. Thanks

Hi all, I'm curious about why mastercam does some things. I'm trying to use a Dynamic contour toolpath in 2018. I click on the icon, first thing that happens is a box appears that says Chain geometry. Under that is Machining regions. I'm able to click on that, and select a chain. But everything under that is ghosted. Machining region strategy -stay inside -from outside, ghosted. Not selectable. Avoidance regions, Air regions, Containment regions, Entry chain, nothing. Nothing can be clicked on. Why is this? What do I have to do to get those to be able to be selected. I've noticed this in OptiRough sometimes too. It won't allow me to select -stay inside or -from outside sometimes. What's the key to unlocking these things?? Thanks

Yes, I used to use X6. Surface rough pocket. It would skip instead of doing anything. I mean it did try to ramp, but a full width cut at your specified step down kind of defeats the The "opti" in opticut. It's supposed to put an even load on the tool all the time. Not wildly overload it.

Fixed it by reducing the helix radius, but dang! If I tell it not to ramp don't ramp! Alarm out in the software, don't make the cut, anything but bury the tool in the material!!

When using optirough I have helix only checked. It's a big mold so I ran a verify with no red marks, posted out, and started running. I didn't catch that after a few stepdowns it decided to ramp instead of helix. Tried burying a 1" endmill into aluminum .5 deep full width. Lucky I caught it, but it pulled the endmill out of the holder .03 first. Basically caught it right before snap bang!!! Why in the heck did it decide to ramp when I specifically told it HELIX ONLY?? Got me to where I'm not trusting the software now. Unless there's something else I'm not catching??

That's bad a** man. Hope to get there. I'm wearing too many hats right now though. If Dad and I hadn't invested so much in the machines I think I'd be happy just being a programmer.

It's just me doing this, so I have the latitude to not make setup sheets, and I can run back and forth between computer and machine modifying things on the fly. I'll need to get some processes down here soon. I can't do this on my own forever. Bout to lose my mind right now. I've got a block of aluminum sitting on the mill. Just sitting there! Needs setup, but I can't program and setup at the same time.

I've used tabs before, but for making tabs I usually machine layup molds for aircraft. I've got a removable part that pins to the parent mold that's kind of free form. No flats anywhere. Ordering a block that's bigger, so I can use tabs to hold it in space while I clamp to the parameter of the block. Kinda like the parts were held in your old revell model sets, but 25 inches by 10 by 3.lol

Hello all, Small shop, just got a seat at the table, and haven't had the chance to attend a formal training session yet. Hit the ground running right!lol I did a search on clamps and fixtures, but the results were overwhelming, and pretty specific. I'm looking for general practices that most folks here use to avoid clamps and fixtures in 3 axis milling? Do most of you just use a containment boundary, or can you actually represent clamps on your model somehow? I've seen youtube videos where people have vices and clamps are represented. That's trick, but I'm not sure how to do that?