The issue was with a horizontal machine where I use Top as WCS and front, left, right, and back as tool planes. If you are only 3ax I don't think you will run into any issue, but I make no guarantees or warrantys

I discovered a bug with planes and coordinate systems with Mastercam/Productivity Plus. I reported the error and received confirmation of the issue but it has not been fixed as of yet. So for now it's 2023 for me. I was loving 2024 till I ran into this issue.

I went ahead and ordered the G54.2 option. I assume I could probe a tooling ball at B0 and B180 to find the exact center of rotation. I believe there are 8 offsets available with G54.2 I will set the theoretical with a G10 L21 Pn through manual entry and then probe for actual. As with the other machines I have set the standards on, we will set some rules for consistency. B0=P1&P2, B90=P3&P4, B180=P5&P6, B270=P7&P8

Typically our parts are weldments or sawn bar stock. We typically machine 3 face on op 1 and the remaining 3 faces on op 2. We bought 4 Toolex tombstones for vise work and use custom fixturing for the weldments on the other two pallets. We may have up to 8 parts per pallet. I understand that I could probably set semi-permanent work offsets up on the vises. We are doing in process probing on everything right now. My goal is to try and use G54.2 and use only one work offset per part.

I have recently been tasked with going through our machine shop and try to improve the processes. I am now focused on our DMG horizontal with a 6 pallet pool. Mitsubishi control on this machine. Control is not currently equipped with G54.2 or G68.2, DMG has quoted me these options. Currently the programmers are probing the part for each orientation of B axis and using a crap ton of work offsets. I think G54.2 will allow to set only one work offset per part, and track this work offset around the center of pallet rotation. (Personally I have never used this option before) Is there any use/advantage of using G68.2? Can G68.2 be used in place of or in conjunction with G54.2 On our Matsuura 630 horizontal I use only G68.2 and it tracks about pallet center of rotation. Looking for best practice here.

Ron, man it has been a while. I hope you and your family are all doing well. As you know we are a machine tool builder. When I started here back in 2006 (35 employees) we were outsourcing all our big parts (Up to 400" X 175" x 72") . Basically paint and assemble here in NC. We now have a fab shop, heat treat, sand blast, and huge machine shop, all integrated in the last 10 years. (200+ employees). I have been tasked with figuring out how to probe our weldments, check them for flatness and straightness prior to machining and pass or fail them. If they pass, ensure that any error is evenly split with the correct loading of the part. Do some QA checks after part is machined. I think I can do all this with the P+ software, some of it isn't as easy as it should be. Another cool thing I am working on is a lights out set-up on a Matsuura H630Plus horizontal with a 6 pallet pool. Again a ton of probing to integrate into the system. I have modified the tool break detect macro and pallet kick out macro to capture all sorts of data in case anything fails. I appreciate all the work you did on the probing drill cycles. For now I am going to try an make P+ work, also I have requested a demo from Cimco on their probing module. They are just driving the inspection plus macros. I need to see what kind of logic and canned calculations they have in the software.

My programmers are not probing experts, and i am trying to do as much as I can through the Probe toolpath in Mastercam so we are not hand editing code.

I can output the return values as variables, then use a statement to update through G10. I was looking for a more GUI way to do this through the software.

I'm using 2023 and the Productivity Plus plugin. Most things I want to do with the probe are straight forward in the software. Some things I am struggling with. I am machining some weldment that are bowed, warped, twisted. I need to just clean them up with a face mill. I am probing 9 points, and want to update the Z based on the lowest point found. Sounds simple to me. I used the custom macro max/min points which returns the range, mean, min, and max. But you can not do a machine update based on that macro, and for the life of me I can not figure out why. With Productivity Plus what is the correct way to do what I am trying to achieve?

Thanks John, I will wait till the release of update one before upgrading my team.

Has any updates been published since the initial release of 2020?

Happy New Year to you Ron. Hope you and your family is well. Control is a Fanuc 31ib5. I think i found it in the parameter manual. One parameter to turn it on, another parameter to set a return value.

@Jay Kramer @ Precision Programming In the example you posted, does the the tap retract to R each peck? Does it reverse two revs? etc? Is this parameter controlled?

I am cutting this part on a 5ax machine. I dialed in a tool/holder and now have about .0003 runout. I'm ashamed to tell you what it started out at. I am using an extension so it takes a little work to get it dialed in. I am going to try this part again on Monday. I have not had a lot of experience with tooling this small, so I'm learning, just like every other day

LOL, I did talk to the designer of the part, he bumped the radii up to .5mm up from .25mm. Acted like I was a sub par machinist/programmer for not wanting to do .25mm radii in the corners at .33" deep. I think run out is my major issue, I'm going to tool this up in heat shrink next.

Thanks for the replies, the corner radius is actually .5mm or .0197" After inspecting the part it looks like the endmills are breaking when they hit the floor of the pocket. I am going to add a thou or so to the tool length and keep it off the floor. It is worth a shot. I will keep your tooling recommendations in mind for the next time, I just got to get this part out the door now.

I'm trying to mill a pocket roughly .33" deep with .015 radius in corners. I roughed leaving .002 on the walls with a 3/6", then roughed with a 1/6" leaving .001 on the walls. The 1/32" end mill is a 3-flute with 3/8" of cutting length. https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/62778147 With the 1/32" I am cutting .005 deep, 22k rpm, 20imp, about .0003 fpt. I keep popping these end mills like crazy. Only the 1/32" ones. Any advise?

In recent versions of Mcam, no matter what case I typed a file name either MCX or NC it output as upper case. Is there a setting for this?

Never mind, I found it. Highlight surface backside is now off by default in the config settings. Dang it.....

What happened? I've checked the config settings and there is a color assigned. I get the same color on both sides of the surface shaded or unshaded. X8 Up3

Thanks, not only did that do exactly what I wanted, but it made me feel pretty dumb at the same time.

Is there a way to delete 500 level names easily? The levels have 0 entities. I want to delete the level names. Is there a C-Hook or purge function? X8 Up3 Thanks in advance for the help.

Thanks Tim, more hand editing

Is it illegal or bad programming practice to switch from G54 to G55 while G68.2 is active? Or should I cancel G68.2, then switch fixture offsets, then recall G68.2?

How can I make a slot with trochoidal milling making on one pass end to end with out coming back up the other wall? I am using pocket high speed, but it wants to do the full perimeter.