Yes it is a definite PITA to create different length tool holders. Fortunately, my go-to tooling is MST Slimline. Different length master holders then set length extentions that all mount from the back. OSG has the same ones but they were more through our suppliers.. but I bought a pile of 45 & 75 length masters and then 55/80/110 length extentions and drew them up for all possible variations. 

So my suggestion for your scenario would be to just have set length projections. Holder A with Extention A with projections every 1/2.  Then Holder A with Extention B, etc. This should alleviate even seasoned programmers from having random increments set to .1 or the new guy setting it at .3291. 

My boss had me take my desktop home last night to see if I could connect through VPN to our network. Fortunately I have better monitors and everything than I have here at work. But it didn't work. Some settings are wrong they need to look into today. I am a little PO'd I got a ~2in scratch in my drywall this morning trying to haul it out. I also need to remember to bring another displayport adapter as I only had one at home.

1 hour ago, MetalSlinger5 said:

I was not using a rest stock model, I was just selecting the toolpaths from previous operations. Is it better to create a stock model up to that point and use it for rest milling?

Yes, this is how we do it. We have an abundance of stock models sometimes, and can take a while to regen dirty operations, but it is the best way I think. 

We are now having an issue in a separate, similar file. Trying to mirror OP 1, and it doesn't mirror the model for some reason. I tried to help my colleague and showed him what settings I was using, no luck. So I thought maybe he had something wrong, I opened it on my PC, tried again. Still doesn't work. I went back to the one that I already mirrored, used the same settings, and worked beautifully. I even tried skipping over OP 1, and going to OP 2, and that mirrored the model, but it was missing a significant amount of surfaces. I can't seem to figure out why, but maybe you guys have an idea?

Both original models are solids. The models are pretty similar, operations pretty similar, tools are the same. The machine group was using a different machine but I even tried switching that and didn't work. Kinda bugging me now because I thought we were set, but he's going back to the old way mirroring geometry and everything individually. 

18 hours ago, SSS824 said:

1"Only display selected toolpaths" in previous versions if you toggle off display on a toolpath, it would stay off when clicking through the list after enabling only display selected.  This is extremely annoying because independently they worked great in the past.  Now if you don't want to see a million toolpath lines its turn it off for good and keep it off.

2"Stock Display"  every version before 2020 if you turn off stock display it stays off...very annoying to see it keep popping up on its own.

 

Don't forget you can use the "T" key to toggle on and off what is displaying on your screen. I pretty much always keep the "only display selected toolpaths" highlighted, and just use the T key alot. Note: You need to click back in the toolpaths manager to "T"oggle them on and off. Easy enough.  

Until then, I have been creating a new stock model at the end of operations as a habit. Then I go into my simulator options and select stock model; (end of op 1), then just machinesim op2, then same for op 3. Takes a little more time, but seems to work alright. 

No it does not. 

1 minute ago, Code_Breaker said:

Maybe I should rename who I am to Johnny-come-lately?

If I get the luxury of Knowing I have a Left Hand and a Right Hand Project, I program the First Part to the Print. I also plan all my Toolpaths in Advance anticipating Mirroring the Toolpaths. This will make Mirroring easier. Then, as mentioned above, mostly 2D contours and the likes, will need to be re-selected if using Cutter Comp/Wear to change directions.

I used Designated Level for anything I will be mirroring as well. Makes life simple. This includes Level 15 as my Mirror lines for X and Y of equal lengths and crossing in the Middle for Center of Rotation for some Tool Paths.

Just my humble opinion, but I help it if I am right?

Don Dawson

Corona, CA

 

Yeah, I'm discovering this. I got it to work actually pretty well. Going back through and reverifying it currently. Minor things need to be addressed. I guess some issues I need to look further into are:

1. Seems like a bug, but after i mirror, the original is like a purple ghost  model on my screen. I couldn't get rid of it. I had to mirror 3 toolpath groups, and the only way I could figure out how to get rid of it was to save, close MC, and reopen(2020, current update)

2. I activated a new level for each new group. 1000, 2000, 3000, for ops 1, 2, 3. When mirroring, it turned my solid into surfaces and copied them into the new level. However, it mirrored all of my geometry, and kept them in the original level. So for my op2 geometry level I have even more of a disaster than it already was. 

3. Stock models didn't mirror. Wasn't a huge issue, just took a few minutes to redo them all.

I'm not quite finished yet, but I will import the customer provided solid and overlay it and reverify to make sure everything is good, and I will delete the original toolpath groups, then I think I can just go and delete all unassociated geometry and reorganize a bit, and hopefully it works out. 

1 hour ago, pro grammer said:

When using mirror(unless you programmed everything on centerline with wireframe, you have to go through so much BS that you might as well just mirror the model and reselect everything.

it is from the center of a bounding box set to the size of the material ordered. 

Thanks for the replies everyone. By the time I got to play with it today I got handed other things to do. I did attempt to transform a few. It seems like most things are working pretty well. I tried to do an entire operation(roughly 120 paths) at once with a lot of 3+2 paths, and it DID create new planes for me(my colleague thought it wouldn't, so he was excited). However it still has my origin/WCS at the original model and everything rotated off of there. Did I miss a box to offset that the 10 inches that I offset everything else? Or is the standard to just create a new level, and overlay it on exactly the same point? 

Thanks in  advance, heading out for the night.

2 minutes ago, 5th Axis CGI said:

If you don't have to worry about losing your job then mirror and post and go run the parts on the machine. What is the worst thing that can happen n your crash and tear up your machine. Sorry not trying to make lite of your situation, but unless I have run the code through CAV not something I would ever do no matter the CAM Software that mirrors a toolpath. That said in Mastercam I will do like suggest above or copy the file and then mirror that copy of copy the operation to a new machine group and then go through and copy my levels then mirror those levels and go from there. Sorry the auto-magic easy button so many keep taunting for what we do still isn't there yet IMHO. Will we be out of a job one day I have no real idea. I am still of the mind set God gave us our talents and no way a A.I. or anything else will ever match the creative part of our souls. Some thing are easy and they work great with mirror other things do take some tweaking, but compared to where it was in V9 we are light years ahead and improving every version along the way. I got tools in my toolbox I haven't touched in 20 years, but I have that specific tool when I ever need it. Use what you got the best you know how and trust me everything else will fail in place with some good old trial and error.

I haven't used mirroring in MC(yet, I should get to playing with it by the end of the day) but it seems overly complicated compared to more solid based softwares(eg; I wouldn't need to go back and reselect chains to climb cut in a solid based software, and to my understanding thus far, this is the case in MC). Not to say any software is "perfect" for this situation as we would still probably run into some minor things that need to be adjusted, just not as much. 

However, I was awaiting your expertise, and that brings me to another question I had, are you aware of any CAV software with a mirror function? I've been leaning towards NCSimul or Vericut, but if Camplete or iCAM had this function I would look more into them. I do have quotes from NCSimul, Vericut, and iCAM though, and I don't think the boss will go with iCAM. 

Hey guys, I've done some forum searching and haven't come up with a recent take on this.

We have 18 parts we are working on now. They are aluminum seat trims for private jets. 16 out of 18 of them have 5 axis, all have 3+2. I haven't used mirror toolpath yet in MC, but I have in other software, as well as at my previous company we mirrored some in the control. Now I'm stuck with Mazak Variaxis for the foreseeable future, I'm wondering what will be the EASIEST way to get these accomplished in a timely fashion. As always, the time we were quoted was cut in half to get the first 12 parts machined, and all of our tooling hasn't even arrived yet. 

My coworker has done this before and believes the only/best way is to mirror them and we will likely need to reselect a lot of geometry/chains. It is however infrequent that we need to mirror anything so it has been a while. I believe there just might be an easier way, especially if we can utilize G51.1? Maybe for some of it? 

TIA

Hey guys, we've been tasked in getting a new post for our Mazak Variaxis i700. We submitted a request through In-House and unfortunately they made us go through our atrocious extremely slow reseller. Everytime we ask out reseller for virtually anything we send an email/call for example on a Monday, after hearing nothing, send another email/call the following Monday, hear nothing, then Friday our boss is really breathing down our neck and finally the third time we get a reply but its generally half a sentence reply and still doesn't accomplish anything. We just NEVER get anywhere with them. We desperately need this post ASAP to get proved in before our new parts get here. We've been in this process for weeks now. We did get the quote back from our reseller and accepted it and haven't heard anything since. They haven't requested any more information from us. Is there someone at In-House we can talk to directly, hoping our reseller has sent the post request in? How long should this take?

TIA.

I use OptiRest as well. 

4 minutes ago, gcode said:

It depends on what you buy and how you are licensed.

Multiple modules bundled on a  USB hasp should be cheaper than the same modules on a

nethasp and some dealers offer multi seat discounts.

If you don't feel you need 2 seats of multiaxis it would be cheaper to go nethasp

and just buy a 2nd seat of mill /lathe (if needed)

Running a nethasp a user is only using what he needs and can access all modules if neccessary

On a USB hasp you have to buy everything, even if the multiaxis is rarely used

Maybe that is a difference between companies as well. We have 3 USB hasps at my company and only 1 has multiaxis.

That would be correct depending on your options. Floating licenses vs HASP, and options within MC. Lots of addons available. 5ax alone is very pricey and has other things that aren't accessible without it. Productivity+ for probing is another addon. In all, MC is reasonably priced with others. Around the middle of the pack. 

1 hour ago, TERRYH said:

I would guess 90% or more of our work is very large parts 1 or 2 offs and some of it gets pretty detailed for it's size. Not saying anything bad about our re sellers as they are very helpful and try their best to find answer's for us, but when they cant figure it out and send an issue on to cnc software it seems to be gone and never heard from again. Our company owner has looked at other software to replace MC in the past and we convinced him it was best to stick with what we have rather than go thru that transition and find out it's actually no better, but with all the work arounds and added work and steps to get done what we need to  it gets very over whelming sometimes.

Really hard to say man, as transitioning software is always a big and time consuming hurdle. What I CAN say in my (albiet limited) 9 month experience in MC, that if I was given a die shoe/post or an injection mold cavity to program in MC(my previous experience is in med/large molds like bedliner or bathtub, and class A dies, like hoods, doors, fenders), I would be  overwhelmed. MC in my opinion seems to excel in the area where my present company is using it, where we have a lot of time to dial in toolpaths to shave literally seconds off parts. If we have a 3 minute production part we can shave a few seconds off of them then the bosses are happier(big deal when you have 100k or a million parts to run) and this is something that would be much harder to do in other software I think just because there is limited manipulation of programming(They dumb it down and make it a lot more user friendly). But on something like a mold or die where a few minutes isn't a huge deal, I could save literally days of programming in other software. I could do 6 shoes with posts per shift, it's scary to think how long it would take me in MC.  

I would say sticking with MC would be wise if your company is at a limited growth rate or stable. If you are rapidly growing and hiring a lot of people(think double the size in roughly 5 years), I think looking into other software could be a reasonable option as it would enable you to hire an expert in that software to ease the pains. If you stick with MC, it could be worth it to maybe hire a contractor for a few months to come in and really try to standardize your systems and set you up for success. If the company was already considering other software then an expense like this shouldn't be overwhelming. 

I agree, but I just think that MC should give an option when importing an STL to make it a mesh or not, it would save a lot of hassle. I've seen some similar things in the past in other softwares, but its generally due to file size, not like this. 

There's a lot to touch on here, but I believe your fastest solution lies within exporting the stock model from Mastercam, rather than the Simulator/Verify. That fixed this issue for me. 

The issue of your stock models not working, in my experience just means they're too big(which also means they're taking too long to calculate). You can resolve this by either loosening tolerances, or breaking them up. I use a lot of rest machining referencing stock models so I don't have this issue too much, but once you feel its taking too long to crunch a stock model, just create a new one, and reference your previous stock model in the new one. The biggest issue with this method is if you have to go back and edit something you're stuck re crunching a bunch of rest pathing and stock models again,  but that's just part of it in MC I guess. 

My colleague had a similar issue after changing to new stand/sit desks. He isn't super computer saavy and plugged his monitors into the board instead of the GPU so he was using motherboard graphics. For him it was simple change plugs and restart, but you may need to disable onboard graphics in the bios or something. 

35 minutes ago, Rstewart said:

I'm not able to get to the main MC forum because I'm unable to Link my account (work computer on lock down).  Is it possible for someone to post this .pdf ?

MC2021 Beta 1

WhatsNew.pdf

ReadMe.pdf

MCfSW 2021 Beta1 

MCfSW_WhatsNew.pdf

MCfSW_ReadMe.pdf

1 hour ago, JParis said:

I'm surprised that CNC even lets the software try to install on a platform as that...next thing you know people will be asking why it doesn't run on the Ios or android..

Stop the madness 

I think that it should work but strictly as a viewer, since most companies won't pay for Vericut or NCSimul. Tablets have a lot of uses these days around a machine shop, I'm actually surprised there isn't a separate viewer already available. 

I would try running it in compatibility for Windows 7. My tool manager was crashing quite often(I would rush to draw a tool holder and sometimes not make it in time). I switched to Windows 7 and...it still crashes, but not nearly as often. 

Worked fine for me after I deleted the duplicate line on the y axis. 

My coworker is having this problem but its not with his .mcam, its his .step files are opening in 2018. He just mentioned it the other day and I tried to change it and no luck, it just kept reverting to 2018. I go into that default apps by type, and it doesn't give him the option to select McamVersionSelector Executable. Any other ideas?