That was it. The part is in the aircraft coordinate system about 100 inches out. Turned off simulate rotary and it allowed me to fit to screen and backplot. The programmer created a local wcs and programmed from there. Doesn't sound right to me. Why is it looking at acs? Thanks for your insight!

No 5 Axis curve op in the file but I'll create one and get back to you.

Well it looks like this problem may be related to the model. It's not a solid but surfaces and splines. We created a new solid model and 5 axis drill and circle backplot work just fine. The original must be corrupt because we deleted all the surfaces and splines and tried to backplot and the screen still goes blank. Ran the ramsaver too. Go figure.

Hi All, Anyone ever encounter this? Using X4, Backplot causes screen to go blank when trying to backplot 5 Axis drill and circle tool paths. We sent the file to our reseller and they don't see anything wrong. Could be because they are using X5? Anyway, Our drivers are all up to date on our Quadro FX 3800 cards so I guess we can rule that out. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Thanks Ron! Some very usefull tools. When I downloaded the file I got reverse. What exactly does that do and how do I execute it? Also, What does pierce do? Thanks again!

Thanks for the info watcher. Unfortunately we can't use a MC plug in. The customer dictates that we must use a different software to inspect. Looks like CAPPS NC is the solution.

Thanks for the additional info Damien. We will most likely replace or add new machine tools that are more flexible in terms of addapting the CNC Metrology stuff. We have to if we want to be competitive in the aerospace market. Especially with the near net molded composite parts. It could be a year or two before anything happens but when it does we want to be ready for it. Thanks again.

Well, I contacted PCDIMIS today and found out they don't support the Millplus IT control. We may be replacing the machines anyway. Constantly breaking down and service sucks.

dforsythe , What machine tools and controllers are you using?

Thanks guys! I think were on the right track with CAPS NC.

Thanks Rob. We went down that road and Renishaw can not support the Heidenhain Millplus IT. They bailed out while trying to develop a post for it. They directed us to AAT's CAPPS NC CNC Metrology. We have a on-line demo scheduled for next week. Very pricey system. Looks like it will do the job though.

We are looking at CAPPS NC to program "in machine inspection" with our MP-10 probes on our DMU 5 axis mills. I personally never heard of it until recently. We have Millplus IT controls and Renishaw can not provide us with the solution we are looking for. Our customer is dictating that we inspect in the machine by programming the probe off-line with a seperate system then what we program the machines with. I've seen the other posts regarding "in machine inspection" and understand the pros and cons but we have to do what the customer wants. No if's and's or but's. Does anyone have any experiance with CAPPS NC? Maybe a reccomendation on another package that can program the probe offline and have the software talk to the control to make offsets? It can not be a plug in or add on to MC. I am new to all this so whatever information I can gather will be very helpful. Thanks in advance,

Thanks again for converting that file Span. I can't believe that Versacad files can't be translated outside of their application. I sent the file to our SW reseller who then submitted it to SW and they couldn't do anything with it. Versacad needs to get with the times and start sharing. Sharing is caring.

That's perfect! Can I email you the file?

Anyone using this software? I have a .2d file that can't be opened with anything we have. Tried MC, SW and Catia. Any help would be appreciated.

Love that stuff. I don't tap it though. Thread mill is the way to go.

Cool! Thanks Jimg03.

Thanks guys. I have linearize helixes unchecked. I turned on the filter and set it to .0002 as well. I haven't cut the part yet. This shows up in verify with quality cranked all the way up and tol set to .002. What worries me is I made a bad part a few months ago and the part looked exactly like what verify was showing. Fortuantely we were able to polish the facets out but it was close to being scrap. I have to ramp due to the nature of the material and can't have any tool marks from plunging down in z. My last pass is a simple contour without ramping taking just a few thousanths but that doesn't help much since the ball mill already cut the walls on the "z" roughing passes. No room for comp. Driving the tool down the center of the groove. What I would like to do is use the ramp height setting in the lead in and lead out parameters but that only works with a perpendicular approach not tangent. The tolerance of the spherical shape of the groove is +/-.0005 so not much room to play. I looked at the code and since I turned of the linearize on helix and turned on the filter I get this which looks good. It shouldn't leave facets now. At least not that I can see. Thanks again! ( .204 CARBIDE BALL ENDMILL T-41947 TOOL - 13 DIA. OFF. - 13 LEN. - 13 DIA. - .204 ) N8 (RF GROOVE 1ST PASS +.005) N10 T13 N12 M6 N14 G0 G90 X0. Y1.5925 S3745 M3 N16 G43 H13 Z2. N18 Z.1 N20 G1 Z0. F1.87 N22 X-6.1496 Z-.0537 F7.49 N24 X-12.209 N26 G3 X-12.619 Y1.1825 J-.41 N28 G1 Y-1.1825 N30 G3 X-12.209 Y-1.5925 I.41 N32 G1 X12.209 N34 G3 X12.619 Y-1.1825 J.41 N36 G1 Y1.1825 N38 G3 X12.209 Y1.5925 I-.41 N40 G1 X-6.1496 N42 Z.0463 F50. N44 G0 Z2.

Maybe a bug? Any one ever come accross this? Cutting a groove (rectangular racetrack with rads at corners) with a ball endmill using contour ramp. Using .5 degree ramp angle and have linearization tol set to .0002 which is as low as it goes. Geometry is lines and arcs only no splines. Two of the four corners are smooth and the other two are faceted.

Top is the way I'd do it. Then set your wcs as if you were looking at the part like you were behind the spindle. I had a guy tell me at a previous employer that you should imagine yourself looking at the spindle not from behind the spindle on a horizontal. Wrong! All their post were tailored to this too! Talk about bassackwards. Right hand rule always rules. HTH.

We use computer for lathe. Some guys don't like to see g41 or g42 in the code. I give em what they want. I feel like I work at Baskin Robins. 31 Flavors of programs to choose from. Happy Easter!!!

What kind of surfaces? Don't you need a wire frame of some sort to create the surface? Perhaps create a Solid Model if you can and extract the surface then create the curves you need? I'm assuming your creating the surface because it can not be easily defined as a solid. I'm very limited with complex surface creation in MC. Now with Catia I did alot of land based turbine surface definition for designing 6 point nesting fixtures. Catia is built for that stuff. Not so sure about MC. Good luck!

At my last Job I was using an Accutab 2 by Calcomp. I asked for help to get it to work with X3 and got no responses. I wound up using Autocad and it worked great. I was dizitizing Aerospace mylars with it. I'd say it was good to within .010" and that was mostly do to my hand and eye cordination. Most of the parts that I was digitizing were sheet metal and had +/- .03. If you have alot of drawings you might want to consider a scanner with rastor to vector conversion. We had one of those to. I didn't trust it on the large parts though. seems like calibration went out the window when you went from a B size to a E size drawing. HTH!