How is that your problem? I doubt there are too many people pirating MasterCAM to run parts on one of their 4 Integrex's... and even if there are, why are some users here making themselves the self-appointed hall pass monitors on this topic? All you accomplished is solidifying my perception that the MasterCAM community isn't very helpful, and giving me a negative impression of you and the business you're trying to peddle on here. Alternate options for why people don't post MasterCAM files would be that company policy forbids it, or the customer name/part number is all over their file, or I am sure other reasons. Yes I got it working in MasterCAM but if you are choosing between it and Fusion, then you should choose Fusion. The cost difference is *massive* and the Fusion community is huge and helpful and the answer isn't always "contact your reseller" when people don't know the correct solution.

I got it working.

Ok, so I attached a step file showing the groove I am trying to make. As for why I don't turn it, well I have 3mm ball endmills in stock but I don't have a grooving tool to cut this in stock. You can see the groove has an undercut so I need to come in at that angle with a 3mm ball mill to get my feature made. Thanks for any suggestions. Groove.stp

Thanks for the reply. I don't think this would even be a 5-axis toolpath in Mazak world... I just want to kick the head to B+135, go to the part centerline and then feed in along the axis of the tool until I am in the part, then rotate the C axis 360 degrees, then retract the head along the cutting tool axis back the way I came in. It seems like a really fundamental operation that Mazatrol should be able to do. In MasterCAM, I will look at Morph but not sure what the curves would be... I only have one contour on the part and I want the tool center point to follow it using a C-axis rotation... no movement of the cutting tool as the C-axis is rotating (other than spinning of course).

Hi folks, We have a new Integrex i200H-ST with the SmoothAI control. I have a part that is basically a cylinder with a .250 wide chamfer on the end, and on that .250 wide flat I need to put a full radius 3mm wide groove. This is being done in the sub spindle. I am the CAM guy, not the machine operator (I have no experience with Mazatrol). So what we would like to do is kick the head to B+135, have it enter the cut and then the milling head stays still and the C axis rotates to cut the groove, then the milling head exits the cut. The programmer at the machine is saying Mazatrol can't do this... which seems unusual to me as it seems like a pretty basic operation. Anyway, I can't seem to get this toolpath programmed in CAM either. I am using MCAM 2021 and I have 5-axis, mill, lathe, and mill-turn. I tried to do it in lathe with a contour and C-axis rotation. This works if the tool is straight-on to the part, colinear with the spindle axis. If I create a plane that is offset 45-degrees to get the tool coming in the right angle, then it no longer rotates about the C-axis and instead wants to move the head to do to the whole cut. I also tried to do it in mill-turn with a contour using plane rotation. This also makes the tool move instead of using the C-axis. I can change it from plane rotation to c-axis but, again, it only works if the tool is straight-on to the spindle centerline. And if I try to do it in 5-axis, again it doesn't rotate the C-axis and instead moves the tool/head to do the cut. Can someone tell me what the correct tool path would be to achieve this? And is it do-able in MasterCAM lathe or is this a mill-turn operation? And if there are any Mazak guys out there I would LOVE to hear how to do this at the machine. I called Mazak Apps and they said it should be possible but werent sure how to do it... the operator swears up and down this is not possible to do on the machine.

I am trying to use an Emuge lens form cutter (from the Emuge tool database on this site) to cut a 5-axis pocket in a part. The part is basically a thin sheet but curved in X and Y (imagine like you cut a 6" x 6" square out of a car tire). I have a pocket in the back (concave) side of the part that is about .05in deep and has full radiused walls. I want to use a lens form cutter and basically spiral from the center of the pocket to the outside with a little tilt being introduced to maintain tangency on the cutter face. I should be able to use a nice large stepover with this method and get a nice finish. But I just cannot get the tool path to work. I've read that Morph and Parallel are the only paths to work with circle segment cutters, but 5-axis pocketing says it works with accelerated finishing. I just can't get it to do what I want.

Bumping an old thread... but I was wondering if anyone is using MasterCAM 2021 and can comment on the load speeds compared to 2019? Based on Chally72's responses above, this seems to be something of a 'known issue' with how MasterCAM processes models at file-open time, so I very much hope this issue has been resolved over the past 2 versions? We have a few seats of 2019 right now but just never got around to moving to 2020.. now that 2021 is out, improved load times would be a major driver to make the switch. We do a lot of multi-pallet and 5-axis work and try to use standardized fixturing as much as possible (importing the fixturing/geometry into our CAM files) so the files are getting bigger and load times are getting unbearable. I have dozens of files now that take 20-30 minutes to load, and multiplied by 3-4 people programming, that's a TON of lost time per week. It seems we can use the export/re-import trick but that's an extra step and easy to forget/screw up. Thanks, Mike

Thanks for the replies. I looked into the options listed above and it seems the misc integers is the easiest way to go. I have a fair bit of experience in modifying posts so I think it will be easy to implement. One question, however. I noticed the misc integers option is not available for some toolpaths - an example from today was a dynamic milling toolpath. Is the misc integer option only shown for toolpaths where wear comp is used? What if I wanted to enable the HSM code on a toolpath that does not allow the misc integer option to be selected? And I noticed in the machine definition, there is a place where I can seemingly enter the text that will be displayed on the menu for each misc integer.... but when I entered the text I wanted, it does not show up in the misc integer screen when I go into the toolpath. Is there something else I need to do to get that to work? Thanks again

My machine uses a couple of different HSM codes, but they need to be turned on after the tool call and before the G43 line, and turned off before the next tool change. It's a pain in the butt to insert them manually every time I post out code, so I am wondering if there's a way to designate an operation as needing HSM and have the codes automatically post out? I was playing around with the canned text and misc values fields but I wasn't able to get it to post out in the correct places. I figure this must be a common thing - any easy solutions? Thanks!