I made one big wood set (milled it in bridgeport conventional mill )for the collets so I keep them all nicely set and clean and oiled and readiy to use and easy to see. Also If the tool broke inside the collet I restore the surface polishing it with a toolholder of the max tool gripped in the spindel of the radial drill covered with high grade diamond paste and honning collet by hand I always recover tools after breakage and try to avoid radial bitting (at least keep it minimal ) HTH

Gary ? Is it happens on any file ,or on some specific file ?

One little point or other entety somewhere in the screen will fool you . Try delete by window empty places

SCREEN->CONFIGURE->nc settings->operation defaults::(select your file click-open )->job setup ->feed calculation-> /from tool /(you can change BTW everything else ) ->OK->OK->save configuration file HTH

Also take note of this : Mastercam does not support multiedit of the same file with the different sessions on the same or different pc`es like Autocad has (a setting for file locking for multiedit ). This may cause a helluva lot of different problems and crashes ,and things hard to imaging . Think about permitions and rights for your users on different comps with different user accounts and provide such a strategy that this may never happen ! (that`s what my humble person did in our subnet : every user can have only read access to directories of others and no access to cnc directotry of noone ,except his own .the sharing happens when user place a copy of file on the special directory for changes on HIS computer ,others can copy it to his work directory ,but original file stays intact and safe ) sounds a bit complex ,but after a short time everyone get used to it and all the guys like it and nothing can happen ,especially cause most of my coworkes never realize from what folder they work and mapped drive z: pointing to my computer may have no difference to him ,he can regard it as his own HTH

do not fully understand your question ,Ajit . You want to use the tool numbers from library or what else ?

Cimatron IT can do it ,not sure that modern Cimatron Elite can ,suppose that not . But why do you need it if you can get one solid from them and work with solids Show me the real example and one of us (MPD factor ) may show you the way to do your work ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The From Surfaces function lets you create one or more solids from selected surfaces by "stitching" them together. If you select all surfaces, and edge gaps between surfaces are within a specified tolerance, a closed solid body is created. Otherwise, an open sheet body is created. This function is useful for working on imported files containing surface representations of a solid or for converting newly constructed surfaces that may have been created to replace problem surfaces. Stitching surfaces can result in the same kind of sheet solid as removing one or more faces from a closed solid body. 1. Choose Main Menu, Solids, Next menu, From surfaces. The Stitch Surfaces into Solid(s) dialog box opens. 2. Set parameters on the dialog box as needed, then choose OK to complete the operation. ¨ If you selected Use all visible surfaces, Mastercam immediately converts all visible surfaces into one or more solids. ¨ If you cleared Use all visible surfaces, the Select surfaces menu displays. Select one or more surfaces in the graphics window, then choose Done to convert the selected surfaces into one or more solids. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can close it and work using boolian operations or to add to it thickness or something else Bunnie teh waiting for the real part

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ one of the programmers tells me MC just shut down. And the file now reads 0 bytes. Does that "bite" or what?? Just wonder if this could possibly be a maint. issue? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can have it in ver 8 ,ver 9 ,and ver 9.1 sp2 too . And I had them . And always found afterwards that I made smthn dumb !

Use as roughers Solid rough mills with coating and insert mills with round inserts and you will work really fast Coolant -air blast Use for finish solid end mills with TI coating Look for insert mills on Seco or Iscar For finish mills : Iscar and YG1 (xpower series ) even small mills with coating works extra fast on steel For speeds and feeds look on tool- maker recomendations .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I see now where you are coming from. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: A hole . LOL Actually you never know ,when and why hardware compatability issue can catch you . Nor that I am stubborn ,simply it is a fact . I am also not sure that it is a case ,but I saw similar cases so why not to test this option ? Just to hijack a thread a bit I dealed a lot with software and OS emulation on various systems and this can be sometimes a real mess and it is not a stable thing (it can happen today and return after three weeks ) - too much factors Now as I see you move from PC to Pc doing your work . As a backnote do you know you can run MC9 in such a way ...mill9.exe ..mycustomconfig.cfg or mill9.exe mycustomconfig.cfg or better put in every computer your custom cfg file licked with all the pathes correct to this computer and all the other things and write a simple batch file to run it ? Just a thought . Best regards

Take a driver from 2000 station and install it on XP Look for a driver in wintinf folder

Give the damn Xp appropriate driver from win 2000 in most chances it will work Neglect the message it is not certified for XP With a driver for NT chances smaller that you`ll succeed . HTH

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is not a file get , file save issue ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the same ,cause you are waiting for pop-up window with file select Try to downrate hardware acceleration ,what damage it may cause you ?

Welcome to the forum ,A-bomb !

Not at all . I mean if your pc hangs on this stage ,at least you will have your autabackup saved file

Use Autobackup function Alt+A to call it I set to save file to c:mastrestbackup.mc9 file every 5 minutes Use screen->configure->start/exit->autosave to set the defaults HTH

It may look strange , but most of the issues of file ->get ,file-save like this can have connection to display driver problems try two things : a. downrate hardware acceleration to one notch b. Run Cnc Regedit program and change style for file-get dialog Also try to avoid windows schemes ,always use Windows standart On the main desktop free space make right click ->properties->appearance->scheme->windows standart It has a long trail of issues with this for some graphic cards ,do not use new XP funky style ,make it look like windows 200 classic ,no background textures ,it will never hurt anyway and can help too Best regards

Screen > Next menu > Plot > Win.driver (no)->Chg params Port->file

I do assigned dimensions to level 50 and every time I make a dimention it is in level 50 , even if the main level is other and with specific entity attributes . Very handy !

You can not assign to different level different color ,as in Autocad ,yet you can assign to different entity types specific level ,and attributes as color ,linetype and so ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mastercam lets you assign attributes to entities, providing additional uniqueness to each entity. The ability to clearly define points, lines, arcs, etc., with different levels, colors, and line styles is extremely helpful, especially with complex geometry. The Entity Attributes Manager dialog box allows you to force specific attributes (level, color, style, width) on specific geometry (points, lines, arcs, etc.). For example, using the Entity Attributes Manager, you can set up lines to be on level 1, blue, and dashed. That way, each time you create a line, it automatically is created on level 1, is blue, and uses the dashed style. Note: You can set entity attributes for your current file or set them as system defaults. To set entity attributes for the current file, select Attributes on the Secondary Menu, then select Ea Mgr. To set entity attributes as system defaults, select Main Menu, Screen, Configure, CAD Settings, Attributes, EA Mgr. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As to your problem ,looks like you have masking on ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you mask a level, Mastercam restricts selection of entities unless they reside on the masked level. You mask the level where you want to work, which prevents you from inadvertently changing entities on other levels. However, you can continue to create entities on any level. Only one level can be masked at a time. 1. Choose Level or Mask from the Secondary Menu, or press [Alt + Z] to open the Level Manager. 2. Choose the level to mask by clicking in the Mask column. A check mark appears in the column and the column heading changes to show the number of the level to be masked. 3. Choose OK to set the mask level and close the Level Manager. Notes: ¨ To turn off the level mask, click in the Mask column to remove the check mark. The column heading changes to read Mask: Off. ¨ The Enter level in prompt area setting, when enabled in the Screen tab of the Screen, Configure dialog box, allows you to change the level to be masked by using keystrokes. To change the level to be masked, choose Mask, then enter the level number in the prompt area. To turn off the level mask, enter 0 in the prompt area. To open the Level Manager dialog box, press [Alt+Z]. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Have fun on the run

It defines nothing here , it starts drilling from retract height here and I like it !

It depends from your post .JMHO . In my posts it does nothing,but you can set condition checking for rapid retract to be greater than top of stock in your post and other things

I am new here but I start to like this place too !

Thank you ,Paul , for a nice welcome ! / I think I smell molasses. Opps, not a mole hole. Paul B....wholly confused / No need to confuse ,my frieind-naturalist . I appresiate your valuable comments !

/Mee's thinks he's related to poo/ I think we all related to each other - we all love Mastercam (McRabbit==Mastercam Rabbit )