Point of information; BT holders are shorter from the gage line to the pull stud surface than CT holders. Generally speaking the BT pull studs have a thicker flange than their CT brothers. ALL Matsuura spindles if not HSK are BigPlus. I use and recommend BigPlus holders. Not all "dual contact" holders are created equal. Big Daishowa, Big Kaiser, Rego-Fix, Schunk, Sandvik, and a few others are BigPlus. Nikken, while not "BigPlus" make a quality holder I don't mind recommending. Personally I prefer Rego-Fix PowR Grip over heat shrink, mostly just because heat shrink holders have a finite lifespan but heat shrink is a very good path to go down unless you use HSS tools. If you do elect to go heat shrink, DO NOT skimp on the heat shrink unit. A good quality unit will maximize the holder's life span if used properly and will pay for itself over time. Tool runout is the enemy of tool life. Less is more in this arena.

Point of clarification, it is NOT the "spindle" that determines CAT or BT, it is the tool changer fingers/claw and the tool matrix racks.

Since the advent of the 30i series control you've been able to run DIRECTLY from the Dataserver. No running from subs, just straight. If you cannot, that is a machine tool builder limitation.

If you increase the Small Gap Size on the Linking and Gaps Along Cut pages that can minimize the retracts. I usually have mise set somewhere between 100% and 1000% but have gone as high as 5000% on large structural aerospace stuff.

Well... if you knew which parameters to change to get the desired result, you could create your own G/M code...

A lot of the differences are the option packages put on the individual machines. Some builders skimp on the options to keep their machines in a certain price range, others option the machines appropriately, and still others are somewhere in between. Then there is the expertise of the AE doing the training on the machine. Some of those guys aren't fit to teach someone how to run a toaster let alone a complex CNC, then you have guys like @zoober, @YoDoug, and @CrazyMillMan just to name a few who are at the top echelon. JM2CFWIW

You should have the contour control functions active when machining period. The machine will perform better. Part quality will be better (provided the settings from the factory are good). And contrary to popular belief myth, use them during canned cycles (maybe with one exception until testing your specific machine - rigid tapping). Here's some DATA to back up my claim; 3:24 - W/ NO HIGH SPEED MODES 3:11 - W/ G05.1Q1, G05.1Q3, AND G131 D1 3:07 - W/ ONLY G05.1Q1 3:06 - W/ G05.1Q1 AND G131 D1 3:06 - W/ ONLY G131 D1 G131D1 is a Matsuura specific code that sets certain Acc/Dec parameters to favor positioning type moves (as opposed to profile type moves). If your machine has R levels (on the G05P10000 line), G131D1 would be a rough equivalent to G05P10000R1 or G05P10000R0. Hope that helps.

G05P10000 is AI Contour Control (High Precision Contour Control compatible) P is not a function of accuracy. If machining condition is present, R would be. G05.1 is AI Contour Control/NANO Smoothing/Smooth Interpolation Different options.

I use mine to make stuff for my tool box, chess pieces, broken toy fixes, gun parts, etc... Gun stuff gets Colorfabb XT CF20. I use a hardened steel nozzle when printing for it.

I have a Prusa i3 MKS. We got it in May of 2019. Yes, THAT May.

DM me your machine's parameters. When FANUC installs options, they DO NOT configure the parameters for the machine. That is the builder/dealer/end-user's responsibility.

I've got an RTX-4000 in my laptop and I just ran a 632 Operation, 6 stock model part from Mastercam through CAMplete's collision checking with no issues. My card is only an 8GB card. Probably on the lower end of the scale today. When I got it, it was their #2 mobile card. I usually get the 2nd from top of the line video card and CPU when I get new rigs. They usually serve me well for 2-3 years-ish.

THIS x eleventy bazillion!

I've not heard of any rumors or plans to discontinue any of the Plug-Ins. Well, actually, I have heard a few rumors, but those originated from people that have a vested interest in selling CAM post processors. But no rumors from anyone with any real juice, and nobody that would really know. The reality is the last Plug-In that was discontinued was the NX Plug-In. There will be no further development on that one. That decision was made by Siemens NOT CAMplete/AutoDesk. The NX PlugIn is still available, just not in further development. For 15-20 years we've had/heard the discussions about "when Dassault decides to cut the cord from their competitor Siemens in licensing the Parasolid Kernel that SolidWorks uses and get people on to CATIA". People made decisions long ago to discontinue maintenance "because it could happen" meanwhile they missed out on all the tools available from then to now. Because of conjecture. Because of rumor. Hey, I believed they would get tired of writing that check to Siemens too. Apparently the SW sales and Maintenance are worth the hit to Dassault's ego. Money talks and something else walks. Personally CAMplete is all I ever use. We actually bought 2 seats BITD AT FULL retail. That check was somewhere in the neighborhood of $25k in 2007 dollars. It was worth it then. It's worth it now. I've been using it since mid-2007. I'm not going to stop using it until it's gone or no longer available. Every new Mastercam version, I update the Machine Definitions, Control Definitions and Posts that I use for machines I support (and a few that I do only because my customers needed assistance because the other machine dealers aren't up to snuff), then I go through the Defaults and set them up so our machines will perform in the ways we expect them to. JM2CFWIW

Unless ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY NECESSARY, that juice just isn't worth the squeeze. Like @JParissaid, the amount of headroom (read computational horsepower) that feature/those features will consume truly makes it not worthwhile. @crazy^millman says he doesn't use it 95%.... personally, I don't do it like 99% of the time. I only time I ever model threads is when thread timing is critical.

It's all a matter of persepctive also... Spindle moves X, Y, and Z = Right Hand Rule. Table moves X and Y, spindle moves Z, X and Y could be flipped. So there's that.

As always, it depends. Repeat work/Often Used = keep assembled. Prototype/One-Off = disassemble. Tooling costs can be quite significant... sometimes exceeding $1k USD per tool assembly. However that being said, something that MUST be weighed is the cost of a machine waiting for a holder/tool due to a "cost saving" measure. JM2CFWIW

Is the A-Axis clamped or unclamped?

The distance from Center of the Tilt Axis to the top of the table could be the difference too. If programming a FANUC controlled machine I'd suggest programming from part datums.

It is normal for 3+2 operations to be handled by the DWO/TWP function and any operations containing any rotary motion to be handled by the TCPC function.

Sometimes there's a Keep Relay/Data Bit that you to toggle forward and backward on the augers too. Lots of possibilities there unfortunately.

I always have "Add to tool" selected and it's set to 0 since the advent of the MD/CD. That said, I've also forced my H/D to be T in the post from time to time just in case. I can't recall ever having that problem where random H's and D's pop up. It's probably a work flow issue that creates that problem. On another note, I've had Tool Offset C (4 column; H/HW, D/R/DW/RW) on just about every machine I've spent time on since the mid-1990's.

Did you ever try CAMplete for post processing or has it only been Postability @Transition Composites ? I have the VR9 in my machine library... I could look at it.

Digging up a 20 year old post for an area code check...

Forcing Smooth TCP if no P is specified. It could be that the correct High Speed Mode has not been applied (G05.1Q1 before the work offset is activated and G05.1Q3X0Y0Z0[AX]4[AX]5 after the tool length offset is activated) for example. There's a lot in play. Correct program formatting (turning this on first, that on second, the other thing on third, etc...) has a lot to say about performance/results. Sometimes you can turn things on in the wrong order and not know it. i.e. no alarm is generated, just results are less than expected. That is less true today than it has been in the past. FANUC in the l;ast 10-15 years has done a good job with bundling options in such a way as to make the most sense based on the type of work being done. F.A.S.T. packages for example. However, it is still the builder's responsibility to option the machine appropriately. That is inaccurate. I know of 10 machines same make, same model, ranging in build years from 2017 to 2023 in the same 2-3 square block radius that all have the same option package. Now, the machines with build dates later than 12/2021 have some capabilities the previous build dates do not possess, but that is a function of product improvement (FANUC Series and Edition, PMC, and Ladder improvements), not lack of options. Perhaps this is true of lesser builders, but the upper echelon builders option their machines appropriately and consistently... at least in my experience.