If that line in a signature gets people worked up....you have issues you might want to deal with on your own (or attempt to understand sarcasm).

I've been emailing pete as of late and it looks like they're working on a solution for the surface extendtrimming situation and the random surface from solid coloring issue. Until the situation is solved, i'll be moving entities back to their original level. I will try to provide them with a file, but most of the jobs at the shop here are not meant for everyones eyes.

slightly ot

I'm not trying to bash the mastercam product. I am however trying to give a younger persons perspective into things here. I am 20, and have been working with mastercam since I was 16. While I know I may not have as much experience with mastercam as some, I do have a rather indepth knowledge in it. I've tried to do basically anything and everything I can with mastercam to get it to crash and whatnot to help out the guys at cnc software (unfortunately my other computer wasnt hooked up to the network at the shop, so I couldnt send in the error reports). And above all else, I'm not afraid to RTFM or try something new....Heck I'm the one at the shop here that got up on everyones case to switch to X. haha (yes my dads finally making the big switch)

Andrew

I'd like to see my trimmedextended surfaces stay on the same level that they were originally on, and not jump to some random level every time.

That and the ability to make a surface off a solid in the color that is in the bottom menu bar. Sometimes making surfaces off a solid, it will come up with 3 different colors for surfaces. Maybe im missing something with that?

I guess maybe i'm a little confused on the group thing. When I open the group manager, it shows no groups at all. Maybe i'm opening the wrong thing? Here's a screen shot of what I'm looking at. http://img346.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gmanager6rk.jpg

and yes, Usually when doing a surfacing operation, if I have to, I will modify the solid beforehand, however.....a lot of times I like to extend a surface out so that a tool doesnt plunge onto metal, but rather cut air first to make sure I have things setup right.

I would honestly use the surfacing based off of solids, but you can't change the color of individual solid faces, and the selection setup for drive solids just sucks.

Andrew

Yeah thats basically what we end up doing, I was just hoping that maybe there was something we had set wrong. I guess we'll just wait until mr2 (and not my old car....haha) comes out. I just hope that we get something going good soon. We have a new mikron machine (should be fun being the pilot of that guy ) coming in this next week, and I don't like when I'm spending more time dealing with the computer than I do actually running a part.

Andrew

Heh, we do a little driving up around the wilmotlake geneva area....some fun roads.

Thats all fine if you're using groups, but what about when you aren't using any groups?

This still hasn't really gotten me any closer to the modified surfaces changing levels on me (no its not just my computer that does it).

brb, apparently mastercam isn't liking my surface blend operation........gotta go fix.

I love the interface of mastercam X, but hate the crashes, bugs, and things that need Fixing. If you want to upgrade to X, i'd wait until the next big "fix" or whatever they want to call it comes out. Not worth it imo to learn a new style of something when you gotta fight with problems.

Andrew

Something we're finding is that when using a file that was created in MC9, creating a surface from a solid results in the surface color being what you "want" it to be.....whereas using a file that was created from an X_T or whatever else then saved as an mcx file, keeps the new surface the same color as the solid. Seems to be a reoccuring thing here that using mc9 files in X makes things go a little apenuts, but then again....things still go kind of quirky either way.

Anyother thoughts on the trimmedextended surface being switched to a different level? I've gone through every menuconfigurationsetting that I can possibly think of, but nothing seems to correct the problem.

Andrew

unfortunately what mastercam SHOULD do everytime is not exactly what it DOES do everytime. lol

ill keep tinkering with it while I have the spindle turning....see if I can troubleshoot it.

Weird about the like colors Thad. Sometimes it will keep the colors the same, other times it makes them the colors that you want it to.

bellyup, no the EA manager isn't on.

We've been having an issue with trimmingextending surfaces. Sometimes you can trimextend a surface with no problems, however other times when you extend or trim a surface, it will place the new trimmedextended surface on a totally different level. Sometimes it will even create a new level, sometimes it will put the new surface onto a random level. Only way of finding the new surface is by turning on every level and unshading, which sucks when working with a full mold base assembly (as you can imagine).

Also, on my specific PC, I have run into an issue where I go to make a surface off a solid, mastercam will look as though it is just sitting there doing nothing. If you hit ESC, the little timer on the mouse goes away, and you are left still in the create surface from solid operation. There will not be any surface shown there unless shading is turned off. This proves to be a major pita when going making the surfacing toolpath.

I have done all the latest updates with my video drivers, made sure opengl and all that fun stuff is turned on in mastercam, so I do not believe it is a hardware problem...but I don't want to rule it out....I could be missing something.

One last thing......another surfacing woe. We have situations when making a surface off of a solid that the new created surface, will not be in the "proper" color.....IE the solid model is Red, and my color to make make an entity is blue, when the new surface is created, it is red....once again, making it a joy having to turn onoff levels and change colors to see what hashasn't been created. Any ideas on that?

Andrew

My only thought is that the man (aka my dad the designer) is using mc9 still and that may be causing conflicts with X? I have noticed that the oddities are mainly with using the mc9 files. Time to sneak in his office this weekend and upgrade. haha

Andrew

I realize what a lot of people are doing is smart, but does this honestly make any sense to anyone that we have to do this? I can have a 100+mb photoshop file, and not have to worry about making multiple backup copies of the file whatsoever. I realize PS is a more established program, but it's not like mastercam has only been around for a few months.

<--super frustrated by trimming surfaces and surfaces mysteriously jumping to random levels on me.

Andrew

I just had this happen today as well. Any toolpaths and solids were lost (however surfaces and linesarcs were not lost). I was using winamp, however other computers at the shop here that don't use any music programs have had this problem as well. I figured it had to do with an error or something of the like on my computer, so I did scandisk and all that fun stuff and came up with nothing.

The winamp theory to me seems rather bogus as on my personal computer at home, I have yet to have a crash induced by running winamp with programs that require heavy system resources, (ie running a game on one monitor with winamptv streaming on monitor #2 with AIM programs running at the same time).

Looks like I'll be setting up the computers here to do the multiple backup deals here.

Anyone else find it fun to make images of mastercam crashes backgrounds? haha, pardon the poor mspaint. http://offthebreak.com/~andrewgore/mastercamcrash.JPG

andrew

edit: also, just remembered as I went back to the computer. The entities that were left in the file, are not on the same level as they were originally. We've had this happen without X crashing. Files will randomly change levels on us (usually happens if we open a mc9 file in mcx)

haha you said "woot" and "teh". now you're an all out haXor. haha

(the other guys at my shop didnt find this as funny as me. maybe i spend too much time on the internet;))

Does anyone else find it weird that there is no "confirmation" after the updates update? It would be nice if a window stayed open that said something like "update finished" and you had to click "ok" or something. I never know if an update is done, or imy computer freezes.

andrew

Ok, I did a search, but came up empty handed. Thanks.

Andrew

Just curious if there is a way to remove/disable the Interactive Prompts. They seem to never stay where I move them to, and somehow always manage to get in my way of things. From what I've read you can only moveresize. If not, maybe an option in an X update to remove/disable them?

Andrew Gore

Our main design computer at our shop is lazyunwilling to make the full switch to X. When we use his v9.1 files in X, we occaisionally run into problems with changing levels of entities. I go to move an item on level 100 to level 200, and in the process, entities from levels 30 and 40 are moved with it. Is this a bug with using v9 files, or do we have a setting wrong? Either way im going to do the updates on his computer so v9.1 can no longer be used.

Andrew

Worked fine for us here, however we had to switch which USB port the hasp was plugged into. The hasp would then work. Mastercam 9 will no longer work (I can finally get it so the others in the shop no longer use 9. haha) Seems to be all working good, and have yet to have any backplot crashes.

Andrew