Romicron are the best and easiest I have seen and used by far. Its not even a contest they are so far ahead of all the other players including Kaiser, Nikken, Komet.....

I ran into the same issue...and an even bigger one if I picked the .nci file to use the same path. This became more problematic if I used one workstation to work on a file....then move to another. I switched back to my original defaults on my machine definitions. One other way to get the correct path lined up...and I have not found any problems with it.... is under File/Project Manager. Way slick and easy to use.

wow that is slick and easy. Now off to update all machine defs.....

just a quick look...it seems that your 3d contour is violating the edge of the part. The radius actually curves up past 90 degrees on the bottom edge. I got a pretty good flowline result by creating a swept surface and then trimming said surface to a 90 deg quadrant on the radius. Still violates the bottom edge tho... 5TH AXIS RADIUS FINISH TEST.MCX-7

What technology do you find missing? I have been around Matsuura's of different vintages in the last 20 years. The new ones are MUCH nicer than the old ones. The 30i control is very solid, and the 840Di is a screamer...even faster than the 30i. We have a Mori NH5000 (not a NHX) and a Matsurra h-plus 405 sitting right next to each other. The Mori has their fancy MAPPS overlay...but in the end its a fanuc. The 405 is a faster machine (note...neither machine comes with chip augers, which is totally fvcking stupid). Both are solid machines.... At my previous job they were a total Okuma shop (they did have 2 doosans....they were a pile compared to the Okuma's.) We were running the MA-500H's. Very nice machines also. Better than the matsuura's? tough to call. The Okuma's did have their "turncut" feature which, as far as I know, is not offered on ANY fanuc machine. And they did have a 400 tool capacity 50 taper magazine...

hmmmm talking bout two of the most accurite machines in our shop. Got a V-max 800 3ax and a 5ax. The high speed software on these controls is soooo much faster than what we have on our Fanuc 30i's. We had the 5ax V-max first...then got a MAM72-63v. The V-Max is much faster

This machine wouldn't be in Utah, would it?

Wow.....sounds like something the IT guy here used to put together....emphasis on USED TO. Thing is you can get some screaming deals for under $500....No benchmark screamers, but far from being a total POS. I picked up a bunch of these.... http://www.offleaseavenue.com/servlet/Detail?no=57 a short while ago (at the time they were priced at around $290) & they had a W3565 processor in them (3.2 Ghz). They do a fine job of running mastercam.....benchmark time around 6 minutes

the chips falling into the bin remind me of the old school slot machines paying out....

Ron, last I checked HPI/Pioneer was 20~25% less in price. The Paul Harvey is Lyndex/HPI used to the same company. They developed the SK system together (possibly with Nikken). Time went by and they broke up. HPI was still allowed to use the SK (or as they call them SX) style collet. They are (or were) even made in the exact same factory. The HPI name is soon to be completely replaced with Pioneer, tho the product will remain the same. The one thing I wish Pioneer did offer with their SX holders is offer a smooth collet nut (just a ground finish, no spanner holes) like Lyndex does. When the Lyndex/HPI breakup did happen, I scored big time. They had a bunch of Lyndex's SK holders in the 3-lock style for ULTRA cheap. That was a good score

FYI, the HPI/Pioneer SX series collet is the same beast. And yes, they do work great!

Thanks Colin...I was considering the class so I could better wrap my head around the vector and matrix stuff you have previously mentioned. I was hoping to get around using the MI's and MR's....that being a manual operation that you have to remember. This is one thing I really do like about CamPlete, you don't have to worry about a crash on a 3+2 transition move. I am hoping to do this with MPGEN5AX, make it bullet proof.

And some b-tthead took out the safety zone unless you are in "classic" multiaxis toolpaths. *sigh*. I have figured out a way to take the Z home then reposition, but still not quite what I am looking for, and still risky. Not gonna go back to NY any time soon...2 years was enough of that place. Great job, sh1tty location.

All, After many years I have stared to revisit our posts based on MPGEN5AX. While they do produce good code there is one thing that I find extremely annoying. With the example contained within the zip2go file, I have a toolpath in the front plane with a clearance height of 6". Then it switches to the top plane with a clearance height of 12 inches. The result of which is this.... G0 Z6. Z12. Y0. M22 G4 X2. A0. M21 Z8.1 Notice how it moves up to the 12" clearance height, then moves to Y0., then repositions the A axis. This is a crash waiting to happen on a trunnion machine. Now what has been our standard procedure is always make your clearance height the same no matter what tool plane you are in.....so the following code is when both the front & top toolpaths have a clearance plane of 12". Ignore the dwells, I am playing with an older machine that needs them there when unlocking the 4th & 5th axis. G0 Z12. M22 G4 X2. A0. Y0. M21 Z8.1 G1 Z8. F50. Note how it goes up to the 12" clearance height then repositions the A and Y axis. (the Y axis is repositioning on this line because I was able to add that in to ppos_cax_lin section of the post) This is the result I am after. So now what I would like to do, and it "should" be simple, is make the post so I can have different clearance heights on different toolplanes AND (the kicker) make it so it will do if safely as is happening on my second example. I believe it the psof_tlchg_blck section of the post, which is encrypted. Is there any workaround to this...getting it to position the way I want? It would also be nice to make an ultra safe version that sends the machine home in the Z axis, then repositions the X, Y, A, & C, then goes to town. (and I have come close to succeeding, other than it *still* repositions the X & Y before doing the tilt/rotation) This is how CamPlete does it (ultra safe) Any thoughts? Or is this an encrypted thing that just is not gonna happen? Thanks! 5AX TEST2.Z2G

little late to this thread...but this caught my eye. Not bad for under $300. [edit] forgot to post link http://www.offleaseavenue.com/servlet/Detail?no=52 [/edit]

whoops...forgot to mention that its just 6061 alum. Farm it out....not gonna happen, lol. Chip break cycle is a good idea.

ok, I have done this many times in the past, deep, smaller holes. Typically I use a pilot drill & go about 2x dia deep. Then comes the long one, enter with a slow RPM, ramp up the RPM and coolant (will dwells in the appropriate places) & go to town, no pecks. Nothing to it. On the machines I have done it on, we had 1000PSI coolant. Now I gotta repeat this process on a machine (A Multus) that has only 150-200 PSI thru coolant. I am thinking I might have to peck....but thought I would ask & see what others thought.

There are so many different flavors of posts out there...the example I gave you was based on the generic 3ax fanuc. since you are getting an "E0" output you are way close. pdrlcommonb pitch = n_tap_thds$ pcan1, pbld, n$, *sgdrill, *sgdrlref, pxout, pyout, pfzout, pcout, prdrlout, *pitch, "R1" strcantext, e$ pcom_movea getting it to work with a metric tap....is gonna be something different

k...I will take a rough stab here...quick & dirty... find this (depending on what post you are using, it could vary, this is based on the generic 3ax fanuc) fmt "F" 2 pitch #Tap pitch (units per thread) change to this fmt "E" 4 pitch #Tap pitch (units per thread) Then go to your tapping cycle in your post (ptap$) find this else, pitch = 1/n_tap_thds$ change to this else, pitch = n_tap_thds$ Then, finally, find this in the ptap$.... pcan1, pbld, n$, *sgdrlref, *sgdrill, pxout, pyout, pfzout, prdrlout, *pitch, !feed, strcantext, e$ and make it this.... pcan1, pbld, n$, *sgdrlref, *sgdrill, pxout, pyout, pfzout, prdrlout, *pitch, "R1", strcantext, e$ like I said, quick & dirty....

Ok, we have 3 machines with an NC4 laser (MAM72-63V, H-plus 630 & a H-Plus 405) Long ago when we got the MAM, it came with a tool setting macro, O9303. Works great, you can do sequential tools all in one program line. I modified this macro when we got the 630. Once again, it works great. Now I finally got a few minutes to put it on the 405. No worky. It hangs up on this line..... IF[#1003EQ1]GOTO75 Note...that is from the MAM. When I modified it for the 630, I changed it to this... IF[#1000EQ1]GOTO75 So what I believe is happening that line looks to see if the laser is broken...if it is then #1003 = 1 then the program skips to N75 and things go on like they should. Now when we got the 630 somehow I figured out that Matsuura changed some logic SOMEWHERE and decided to make #1000 the variable to see if the laser is broken. Now comes the 405....I have found that its neither #1000 or #1003. Sooooo...the question is....how do I figure out what it has been changed to? How did I figure it out before? WTF didn't I make of note of how I figured it out? Thanks! [edit] all have 30i controllers [/edit] O9303.zip

When I originally bought them they were priced around $290...when we looked at the cost up simply upgrading our current computers to Win7 it became impossible to pass up. They make excellent Mastercam machines.

Get this.... http://www.offleaseavenue.com/servlet/Detail?no=57 They are actually running a W3565 @ 3.2 Ghz. The FX1800 is more than adequate for most things. it does have 2 1TB hard drives for storage and 1 500GB drive for your OS. I have gotten 1 for myself, plus 8 more for the shop (lots of Mcam seats were running OLD puters with Win XP on them...plus these make great office computers) The one I got for home is my media server (those 2 TB fill up fast!)

Gotta believe his reseller changed, not went away. Either way, this decision to take away the legacy downloads makes life a PITA. Disk space is cheap, and CNC Software still has X5 documentation available for download....but no downloads for the X5 MU's or anything. Doesn't the roadmap list X5 as still being supported? Many, Many users don't go ahead and put a new release as soon as its out. X7 had bugs many choose to wait out and continue using X6 till X7 MU1 came out. If they got a new puter during this time they had to jump through hoops, 1st checking if there was a download, then call their reseller, then wait a day or 3 to get a disk in the mail. No 2 ways about it...this is a PITA and a xxxx poor decision. I now archive all my downloads for this reason.

Here is how I typically do it....I put the geometry on level 1000 and use it that way. The attached file should be your Kyocera tool. T.MCX-7

just going off of this screenshot from the manual, just program it as a 2" bullmill with a .118 radius. No need to get too fancy. (Last page of this manual. http://americas.kyoc...FH-Raptor_W.pdf )