Thats a Fanuc thing....Mori is not to blame for this.....I have seen this on more than one make. You are right tho....it should be standard

MPMASTER is the way to go like others have said....maybe a few minor tweeks that can easily be addressed on this forum. 120 tools? get more now if you have the option.....120 may seem like alot now, tho trust me on this....the more the better. I am now working with machines that have 320 tools (50 taper) and that is not enough. Granted, it will take you a few years to grow into these large magazines.....once you do you will realize the benefits ($$$) not sure what that is. Whatever it is make sure you have a touch probe and laser detection.

Woot!!! I made the 500th reply to this thread!!!! and 26,000+ views....ya think CNC Software might be noticing?

This is the problem with the beta program as it is. All the programmers I know are already to busy doing what they are paid to do (that is, produce bulletproof programs) to mess around with testing unproven software. Lets say you got a hot job that needs to be done yesterday (and I am sure everyone here can relate to that) What are you going to use to program? A proven version where at least you know it's shortcomings.....or a untested version that has a chance of blowing up on you or maybe scrap a part? If I was a shop owner there is no way I would allow beta testing to be done on company time

If what I have been reading bout Volumill is true (won't pay for a seat of mastercam) then this whole deal is their loss. To be honest...when volumill first came out I really questioned their business model (I believe it was a subscription based service at first) To read their site it seemed that it was CNC Software's decision to no longer support Volumill....Now the truth comes out and it reality Volumill dropped Mastercam cuz they choose not to buy 1 seat of Mastercam for development. Thanks for the enlightment.

Its easy to sum up...only a few words... Powerful Complicated HUGE learning curve Expensive Biggest issue is coming up with people who can drive it well....there are not many out there (compared to Mastercam) & they get top dollar....which adds to the overall cost

The second li nk expands on my thoughts more so than the first. Because Volumill pays Surfware royalities and CNC Software has or had a pending lawsuit against Surfware they drop Volumill. (pure speculation on my part) I do find it rather curious that they do not decided to drop support of Cimco's offering....even more curious is that CNC dropped Volumill saying "it creates confusion with our customers" having a package running inside of mastercam that supposedly duplicates its native functions. Well......Cimco's offering has been out since V9....and its "Adaptive Clearing" path most defiantly mirrors Mastercam's "dynamic" paths. (Tho..to be fair....users most familiar with mastercam will be MUCH more comfortable with mastercams style....the Cimco plugin, while excellent, has a dialog of its own) That being said, they both produce the similar results much like Volumills did.

Long gone is the understatement of the century. CNC software is just as far behind of the times on this issue as they are on lathe. Any time I want to find bugs in Mastercam, all I have to do is log in to this forum & check out the first 5 threads. 99% of the time its a bug that many people (including yourself) has a workaround for. Over my many years of reading this forum I have grown to respect you as a programmer....tho you choose to not be a critic of Mastercam for whatever reason. Workarounds are NOT a fix. Workarounds are wasted time getting a feature to work like it should, nothing more. You also list yourself as a beta-tester.....and you say that you work 70+ hours a week at your "day job"....some of which time must be devoted to turning in numerous bug reports. How does your employer feel about you spending your time doing these trivial tasks rather than making bulletproof programs that wind up on the floor? The beta program as it stands, is a complete joke (and this is coming from someone who was a "referral reseller" for the last 6 years) You should be getting the software for free with the amount of effort you put into it. Then CNC Software makes the decision to totally break ties with Volumill (who has a great engine, is well supported AND fixes bugs on the fly) because they feel that it is confusing to the customer to have a addon that basically does the same thing as their newer paths(optirough, rest, ect). I suppose it is confusing to stay with a company that does not admit they have bugs rather than go with one that actually fixes their problems on the fly. Now lets add to this that CIMCO has a far superior offering (the debate is out...who is better...Cimco of Volumill) to Mastercam's newer paths yet CNC Software chooses to keep them on the board. 2 differnt companies offering different solutions to what Mastercam should do well on its own....yet CNC Software chooses to kick one out. Me thinks it might have something to do with Volumill paying "Smurfware" for their truemill thingie....and CNC Software suing Surfware for them threatening to sue CNC. Whatever the situation...the end user is the one that pays. I used to say that X3 was the Windows ME of Mastercam. X6 is far and above that title....maybe its more like X6 is beatmax vs vhs

I call complete BS on this one....FFS I can open a Autocad 98 file with X6....I can see why they chose not to support the old non-associative GE3 format....or even the MC7 which was only partially associative....but to totally break the link to your code is a cop out....nothing more.

By making releases with twice as many bugs at 1/2 the pace

Most of the "maintenance updates" were nothing more than bug fixes...which, to a logical thinking mind....should be a "service pack". But NOOOO...CNC Software cannot admit to making mistakes....they just pull a download (X6) for a month, fix it, then reissue the download. If anything....people that are on the current version (ie those willing to beta test) should be on X6 SP1

And at least 10 years behind when it comes to lathe. I know the comeback...."I have never seen a part that I could not make with Mastercam". I can agree with that statement......however...after relocating to a new area & starting to scratch the surface of a new/different software (NX) I can say that there are other solutions that can say that also.....and they can do it with less effort. Mastercam is going the right direction with their HSM paths...no doubt. Problem is all the bugs and other issues that come along with these paths. Speaking of old toolpaths.....have the old school surfacing toolpaths (flowline, contour, ect) made the transition to the new style "tree" interface? If no....WTF is up with that?

LOL....yea I am going to get a software that has virtually no user base....how good could the package of even been if it was going bankrupt & therefore was easy pickings for CNC software to aquire? Partmaker on the other hand has a large user base & has a proven track record. GoetxInd has a great point.....what can you do in lathe now that couldn't be done in V9 or even V8? (Translators don't count) Tool inspection on grooving cycles??? How many people have a post that actually supports that?

I think you missed the sarcasm in that statement....however.... there is alot of truth to it. Lathe is essentially unchanged since V8. Version X brought in a more modern interface....thats about it unless you actually count things like the ability of verify with a round boring bar. The day you can backplot (note...not even verify) a pinch cut or a stock transfer (pretty simple stuff) I will say that things are improving. Adding grooving cycles does not exactly impress.....I was doing that stuff with Fanuc's FAPT cut in friggin 1990. Yes....Mastercam lathe IS that far behind the times....amazing to think that software I was using 22 years ago had the same basic functionality that Mastercam is pimping as "enhancements". That being said....I would never work for a company that was stuck on V9.....I absolutelyfockinghated that interface

I was impressed with how customizable the "posts" are (CamPlete calls them NCFormats). They can interface with Matercam using canned text to set things up like tool breakage detection, high speed machining levels, ect. By no means could I control the output like I could in a Mastercam post, but I can say that it would always give me good results. Also it is capable of outputing more advanced functions like RTCP (or TRAORI on a Siemens controller), Tilted work planes, all that good stuff. Basically....when you buy a Matsuura in the US, it comes with Camplete & the model of the machine you are going to drive. Buy a new/different machine...you get a new virtual model. One of the coolest features that I liked was I could take a program that ran on our V-Max800 5ax, change the machine to a MAM72-63V (totally different kinematics) and be able to run without ever going into Mastercam. To add to that you could go from a A-C machine like the 72-63V to a A-B machine like a 72-35V and do the same thing. I agree that the optimization/linerization options in the software make it a must have......

With all due respect to the actual "beta testers", it has seemed to me with countless releases that ALL users become defacto beta testers when the product is released. Look through the history of this board....X5 had PLENTY of overlooked bugs till MU1 was released....X4, X3(the windows ME release of Mastercam), ect all has had these issues. I cannot stress that having access to a bug list or a fixed bug list would help eliminate the tension involved in installing a new release.

Short timer.... gonna leave soon http://www.emastercam.com/board/index.php?showtopic=64448 On the i-80's & J-300's....Great controlls and very "tuneable".....tho you can really see the difference between builders now that they have been around for 10+ years. We have a Mori MV-40 with an I-80 & with a bit of tuning we got it to run just over .0005 roundness on a 4" radius (the machine stared out being .0008 out of round). A matsurra MC-600 with the same controller showed just under .0004 with no adjustments.Both machines have been "rode hard and put away wet". I know for a fact that matsuura uses a higher grade ballscrew than most mfg's (including mori) and while you might not notice any difference when new.....this 10 year test really starts to tell a story. (on grades of ballscrews...think of them like a surface plate. you have grade AA, grade A, Grade B, ect.)

Keep your eye on Dell factory outlet. You can pick up very good machines for much less than "new". These can be refirbs or "scratch & dent"...but they are all new. You might have to wait a week or 2...check daily & you will find a monster for cheap. Solidbox could not come close to the price I paid for a T7500. 6 core X5660 @ 2.8Ghz, 12Gb Ram, quadro 2000, 2 500 GB drives ( I still want to put a SSD in there) for well under $2000. Warning bout the T7500 Tower....the thing is friggin HUGE http://www.dell.com/us/dfb/p/precision-desktops?~ck=anav

Since I am now a "short timer" at my current job I am doing a bunch of training....one of them being teaching how to use a Renishaw QC-10 Ballbar. We did several machines today...tuning things like backlash getting most of them good to within .0005 roundness at 50IPM on a 100MM circle. Alot of these machines are going on 20 years old...pretty impressive what tuning can do. I thought our MAM was amazingly close at .0003...till I put it on the machines with Siemens controllers. (An ES800V, V-Plus 800, V-Max800 3ax & V-Max800 5ax) The ES800 was at .0002 @ 50 IPM, and only .0003 at 200 IPM. The V-Plus was even better, running at .00015 at 50IPM. The V-Max's are just plain sick...@ .0001 going 200IPM. Even more impressive is that the V-Max 5ax has somewhere between 4000-5000 cutting hours on it. (The MAM has about the same) Couple that many machine hours and then throw in the fact that it runs off on encoders (the MAM has the advantage of having scales)....just plain impressive. Too bad Matsuura decided to quit making them. It does make me want to try a MAM with a 840Di tho....they are out there.

http://www.lakeshore...hreadmills.aspx great stuff....and beats carmex prices by a long shot....tho carmex is an excellent tool also

I had to do something similar in the past....I did something like Apps Guy said using the 9816 macro....basically I found the 3 corners using that and took the average to find the center.

Agreed....why change to incremental if you don't have to? I got rid of that stuff in our posts a few years ago.

Johnford's are commonly called "Junkford". Never heard of the Tongtai.

I believe Mitsubishi does make a coated grade for Ti in the BDX cutter....should work well. Run a dynamic path around the outside to rough it in....you will be amazed how fast it comes off.

^^^^^This^^^^^