If your B axis is your tilting axis....and you are trying to rotate the C to do your bolt circle...the short answer is no, you cannot do it with a 5 axis post. You might be able to cheat by using drill 5axis, using point line selection method and have the line tilted .0001 deg or something. From an old e-mail from CNC Software... The kicker is the last sentience.

just saw this post the other day.....maybe a different way... http://www.emastercam.com/board/index.php?showtopic=32976

Basic explanation of TWP....wow. A couple of years ago I took an "advanced" class at Methods where they went through the theory of using G68.2 (Fanuc) and Cycle800 (Siemens)...they both work in a similar manner tho with the Siemens control you have about 5 different ways of using it....ugly words like Euler angles come to mind. A while ago I came across this site... http://bleiercnctrai...-machining.html . It is for the Siemens control but pretty much the same things apply for the Fanuc's.

Hey I have tried searching for the old benchmark thread to no avail. Is it still around...and if so, where?

I imagine with a little creativity in a Excel spreadsheet you can do this.

There are many other solutions to the Kaiser "Big Plus", Nikken 3-lock being one. All of them are great stuff....tho a bit spendy. Best thing to do is go with big-plus (or whatever ) on things like milling chucks, face mill holders, ect & the regular holders for things like drills. We got a bunch of 3-lock CAT-50 holders....talk about rigid...

Just curious...what feed rates are your roughing at? I know that on our MAM, if I am going at high feedrates (say 600-800 IPM), when running at a lower "R value" (say R3) I have to leave at least .025" or else I wind up rounding off corners that should be sharp. I notice this alot more on the Fanuc controller vs the Siemens.

Big time con.....I have never heard of or even seen an advertisement of machine made by "Quaser". Not that it makes it a bad machine....tho it does lead to questions about support.

lets see....just the ones I deal with... Matsuura's: MC560 MC600 MC760 MC1250 2ea MC800 VGII with 5ax tables RAIII Pallet changer ES-800 V-Plus 800 V-Max 800 3axis V-Max 800 5 axis <- Smoking fast machine MAM72-63V PC17 (yes, 17 pallets) H-Plus 630 Mori MV-40 Doosan VM-925 Toshiba MPF 2160 Bridge Mill (81" X 236" Travel) Toshiba BP-130.R22 Hoizontal Boring Mill (140"X x 90"Y x 60"Z x 28"W travel )

I can't say enough good thing about hole axis....It is a tool I use daily.

is there a way to change the color scheme?

The mold plus one plays very nice with mastercam...it will bring in all the GD&T data with it. CNC Software's just brings in the solid. The one I saw for solidworks (can't remember the name) was a joke...it would sometimes bring in the GD&T stuff partly in metric & part in inch. I have had some issues with the mold plus version....things like notes repeating themselves all over the graphics screen...tho all in all...it is the best solution I have seen for mastercam.

Cool machine....we got one of the exact same thing back in January. No lower turret means no sync'ing means mastercam can do a pretty decent job with it. We had alreay spent a bit of time with MPLMASTER to dial in a NL-3000 (with no sub) and the ZT-2500 (sub with upper & lower turret...you remember that machine) so adding this in was cake. This machine (the 2500SY/700) was also the victim of one of the potentially worst crashes I have seen in YEARS....The operator had a piece of stainless steel hanging out 3 ft out of the head stock.....at 3000 rpm it did what things do...bent 90 deg & beat the living sh!t out of things. We found chunks of sheet metal 50' away....not small chunks, but BIG. When you get your machine you will see....there is a sheet metal box on the outside of the enclosure/headstock. That was mangled beyond recognition and on top of the mill office....

James....I only wish we had Nak's. Currently we have mori's that are a couple of years old...so no built in Esprit. That being said...CamPlete's solution is by far the best I have ever seen....

That video is a joke. Check out the highly accurate machine simulation at 2:38. No lower and upper turret syncs. Anyone else wonder why we dropped maintenance on 3 seats of lathe? I have heard "we are working on it since...I dunno...like V9...5 generations ago...wow. Come to think of it...that globe could of been programmed in V9.

Make sure it is formatted as a FAT partition, not FAT32. Also if its a Fanuc control...compact flash seems to be the only one that plays well. Also, I have had trouble with the newer "high speed" CF cards. I stocked up on a bunch of the 128MB cards because of this....

Is there any way to change the data? After a bit of experimenting, I found a better tool to do the heat treated 4340.

here is a sample of code that I know works... code: %00008 N100 (PROGRAM NAME - 008.pim) N102 (DATE, Day-Month-Year - 31-01-08) N104 (TIME, Hr:Min - 09:09) N106 (T1 : 3/16 BULL ENDMILL ) N108 (START SPINDLE) N110 G00 G40 G44 G70 G80 G90 N112 T1.1 M06 ( 3/16 BULL ENDMILL ) N114 G54 N116 G00 G90 X-33.9035 Y.756 S2852 M03 N118 G43 Z1. N120 Z.1 N122 G01 Z-.0278 F7.00 N124 G03 X-33.93 Y.7825 I-.0265 J0. F60.00 N126 X-33.9565 Y.7562 I0. J-.0265 F600.00 N128 G01 Y.616 N130 G03 X-33.93 Y.5895 I.0265 J0. note that my comments are in parentheses and I have a line number in front of the comment. The line number has to be there AFAIK.

cool trick.....& yes I am also constantly running multiple sessions. Thanks for the tip!!

quote: It still cost more than Mastercam, but its more like 15/20% more hmmm....maybe time to call UG....better graphics and they support mill/turn.

CNC Software should be embarrassed about their graphics quality. I was recently checking out a trade magazine that was showcasing all the stuff coming up at IMTS. It had nice screenshots of different CAM software. Mastercam even looks ugly with a screenshot. Friggin ONECNC has much better graphics than Mastercam. I recently fired up an old computer that had CadKey 98 installed on it....A 12 year old program looks better than what we work with. quote: And, other software has better graphics and I don't see it costing more.That is sig worthy.....

In your WCS page, you will find that by default all the planes offsets are set to "-1" by default. This is NOT G54. Make them all zero...that is G54 (1=G55, 2=G56, ect) Don't ask me about the logic behind this numbering system....I believe many others have asked & I have not read any official explanation. MPMASTER does have a workaround for this...the previously mentioned "lock on first wcs". I works great tho it is my personal preference to use the WCS page & set all of the values to Zero (or one or two or whatever the case may be)

quote: I was considering Esprit for our mill turn programming, so being free would be a bonus.lets not kid ourselves here....NOTHING is for free. The cost of the Esprit seat is built into the machine. That being said....it is a proven fact that Esprit is far more capable of driving these machines than Mastercam is. Prove me wrong CNC Software....honestly...please prove me wrong.

With the right variable endmill I would not bother with peel mill. Just yesterday I ran an 1/2 Imco Powerfeed in A-36. 3800 RPM, 38 IMP. full width cut, 3/8" deep. Ran dry with air blast.....It worked amazingly well. I actually got the parameters from this video... (and that vid is in 4130!) So a different approach would be run down the centerline of your slot with 2 depth cuts, then at full depth take out the sides. However...using a peel toolpath you might be able to speed things up at full depth. Say 7500 RPM with 100IPM feed with a 10% stepover with a backfeed of whatever your max is.

quote: They wanted me to look into it until they realized that it costs $$ to turn it on.Stupidity at its best there. 1/2 million dollar machine & they are too cheap to put an extra grand or 3 to make it work even better. quote: whats funny is that our cheap old HAAS machines have inverse time capabilities..Blame fanuc there. This is my biggest beef with fanuc....every little thing possible is an option.....hell even helical milling (think threadmill) is an option to them.