Just downloading & thought of a few c-hooks that I use daily. Has anyone tried to use Holeaxis in X4? Cimco's adaptive clearing? MoldPlus Catia translator? The first 2 are used everyday...so hopefully they will work or there is an update in the works... Thanks!!

Its funny how different programs look different....with Mastercam, black is the only thing I can stand to look at. In Solidworks, I use the default light bluish/gray backgound. I have tried Mastercam with that...but it looked like xxxx. I have tried Solidworks with the black...and it looked like xxxx.

James, The thing I like about CamPlete & parts like this one is when you level the relative velocity, you can specify a max feedrate....so when you go around the corner, it is not going crazy fast. I had only looked into the "Feedrate advanced control" thing the other day & it looks to have similar functionality as far as being able to slow down a feedrate when going around a tight corner....minus the realtime simulation so y0u can get an idea as to how fast the machine is moving.

Look into Korloy...their pricing is way low & performance is pretty good....they are actually owned by Sumitomo. Most places will let you "try before you buy" so you can't go wrong.

quote: If you look in your post, there are a couple of switches for feedrate. inv_fd_typ : 0 #Calculate feed location options #0 - inverse feed at tip #1 - min-max on flute length #2 - tip to pivot on tool length #3 - min-max on flute length to pivot on tool length You probably have it set a 0 Try setting it to 1 or 2 When its set at 1, the flute length definition will affect feedrate.. Set at 2, the tool length will will effect it. With a table/table setup, I did not found any difference when I played with these a while back.....no matter how I set them, the feedrates stayed the same. quote: It would be nice to be able to change this on the fly as some cuts need feedrate applied at the tip and others along the flute. This is one thing I have not had to play with (using CamPlete), but there appears to be a way to do this (or something close to it) with advanced multiaxis. Under the "utility" tab there is a "Feed rate advanced control" tab that lets you adjust your feedrate according to the surface curvature. Might take a bit of playing with to get things right....but might be worth a try.

quote: Forgot to add the caveat, what I said applies to FANUC controlled machines.Also works with Yasnac I-80 & newer controls....and with the 840Di with a few mods......seen this movie before.

looks good....thanks!!! Where did you come up with all the numbers??? Very good info.

hmmmm...going off the machinist handbook, the pitch diameter is #of teeth divided by the diameteral pitch....so 10/32=.3125. (internal spline is what it is) OD is #of teeth + 1.4 / pitch....so that figures to .35625 ID is #of teeth -.6/pitch = .29375 Way too much time yesterday was spent reading the handbook..... various online sources say that it needs a full root radius when using a 32/64 diameterial pitch, so I plugged that on in also. Problem comes when I try to 45deg pressure angle....the whole Picassa looking spline pops up.

Just got an old aircraft print....calls out for an "involute serration", but I am thinking that they are not quite giving me enough info to make it. Here is the exact callout... quote: Involute serrations per ANSI B92.1-1970 Class 7. 32/64 Diametral Pitch. Pressure Angle 45deg. 10 serrations. For .200 +-.005 Square. Is this enough info to actually create the spline? When I run the gear c-hook I can either type in 32 or 64 for the diametral pitch....and get 2 totally different diameters of the gear. when I put 45 for the pressure angle, I get something that looks like Picasso drew it.... Any help??

quote: the earth provides a convenient and extremely accurate reference for level.One of the challenges we have had leveling larger machines (bridge mill with 20ft of travel) is that we found that level is not constant....throughout the day it changes a bit. These are way handy for the bigger stuff....

% sign only at the beginning and end of your file....no where else

Thad.... Just curious, but why are you getting th card replaced? Did you have one go bad? I know that it is a fairly $$$ option from toshiba, as is just about everything from them. I can tell you that it is odd to run the machine with it engaged...it seems to read way ahead...so when you are running in single block mode, it won't stop where you typically expect it might.

I know there are a few people that have toshiba's with the Tosnuc 888 control....but how many have the SHAPE option with it. (basically high speed software) The little that I have played with it on our latest machine ( A MPF 2160, 21' of travel on the X, woohoo) all that I accomplished was "almost" scrapping a fair sized chunk of steel. Here is what I have goten out of toshiba.. G984 E1 = Roughing. This is was made me almost scrap the part....it does not follow the programmed path. its close...but not very close. the part wound up being .03 off...thankfully I left .04. G984 E2 = Finishing. After seeing what happened with the roughing stuff...I tried this. Still had mismatches where I should not of....a Mitsubishi AJX cutter at 175IPM, doing severl depth cuts along a contour...every now & then the cutter would step in or out slightly along the walls of the contour. G984 E2 F0 R.001 = ??? Whatever this code is, it was slightly better than the above mentioned code, but still not perfect results. Right now it seems the only safe way to run this is without using the SHAPE option.... Does anyone have any more info about this option? $200 manual from toshiba is on its way....

cublex w/ 40 pallet stacker. can never have enuf pallets....& teh 40 pallet stacker takes only a little more space than the PC2. Still waiting for the 72/63V size cublex....

In my pre-CamPlete days, I used to do a "dummy" operation before the op that I needed the orientation to be correct....as in do a point toolpath on an A-10. C90 plane (or in your Horiz case, B-10 C90)...MPGEN5AX will then follow that orientation (the c90) for the next toolpath. Downside is now you got an extra move that is not needed...but it will get you to where you want to go. Also, for this to work (I am guessing you are using MPGEN5AX) this must be set to zero code: #Force rotary axis reset at toolchange and other options frc_cinit : 0

quote: You could hard code this into your post so that when it index's it automatically retracts to a save position before hand.I did it like this.... code: ppos_cax_lin #Position the rotary axis before move - rapid if index, pindex else, [ if fmtrnd(prv_cabs) <> fmtrnd(cabs) & rot_on_x, [ sav_gcode = gcode$ gcode$ = zero if not(index) & lock_codes = 1, pbld, n$, *sunlock, e$ sav_coolant = coolant$ coolant$ = zero pbld, n$, scoolant, e$ pbld, n$, "G91 G28 Z0.", e$ #retract home pbld, n$, *sgcode, *sgabsinc, pwcs, pfxout, pfyout, pcout, e$ if not(index) & lock_codes = 1, pbld, n$, *slock, e$ pbld, n$, "G43", *tlngno$, pfzout, e$ coolant$ = sav_coolant pbld, n$, scoolant, e$ !cia ps_cinc_calc gcode$ = sav_gcode ] ] This was done on a horizontal boring mill with no enclosure...hence the coolant turning off & back on

One would think that if they give you the option (the box is not grayed out) then it should work. I will try to e-mail QC

I have just been playing with this & I can't get it to work. When doing an open pocket & "use open pocket cutting method" is checked, when I go into the "thin wall" section I have "Conventional" checked. No matter what I try it does the finish pass climb milling. It works fine on a closed pocket... X3MU1

I always miss the obvious...thanks for the help!

I have just noticed that in X3 when you us ramp contour around an arc...it is not outputting it as a helix, it breaks it up into a bunch of moves. Pretty scary since the default Linearization tolerance is .005...makes for some pretty big facets on a radius. Anyone else see this?

Out of the 5 seats, only one has solidworks installed...the problem child does NOT have it installed. The computer with the problem has XP SP2...so does 2 of the other seats. The remaining seats have XP SP3 installed. Hardware wise it is identical to one of the other seats.

SwDocumentMgr.dll date modified 9/18/2008 File version 17.0.0.6014 One other important thing I forgot to note was that it will open a .sldprt file just fine, but it comes up with the error when opening a .sldasm file. Its just really odd that all of our other seats have no problem opening the assembly file.

quote: Yeah, but the verify has been improved.Verify was improved in the original X3 release.

quote: I can't speak for the latest MU, but back when Maint first started, it was explained that "paying customers" (those on Maint) should get added functionality for their money. This would also encourage non Maint customers to become Maint customers. Service Packs would primarily be composed of bug fixes.This was my understanding also. I did not upgrade till now because the original X3 release had the extremely annoying highlight bug. [rant]Not counting the FBM fixes (which by looking at the forum VERY VERY few people use) there are 3 or 4 "enhancements". I am sorry...but a new arc filter means absolutely nothing for those of us fortunate enough running a semi modern control. Iscar provided a lathe library.....I would be willing to be that Iscar would be willing to provide V9 users a lathe library. Cutter comp with peal mill is the only thing of interest shown in the .PDF document....but I will be honestly say that I have never that I have never used this toolpath [cough]Cimco adaptive clearing[/cough]. I suppose going off what the past has offered us with what used to be called "Maintenance Releases" (Advanced multiaxis, HSM toolpaths, even FZT processing) the new "Maintenance Update" scheme is not exactly blowing my shorts off with updates.[/rant]

I just updated 5 seats today to X3 MU1 from X2 MR2 SP1. On 4 of the 5 everything is fine...but on the 5th I get the error "Cannot find Parasolid data in Solidworks file". The Solidworks file version is 2007. It opens fine on all of the other seats but this one. I have tried unregistering & re-registering the McamX3commonsworksdataSwDocumentMgr.dll via command promt (regsvr32 -u & then regsvr32). The system tells me that it both unregistered & registered just fine....but no go on converting the solidworks file. any thoguhts?????