Re: The First No Bullshit Blog Devoted To Telling The Truth About Both CAD And CAM

Actually Cliff, I'm an AE for a Machine Tool Dealer in SoCal and believe it or not, Jon was actually one of my customers for about a month or so (perhaps longer - not sure when he actually started where he was at). Didn't end up staying too long after we had spoken a few times on the phone for whatever reason. Had some good intelligent questions for a change. I was able to provide some useful information to him. He uncovered a bug in Fanuc's Manual Guide-i that I was unaware of (but that the builder in question was aware of) Regardless of my personal feelings towards him and his opinions, I treated him like I treat every other customer; with class, respect, dignity and "go the extra mile".

"Latest really good one was a few days ago ... he wanted MasterCAM to automatically "link"/select the active WCS to whatever > view he was looking at."

YIKES!!!!! I'm SOOOOOO glad CNC does not listen to him! That could be catastrophic.

"I gathered that only two had been banned there over all of time. Perhaps oth jb?"

IIRC, there have been 5 or 6 bans total.. JB 2x, Kuei (sp?) 2x, and some guys named "mult-ax" (i believe) 2x as well. For over 8 years, over 380,000 posts, and over 20,300 registered members, that's pretty remarkable really. It's a testament to the quality of it's membership IMHO. Yeah we get a little out of hand on occasion on the Off Topic area, but by and large, it's a great group of users with a WIDE variety of skillsets.

"Buzz Word Salad"... WOW!!! Now THAT'S FUNNY!!!!! Can I use that??? ROFL!!!! That's a VERY good observation.

So you heard the rant on background editing with PCMCIA card and the G12-G13 issue.

I even went so far as to write him a FANUC macro to get him started if he felt G12-G13 were so valuable

doubt he ever did anything with or about it.

Tom

"...So you heard the rant on background editing with PCMCIA card..." Yes. It was a known issue (but not to me). I don't know if there is any resolution yet. My understanding is that there were 3 people that experienced it. There is a workable solutin that involves some parameter changes and the purchase of the Background Edit Option.8-/ Don't shoot the messenger.

"...G12-G13 issue..." I was unaware of that. I have a G12-G13 MACRO that I give to customers that ask for it. In all honesty RARE is the company with a $500k HMC that they manually write code for and request it. Usually it's asked for my companues with VMC's and small shops. Nearly all the companies I know of use a CAD/CAM system. It's just a little more productive that way IMHO.

As a customer he asked me the kinds of questions I like as an AE - challenging, ones that make me do some digging and looking, and cause me to think about things a little differently ON THE MACHINE SIDE. IMHO he does not know enough about Mastercam to give the kinds of assessments he is giving, again only IMHO.

James, is that particular company still in business?

What about non-customers?

I like to see how others write macros.

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

Tom

"James, is that particular company still in business? "

AFAIK yes. I don't know (and don;t want to) know the particulars of his departure. NOMB

I don't believe in programming at the machine so we are on the same page there. However for boring a set of soft jaws to hold a round part as a canned cycle it can be a handy little tool.

Tom

get >drive curves (to chain). Can this be true? I'd have just used the drive surfaces but ...

Depending on the topology of the feature(s) you may need to extract wireframe. It just depends. I'd have to see it do determine what's necessary.

Often times I find that a little training goes a LOOOOOOOONG way with Mastercam, or any other relatively involved piece of software. That's not to say people can;t figure out things for themselves because people do every day, but taking a class to learn the basics helps. As a matter of fact, I sat in on a class a while back and I have well over a decade of experience with it and was able to pick up some cool things, shortcuts and tips. Definitely worth the time investment IMHO.

Changing depths... :headscratch: Ummmmmmm.... if you select your chain that is modeled in the correct location relative to the other features, select the top of the stock and have depth cuts selected, it should do what's necessary to cut multiple depths... again I'd have to see what we're talking about to make an educated evaluation.

ote:

Don't know..

Ummm, it actually has 11 Pallets... but that's ok, who's counting Actually 11 is a somewhat odd number in his defense.

When is having a Post and Run Post Processor NOT a priority??? :headscratch: Possibly when all you do is ask for stuff and never actually accomplish anything??? (just thinking out loud and not saying anything in particular)

I think that was my first question IIRC. His answer was no. Matsuuras with 30i Controls run in Manual Guide-i always - unless you change the

14000 paramaters to operate with the standard FANUC Operator Interface. Now the bug/issue is between Loading Programs via PCMCIA/ MEM CARD... while the machine is in cycle. I don;t knwo all the particulars so I will not elaborate further. On other machines with 31i controls, this can be accomplished (reading programs into memory while the machie is in cycle) I even wrote a procedure with Control Screen Shots and everything.

And poseur:

[ You never chain geometry in Gibbs or SmartCAM. It's not necessary. ] - Jon Banquer - May 20, 2005 [ Create the elements in any order, and sequence them later, using modeling tools such as Chain. ] -SmartCAM Manual -

------------------ [ I h>Now a quickie explanation about the Machining Markers.

Can you show us how you "chained" that geometry in Gibbscam, Bob? ] - Jon Banquer- [ For someone like Dr. Battleboob, GibbSCAM is the PERFECT system. ] -Jon Banquer-

Jon did you even read Bob's post, the one you copied above?

I can show you how the geometry in GibbsCAM is chained. Here you go, the program needs to know this as a minimum to chain:

1) profile start 2) profile end 3) direction 4) offset

So lets look at machining markers and what Bottle Bob describes:

1) start: "The white round marker is where the toolpath starts," 2) end: "the black round marker is where it ends." 3) direction: "blue arrow is the direction" 4) offset: "they tell the tool to either go on the outside of the geometry, the inside of the geometry, OR centered on the geometry."

Now if BB clicks on the blue arrow and reverses it he just reversed the chain direction. If BB clicks on the white box and drags it to another position he just edited the chains start point.

You can call it "Chaining" (since that is the original widely accepted term) or you can call it "Machining Markers", hell you can even call it "Santa Clause" if you want as long as it tells the CAM program where the profile start, end, direction and offset is. All CAM programs have to know that information in order to calculate the offset tool path by any other name it's still "chaining". ] -Tom-

good to see you around here James!!

Hello Darrell,

Jon besmirched my name and my favorite online community so I felt compelled to defend myself as well as eMastercam(even though it stands on it'sa own merits well enough by itself) because what he said was an outright lie. New people may someday read his rant and decide based on that - eMastercam is not an useful resource for Mastercam users.

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