What's New in Mastercam MR1/SP2

Whats New in Mastercam X MR1/SP2

This release of Mastercam X serves as both a Service Pack for those customers who do not have current Maintenance and as a Maintenance Release for those who do. If you have active Maintenance, the title bar at the top of the Mastercam window will say MR1. Those without active Maintenance will display SP2. All users share in the corrections we made since SP1, but only Maintenance users have access to the newest and hottest functionality. We do not guarantee that every time we issue a Maintenance Release, a parallel Service Pack will accompany it, but in this case, we believe that an SP is appropriate.

Wire Mastercam X Wire

Mill Toolpath Editor Multi-Pass Thread Mill New High Speed Toolpaths New Dialog Box Layout for Toolpaths Core Roughing Area Clearance Waterline Scallop Horizontal Area Raster Pencil New Tool Holder Definition and Gouge Checking HST Icon HST Default Values Surface Finish Scallop 5 Axis Toolpaths Mastercam Editor Enhancements Mastercam External Communications Backplot

General Documentation and Online Help About Box Graphics Chaining Create Circle Edge Point Create Arc Tangent Bolt Circle Silhouette Boundary Clearing the Selection List Surfaces Solid Extrusion Chaining Solid Chaining for Toolpaths Subtle Interaction Change for General Selection Windowing Version 7 Color Dialog Box Layout Level Manager Contrasting Row Colors Reset Cplane to Top

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Router General Router Nesting Door

Bugs Fixed in MR1/SP2 Design Lathe Mill Router Wire

Mastercam X Wire The MR1/SP2 release includes Mastercam Wire. The MR1/SP2 release includes the first release of Mastercam Wire on the Mastercam X platform. For more information about this products features and functions, see the Mastercam X Wire Getting Started Guide, the Mastercam X Transition Guide revised for MR1, and the Mastercam X online help.

Documentation and Online Help

Introducing Mastercam X MR1 documents the major MR1 enhancements. It fully describes the new surface high speed toolpaths and the Toolpath Editor. This document is also incorporated in the Reference Guide. It is installed automatically in the \Documentation folder and is published only in PDF.
The Post Parameter Reference has been updated and expanded to include screen captures of all the machine definition, control definition, and machine group properties pages, annotated with the parameter number or pre-defined variable name for every field. A Whats New section describes the key changes to MP for Mastercam X. It also has been updated with the latest 20000 series tool parameters and operation parameters for the new high speed surface toolpaths. It is installed automatically in the \Documentation folder and is published only in PDF. The Mastercam X Wire Getting Started Guide covers the basics of wire geometry creation, wire machine and control definitions, and gives an overview of wirepaths and parameters. It is intended as a companion to the Mastercam X Getting Started Guide. This document is installed automatically in the \Documentation folder and is published only in PDF.

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The Mastercam X Transition Guide (Revision 1.02) provides step-by-step instructions for tasks that a user may need to perform when upgrading from previous Mastercam versions. It has been updated to include Wire tasks such as migrating power settings libraries, and using the new flushing options in the machine definition. It also provides a detailed procedure for moving machine and control definition files and post processors. This document is installed automatically in the \Documentation folder and is published only in PDF. In addition, the online help has been updated throughout to reflect all of the many MR1 enhancements, great and small. Video clips have been integrated with the online help for high speed surface toolpaths to complement the overview videos by focusing on specific new toolpath techniques made possible by the new toolpaths, such as toolpath filleting, use of tool holders, and linking strategies.

About Box With the ability to update your software so easily from one version or update to another, we realized that there is a need to report the date of the executable file and to give you details on any updates you have run. The Details button will open a new window and show you the updates you have installed to that point so you can tell exactly what you are running.

Graphics Until now, users running with a gradient background noticed that after deleting entities, a ghost image of those entities in the non-gradient background color was still visible on the screen. MR1 takes care of the need to refresh the screen by adding a stencil buffer to handle these cases. Chaining To make everyone more efficient in chaining, we have added hot keys to simplify the interaction. Now you can set the chaining method using the following keys instead of having to change the mode with the mouse: C=Chain, P=Partial, T=Point, W=Window, A=Area, S=Single, G=Polygon, V=Vector, L=Last, E=End chain, U=Unselect, and R=Reverse. Create Circle Edge Point A minor change was made to this function to have a 2-point circle rather than a 3-point circle as the default. Create Arc Tangent Based on user requests, we added more options to this function. Arc Tangent to 3 Entities, Circle Tangent to 3 Entities, and Arc Tangent to 2 Entities (Non-trimmed Fillet) have been added for your convenience.

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Bolt Circle This option is no longer just a .NETHook. It has been added to the drop-down menu bar under Create.

Silhouette Boundary A new C-Hook called SilhouetteBoundary.dll has been added to simplify the creation of tool containment boundaries for machining. It prompts you to select surfaces or solids, and upon selection, it produces entities that can be used for a tool containment boundary. The entities are created in the current Cplane at the current Z depth. At this time, this function is only intended for tool containment boundaries. The resulting boundaries may not always be accurate enough to be used for other purposes. Clearing the Selection List We received many requests for a simple way to clear the selected list of entities. Starting in MR1/SP2, if [Esc] is pressed while no function is currently active, the selection list is cleared. Surfaces Extensive work has gone into rewriting and improving surface trimming, creation of edge curves on surfaces, surface flowline creation, and creation of curves at surface intersections. All of these changes should make it easier for you to create, edit, and manipulate models as needed for machining. Future releases will contain even more improvements to surface modeling. Solid Extrusion Chaining We made it easier in MR1 to change the direction of the solid being created. Instead of having to open an option to change the direction of the normal arrow, pick the chain and the direction arrow flips for you. This is a real timesaver!

Solid Chaining for Toolpaths

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We improved the ability to set the chain direction when selecting edges and loops on solids. It now works like normal wireframe chaining. Subtle Interaction Change for General Selection Windowing We received many comments regarding how easy it is to accidentally begin a window selection by just clicking in the graphics window. We made a small change to window selection in General Selection and Chaining that will eliminate this nuisance. The first point of a window selection will not be created unless you hold down the mouse button and move the mouse before releasing the button. The interaction for window selection is now Click-hold-move-release-click. This may take a few tries to get used to, but you will quickly realize that it eliminates many inadvertent windows and reduces keystrokes. Version 7 Color Dialog Box Layout A number of users have asked about the C-Hook that changes the layout of the Color dialog box back to the dialog used in Version 7. We have included this C-Hook (V7COLORS.DLL) in MR1/SP2. If you use this C-Hook and then realize that you dont like the way the Version 7 colors were laid out, you can reset them by opening the Customize tab of the Colors dialog box and choosing the Reset button. Then make sure you open your Configuration file and save the change.

Level Manager Contrasting Row Colors Many users have asked for a way to turn off the contrasting colors used on alternating rows in the Level Manager. You can now right-click in the Level Manager to turn contrasting rows on or off.

The default state is to have the Contrast Rows turned off, and whatever setting you choose will be

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saved in the registry. From now on, the Version 9 Level Manager will only show the outlines. Reset Cplane to Top Many users have requested that we add back the functionality that automatically resets the Cplane to Top when you switch to the Isometric view. To accommodate everyone, we added a Configuration option to the CAD Settings page called Reset C-plane to Top in Iso Gview to perform this function. By default, this option is on, so if you liked the new way it was working in X, you will need to turn it off.

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General Router Block drill operations get their feed rate/spindle speed from defaults regardless of toolpath properties. We added a new and improved block drill definition wizard to the Machine Definition interface.
Block Drill Definition (details)

In order to take advantage of the new block drill definition tool, it is much easier to create an empty block drill from the right mouse button context menu in the Machine Configuration window of the Machine Definition Manager. Select the menu option as shown below:

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This will bring you to the block drill component properties page with an empty block drill pre-loaded into the station browser. Select Create from the right mouse button menu as shown below:

This will bring you to the new Block definition dialog where you can define a complete block and even populate the stations with a default drill with just a few simple mouse clicks

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New icons for easy aggregate tool identification.

Nesting There have been several changes to the sorting options available in toolpath nesting. The Advanced button in the sorting options group box has been corrected to open the Advanced Sorting dialog box.

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We also changed how database order works for this release. Prior to MR1/SP2, database order was actually the order the parts got nested onto the sheet. Typically, this means large parts first, and then smaller parts to fill in. This option is now called None (nested order). The new Database option respects the order in which the operations appear in Mastercams database rather than nested order.

There are two new check boxes available when using the Maximum Vacuum option. The first option allows nesting to re-order chains within a single operation that contains multiple chains. The second option gives nesting permission to re-order operations within each cluster.

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Door The Door program has been improved to allow better interaction with Mastercams Automatic Toolpathing (ATP). The level names are now automatically maintained.

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We also added the ability to export each individual door to a separate MCX file so the entire directory can be automatically imported into an ATP session.

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Toolpath Editor Based on user requests for editing capabilities similar to Version 9, the Toolpath Editor has been brought into Mastercam X. To access the function, right-click on the operation you wish to edit in the Toolpath Manager and choose Toolpath Editor. The functionality is the same as Version 9.

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Multi-Pass Thread Mill The thread mill toolpath has been expanded to support multiple rough passes, multiple finish passes, and multiple spring passes. Override control for feed rate and spindle speed are available for the finish passes.

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New High Speed Toolpaths Seven new high speed surface machining (HST) toolpaths have been incorporated into MR1/SP2. These are new toolpaths which include a new interface for toolpath creation. These new toolpath types are tailored to high speed machining because they offer smooth cutting motion and smooth entry/exits. But they are also useful for many machining applications because they offer several cutting styles, you can change the cutting style easily, and they have controls like steep/shallow angle limits, rest passes, and holder gouge checking. We plan to add much more to HST in future releases. There are a few functions in the HST toolpaths for Mastercam X MR1/SP2 to which we would like to draw your attention. For more detailed information on these new toolpaths, please see the Mastercam online help files. 1) Rest passes in Area Clearance and Core Roughing HST has the ability to define a theoretical roughing tool in nearly all toolpath types. The theoretical roughing tool is used to clip the toolpath so it cuts with the smaller finish tool only in places where the larger roughing tool didnt fit. This is similar to Surface Finish Leftover and should be used only when a small amount of material remains. The theoretical roughing tool shouldnt be confused with rest roughing. For this functionality, use a Surface Rough Restmill toolpath. 2) Rest passes in Pencil To use Pencil to clean up just the sharp corners of a part, disable Rest passes and limit the number of offset passes to zero. This generates a toolpath that moves just along the creases (corners) of the part. To use Pencil as a Finish Leftover operation (to machine material left by a larger tool), there are two methods available. You may enable rest passes and disable the offset pass limit. This will yield a toolpath with pencil and pencil offsets only in the regions where the larger tool wont fit. Alternately, you may

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disable rest passes and enable the offset pass limit and set the limit to a small number of offset passes (1 to 10, for example). This will yield a toolpath which machines the material left in the corners and might be smoother (and shorter) than the previous option. If you intend to use HST/pencil to machine the entire part, then disable rest passes and disable the offset pass limit. This will yield a toolpath which will machine the entire part conforming to it perhaps better than HST/scallop or surface/finish/scallop. 3) Stock to leave in HST When you switch from a HST roughing toolpath type (Core roughing or Area clearance) to a HST finishing toolpath type, you will likely need to reset (or zero) the stock to leave. 4) Scallop height in HST When setting your stepover for HST finishing cut styles, you may want to know what the scallop height is for your current tool. Change your toolpath type to Scallop, go to the Cut Parameters page and view/enter your desired scallop height. Then switch back to your original toolpath type. 5) Keep tool down within option in HST After machining a region and before machining the next region, HST must decide to either lift the tool or keep it down. The decision is made using the Keep tool down within option on the Cut Parameters page. You can set this option as a fixed distance or as a percentage of your tool diameter. If the distance is too small, the tool may retract or lift more than you desire. If the distance is too large, the tool may stay down on the part too long. This is a difficult parameter to set automatically because it depends on your material, tool, and other cutting parameters, but HST will modify the setting when you change cutting styles. This should work in most general cases but for some parts, you may need to make this distance shorter. Examples of such cases are one way (or down or up) cutting in finish styles or core roughing on small parts (electrodes).
New Dialog Box Layout for Toolpaths

The new layout will allow you to select or change toolpath styles of an existing or new toolpath. So if you created a Raster toolpath, you can edit or copy the toolpath and change it to a Horizontal Area toolpath. This will save time by not requiring you to re-select your geometry, tool, feeds, etc.

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Core Roughing

An intelligent algorithm that cuts the part from the outside in. This toolpath changes cutting method to inside out when internal pockets are encountered. This strategy minimizes the need for helical ramping or full-width cutting.

Area Clearance

This toolpath type is similar to Core Roughing in that the toolpath is generated from a set of surface profiles at different Z depths. Area Clearance is designed for clearing large amounts of material starting from the center of the part and working outwards.

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Waterline

This toolpath is generated from a set of surface profiles at Z depths and is best suited for semifinishing and finishing. Waterline passes are best suited for surfaces whose angles are between 30 and 90 degrees.

Scallop

This toolpath will generate 3D passes at a constant distance from each other along the surface of the part.

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Horizontal Area

Flat areas are found and passes are created at each of those levels.

Raster

This toolpath type includes a set of parallel passes with a stepover along a line at a set angle. Similar to Finish Parallel.

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Pencil

This toolpath will identify all the seams of the part and develop a toolpath along those seams. Additional cuts can be added that are offset from the initial pass. This toolpath style was introduced in Mastercam X and has been enhanced in MR1.

New Tool Holder Definition and Gouge Checking

This new interface, built into the new style dialogs, allows you to define a holder (or choose one from a library) and gouge-check the holder during toolpath generation. The Holder clearance option allows you to enter an additional holder clearance value.

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HST Icon

An entry has been made in the function table so that an icon can be placed on any toolbar to activate the High Speed Toolpaths.
HST Default Values

Additional formulas have been added for many fields in the HST toolpath pages. These formulas allow the default values to be calculated from the selected tool geometry. The result is a set of defaults that will yield a very good toolpath with little user input. Surface Finish Scallop A new check box called Sharp corner smoothing has been added to the Surface Finish Constant Scallop parameters page.

When this check box is turned on, it enables smoothing of the Scallop 3D Collapse cut motion. This smoothing process only works on the toolpath motion associated with a given 3D Collapse cut. It has nothing to do with smooth entry/exit motion for a given toolpath cut. 5 Axis Toolpaths

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Swarf5ax currently creates upper and lower rails when surfaces are selected as the walls. These rails are always divided proportionately to create uniformly spaced tool vectors. There have been several requests to provide an option for Swarf to use the existing rulings when surfaces are selected as the walls.

A check box called Use Wall Surface Rulings was added to the Swarf 5-axis Parameters dialog box. This check box is only enabled when surfaces are selected for the walls and only with 5-axis output.

Mastercam Editor Enhancements We have added several new NC functions for this release. Find XYZ Extents Mark All Tool Changes Next tool Previous tool Add Block Numbers Remove Block Numbers Remove Spaces

We also added the ability to configure what extensions the editor recognizes as NC code. By selecting Options from the Tools menu, you can add additional extensions to the dialog shown below.

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Mastercam External Communications The communications software includes several corrections including: Assert RTS or DTR line when corresponding advanced port settings are used with Software Handshaking or No Handshaking methods. Empty lines are no longer stripped from files. Correction to Port in use error

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Backplot New functionality in Backplot:

The two new buttons are shown in the red box. Left button enables the Restrict mode. Right button resets back to Show all.

When the Restrict button is selected, all current plotted toolpaths are erased. The remaining path from this restrict point to the end of the selected toolpaths now becomes the entire extents of the path that can be plotted. The backplot progress slider will reset, with the entire slider range representing the remaining toolpath that can be displayed from the current restrict position onward. You can continue to plot the path and click the Restrict button as many times as desired. Each time, the toolpath remaining (from the restrict position to the end) becomes the entire path that can be plotted. To clear from the restrict mode, click the Reset button.

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