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| Greetings!
Mastercam Ultra-News will highlight important news and events pertaining to Mastercam software, since OptiPro has been an authorized distributor and certified training facility of the product since 1982. We hope you enjoy reading this newsletter as OptiPro strives to provide you with the most current and exciting information regarding Mastercam. |  |
OptiPro Volunteers to Help Out at NYS Automated Manufacturing Competition |
Judges Chris Parish (far right) and Tom Morgan (far left) with some of the students who participated in the Automated Manufacturing Competition |
On April 15, 2010, SkillsUSA held the regionals of its annual Automated Manufacturing Competition at the OnCenter in Syracuse, NY. Leonard Hall, who is a precision machining teacher at Monroe2-Orleans BOCES (one of the high schools that participated in the competition), reached out to OptiPro to send a CAD/CAM expert to the contest to be a judge. OptiPro sent Chris Parish, who has been a Mastercam Technician for 14 years.
The competition consisted of two teams of high school students across New York State working together to draw, program, and manufacture a part, then run that part on a CNC machine. Each team included one CAD student, one CAM student, and one CNC student. The three students received a rough sketch and were required to put the part into a CAD system and transfer the geometry over to the CAM student, who then generated a program for the CNC student. The end product is a part with an inspection sheet, CAD drawing, and a machine set up sheet.
The judges' duties were to answer qualified questions that the students had, and evaluate their skills. The skills evaluated were not necessarily focused on automated manufacturing technology and included, among other things, how the students worked together, was there a leader of the group, and did each student know their roll.
The winner of the competition will go on to state's. For more information on the competition, please go to the SkillsUSA website by clicking on the following link:
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Tech Tip: How Can I Easily Add or Remove Hidden Entities? | |
Mastercam's Hide function allows you to quickly erase entities from the screen and bring them back without moving or modifying the entities. [Alt-E] is the shortcut. Select the entities to keep on the screen and, when Done is selected, the other entities are erased from the screen. Pressing [Alt-E] again brings everything back.
Sometimes, we miss a few entities we want to hide or pick a few we don't want to hide. Instead of having to start all over, here are two more shortcuts to add and subtract entities from the screen.
[Alt-+] (alt key and the + key) to ADD entities to keep on the SCREEN. The hidden entities display. Select the entities you want to keep on the screen, then press Done. You can use [Alt-+] instead of [Alt-E] only to select entities to keep on the screen. You must use [Alt-E] to un-hide everything.
[Alt--] (alt key and the - key) to SUBTRACT more entities from the SCREEN. Select the entities you want to hide, then press Done. If no entities are hidden, [Alt--] has no effect. |
| Back to Basics: The Wirepaths of Mastercam |
This article briefly explain Mastercam Wire's five main wirepaths. For more information, please visit www.mastercamwire.com/.
You use canned wirepaths to select points and send them to the post processor with custom cycles and/or custom parameters. A canned cycle is an area in the post where you can assign special commands, cycles, or parameters to points or entities. Mastercam provides customizable canned parameters that you can set for your work.
Contour wirepaths have the same general shape in both the XY plane (the lower contour) and the UV plane (the upper contour). Contour wirepaths can taper inward or outward, and you can specify the location of the land (the point at which the taper begins), You can further modify the shape of the contour wirepath by specifying how Mastercam handles sharp and smooth corners. A contour wirepath can also be based on an open boundary and used for cutting off or trimming a part.
4-axis wirepaths have geometry in both the XY plane and UV plane. Where a contour wirepath derives a second contour from the geometry, a 4-axis wirepath can have completely different geometry in the two planes, resulting in different wire movement in the XY and UV planes.
No-core wirepaths remove material without producing a slug. The wirepath typically starts at a pre-drilled hole in the material and zigzags or spirals outward until it has removed all material within the chained geometry. Mastercam Wire requires closed chains for no-core wirepaths. A roughing pass is the portion of the no-core wirepath that removes most of the material. A finish pass smoothes rough edges left by the no-core roughing pass.
Point wirepaths create rapid moves that you can use to avoid a clamp or fixture on the wire EDM machine. A rapid move is a non-cutting move made at the machine's top speed and at a specified height so that the wire guides avoid the clamp or fixture. Point wirepaths are associative and can be edited by clicking on the geometry icon. |
| Maintenance Customers: Take Advantage of Mastercam University's Maintenance Class |
There is a Mastercam X4 Maintenance class currently on Mastercam University (www.mastercamu.com) that is free to all Maintenance customers. It is designed to help you understand the new features in X4.
A few topics that you will learn about are:
- Feature Chain
- Bump Nesting
- Toolpath Refinement
- Setup Sheets
- Dynamic Planes and Transform
- Dynamic and Rest Mill
- 2D High Speed Toolpaths
If you are currently a Mastercam Maintenance customer, you should take advantage of this class to either get up-to-speed with X4 or learn some new features that you might not be aware of.
For more information and to obtain the password, please contact OptiPro via e-mail (Lynda@optipro.com) or call 585-265-0160 ext. 236. |
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Sincerely,
OptiPro Systems
*Authorized Mastercam distributor and certified training facility since 1982* |
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