[toothandnail]

I am wanting to mill a flat oval with 2 holes in it
Program is locking up in the
2 1/2 axis -
profiling -
Select Drive/Containment Regions - I select that and get the box thats says "Select objects-hit right mouse to end" , nothing happens ? ? or it will freeze everything for 5 minutes or so ?(wedge)

I can Select Flat Area Drive Regions and it highlights the inner holes and the outside of the oval and has a small square box on the lines ,and says
"1 Drive Flat Area 1" in the box above that is supposed to define the area.

What am I doing wrong / or is this another "If you want that to work you need to buy the $800.00 program" ?

Which I am contemplating , but would rather be able to at LEAST complete a simple operation without the program locking up, before spending the $$$.

[AiR_GuNNeR]

Did you hit the enter key or click your right mouse button to end the selection process?
I've been playing with VM for a while now and have never had a problem with it.

[toothandnail]

Yes , the right mouse button is the only way to get out of the window.

When I click the perimeter of the inner hole , nothing happens , just the popup that says "click rt button" , nothing shows up in the dialog box on the right either, as it's supposed to.

I've installed the program on 2 laptops , and a desk top , had my son try as well ALL have the same glitch. Everything else works up until I hit regenerate , then get an error , saying those fields need info.

[toothandnail]

Well figured out PART of the problem , for SOME reason it's not recognizing something about the part drawn in Visual CAD ? ? ?

I can draw a simple part in VM and get it to work , but NOT with the part drawn in VC.

Are they NOT compatible ? ?

Am I supposed to do the drawing in VM ?

Guess I'll try that next . . . . . tomorrow , my brain is about FRIED(flame2) for today.

[BanduraMaker]

I would recommend scheduling a demo with the guys at Mecsoft. They'll do about a half hour online sort of thing with you. You can send them your part and have them work on the machining strategies with you.

It's obviously a sales pitch but, you get a chance to ask questions and learn about the software as well.


That and it's free.

[AiR_GuNNeR]

I think I know what the problem is. You can produce solids in VC, but in VM, in order to produce cutter paths, there is one additional step. VM needs edges for you to define cutter paths to. Select the Curves tab, and then the All Flat Areas, or Flat areas option. Click on the solid, and it will find edges for you. The edges are what you can select. If you are drawing in 2D, there is no need to do this. One other common option after this is to define the starting point. Select the path, then under the Modify tab, you will find the Change Start Point option.

[toothandnail]

OK , Thanks . I'll give that a try , I figured there was an easy explanation , I just couldn't find it.

Learning this stuff is like CRACK , I can't stop even though it's killin me(nuts)