[wonderemporium]

I have a strange problem. I've been using MadCam 5 beta and have now downloaded and upgraded to the release version of 5X. For the first time, I'm trying to use it on my 4 axis Mach 3 driven router but I'm having problems. I setup my machine with the A axis parallel to the Y axis (0,1,0) and set my axis of revolution to origin 0,0,0 direction 0,1,0. Everything looks right, the toolpaths look right by eye but in the simulator and in the post processed code, it's actually running the bit through the model and cutting from the inside of the cylinder containing the stock model.

I thought I remembered in 4.3 that there was a cut inside option or something like that and that you could specifically pick the line for your spindle axis but I don't see that in 5.0 Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[wonderemporium]

I found a workaround for the issue but I don't know exactly why it works. I rotated my object and my stock model 180 degrees around the rotation axis and reselected them. Without changing any other settings, the toolpath generated was correct. I can maybe understand if it's based on the original orientation of the object and it was actually facing the wrong way in ZBrush before I imported it but here's where it gets stranger. I Moved the model and stock model slightly to better center them, reselected them and generated the toolpath, inside out again! I rotated everything 180 degrees (back to the way they started) and now the toolpaths generate properly again. So I'm stumped at the moment. Anybody have a clue what's going on here?

[Mauri R]

Attachment 189648
Hi Wonderemporium,
Your issue is related to your Post and is caused by A axis Direction on your Controller.
Reversing the A-axis to suit your Controller.
In the madCAM options / Machine / Advanced settings, you can set the A-axis direction.
The default is (x,y,z) = (1,0,0). You can reverse the A-axis direction by setting the direction to (-1,0,0).

Regards,
Mauri.

[Gregore]

I had madcam do an inside out post once, it never seemed to do it ever again after I re-ran the tool path. It was a part that I had already run a few times so I know the part was good and the drive surfaces were correct all I was doing was changing the step overs and reposting . I think this might have been the time I tried a really small step over .... 0.001mm step over.
I started the cut and after a few minutes came back to see the cuts was inside out .