Little known trick

[Turbine]

When rendering your toolpath, normally it stops when it reaches the end of all operations.
Rewind the render to the beginning and push Shift + ~ (push shift and tilda at the same time) It will now render over and over in a continous loop. Great for demo's and presentations.
Stop, rewind, Shift + ~ + left mouse click to cancel the loop.
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"The source of expertise is not in the memorization of the minute details of a subject but in the thorough understanding of the fundamental concepts on which it is based." --author unknown

[cadcam]

Thanks for the trick Turbine...

[Gibbsgod]

When working with geometry, surfaces or solids with multiple CS's you can rotate and repostition the features in 1 click. (very handy for orientating imported models.

Build a CS on the imported part (in the exact position and plane that the main CS would be in). Once the CS is aligned properly you need to asign the part (geom, surface, solid) to the new CS. Select part, then from the Modify menu select Change CS XYZ. (any purple geometry should now be blue and yellow)

Now activate CS1 (XY plane for machining), select the part and fromt he modify menu select Change CS HVD.

You should see the part re-position it's self to the XY plane and ready for machining.

This is much eaiser than finding angles to rotate the part and moving it by measuring.

Good luck.

God

[Turbine]

same as using "horiz. align" and "vert. align" buttons in CS palette? (2nd and 3rd buttons from left)

[Gibbsgod]

Not really. Those only help you align a CS to geometry. My thing was to re-align the entire part using Change CS HVD

Try this and you will understand better.

Start a new part.

Open the CS dialog

Rotate your screen view to an arbatrary view (dynamic rotate)

Right click on the CS dialog's discription bar (where the close Icon is) and select "New CS from VIEW"

Now you have CS1 (XY plane) and another CS #2

In CS #2 create a simple solid, or geometry. (this will mimic you creating a CS on an imported part).

Now activate (select from the CS list) CS#1

From the modify Menu select "Change CS HVD"

The part should move and re-align to CS #1.

Try it, you'll understand after.

Also, there is another thing in this that many people don't know either. The option for "New CS from View) This is great when working an area of a part and you need to get back to the same vew quickly, select you CS from view and then click on "Home View" in the view dialog.

Good Luck

[Turbine]

Very cool and thank you. I got it to work by first selecting the solid and using the "Change CS HVD" in the "Modify" pull down menu as you instructed, ....however, the "Change CS HVD" that is in the pop up window (by right clicking the CS dialog description bar, like we did in this exercise) did NOT work. Are these two the same function? It appears that they are/should be. Is this a bug? (I am current version 6.11)

I take tips like these and stick 'em to the wall next to me untill I make a habbit of using them. I now regularly use about 80% of all the ones that came in the old newsletters.
What ever happened to that newsletter anyways?? I enjoyed it.

[Turbine]

I am running two Gibbs (I copied the installed folder over again in another directory) on the same computer. Why??? You ask.
I am the only programmer for 16 machines. There are not enough hours in a day. One copy opens lathe by default the other mill. OR It's very common for me to have them both running at the same time to quick switch between two seperate files. (I work on two things at once.) ALSO it helps to deal with the "Walk in Clinic" people who barge in when I'm in the middle of something else, and I don't want to have to close it to show them what thier next program is doing.
My question is ..Does v7 do anything to deal with the, "Only one part file open at a time" thing? I can have as many as 5 different jobs cooking at the same time.

[Gibbsgod]

Well, on V7.0 you can run as many instances as your computer can handle from one install (one exicutable). There is also very cool support for opening two jobs and copy/pasting tools, operations, geometry, solids and/or surfaces from one part file to another. You can even open a part copy the tool list, close the job, open another and then paste the tools form the first into the second.

I have run up to 6 executable at the same time but, it got real slow. I have a P4 3.3gig, 1500mb 3200DDR Ram, 10000MB swap space on a XP Pro box and a ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128mb graphics card.

I would say for the average user with an average machine, 3 would be max, along with other stuff like, IE and Outlook.

Hope this helps.

[Turbine]

Swapping from file to file like that will be a HUGE improvment.
I'm getting anxious

[Turbine]

GibbsGod,
Here is a "crash test dummy" routine to try on new Gibbs v7.
Like it always has been...In order to sweep, 1st and ending geometry must be planar. Test to see if it can sweep along a spline. (We can sweep along any combination of lines and curves
as long as begin and ending are planar, but cannot sweep along a curve that is a spline.) I was never able to do that. I'm gonna put MasterCam to that test tomorrow. I'll bet it can't do it either.
That's bugged me ever since I saw a need (want) to do it.
It (original model) was done with Catia or UG. (can't remember)
(P.S. Read 1st paragraph of post#6 in this thread)
Thanks Turb

[Gibbsgod]

I am not quite sure what you mean. If you can attach a file for me to look at I can let you know.

If you are trying to sweep along a not planer spline, I don't see the problem. Here are a few images. NOTE the lables.

[moose]

Gibbsgod,
You make it sound as if you already have v7. I'm also a reseller of GibbsCAM and even I don't have it yet. What connections do you have?