Anyone using Surfcam and Centurion 5 or 6?

[moldcore]

If you do, do you use the rigid tap? Did you have to modify the post to get it to work? I replaced the G84 with G88 in Surfcam's postform.m file, but now get an "error 409: Z-axis excess error condition" when I try it. Any help would be appreciated.

The line that I changed in the postform.m file:

Tap
G<84> X<H> Y<V> Z<D> R<Vclear> F<FRate> RH tapping.
end cancel

The machine is equiped with the rigid tap option.

[3dmachinist]

I dont know if it helps, but we have been using Surfcam since the begining... "Windows 3.1" (But have not updated since v 2004
We also are running Fadals with Rigid tapping & have our postform.m setup with G<84.1>

Give it a try

[moldcore]

Thanks 3D but that's not going to help. I know the Centurion needs the G88 but I'm thinking I need to add something else, maybe a G98, I just don't know what and in what order or do I need to add a new line for rigid tap. I have two Milltronics, one with the Cent. 5 and the other with Cent. 6 and both give the same error. Is there something in the parameters that needs to be turn on? I looked but didn't see anything related. I'll put a call into Milltronics Monday and see if they can help. My Surfcam dealer was no help as usual but may have to pester him some more Monday. BTW 3D, you should upgrade to Velocity, the newer version has some nice features. Too bad they continue to ignore some obvious shortcoming in the program's interface.

[3dmachinist]

Sorry I wasn't more help.
Regarding Surfcam, we dont know if we are going to upgrade. We recently purchased Cimitron & am trying to decide if I should bite the bullet & make the transition to solids.
If you havn't heard of it, it does it all. (Solids, wireframe/surface, plots as good as Acad & Cam to program your cnc) Its an all in one software designed for the injection mold industry.
On the other hand I have quite a comfort zone with Surfcam...

[moldcore]

I've heard of Cimitron, they've been around for awhile. I heard good things about it but they are like most CAM software, overpriced and under supported. I heard Surfware brought in new management last year but changes, if any, have been slow in coming. My maintenance expires soon so we have a serious decision to make too. I have a friend that sells Feature CAM but we're not ready to change just yet. That’s another overpriced software that has separate add-ons that you need to make it usable. I've been designing in solids for seven or eight years using Solid Edge and Cadkey/KeyCreator and would never go back to wireframe, I guess that's why I hate Surfcam so much. I'll say one thing good about Surfcam, it's rock solid. We've never had a bad release in 10 years that I can recall.

[moldcore]

Problem solved, Milltronics pointed out that I had my feed rate too high. I had not noticed the feed rate mode in Surfcam was set to IPM by default not IPR, huge difference when tapping. Now I know what to look for in the future.