New to Posts

[cncClintain]

Just started a new job and got a meeting coming up with the MasterCam rep to get the company's first seat. Ive never done anything with post processors. Everything I know is just about programming. I have four Mazaks and there are three different years and series of machines. Whats going to be involved with getting it all set up? Id like to have them all on the network but I might have to work with USB drives instead.

[psychomill]

So you plan on using Mastercam to program and use the DNC system as well right?

2 different things here.... If you're meeting with a dealer on MC, talk to him about getting post work done for your Mazaks as part of the "package" and including time for tweaking and fine tuning your posts for MC.

As for the communications... this is a toss up. MC includes comm software and while many dealers are pretty savy with networking on the PC desktop side of the world, many of them suck at cabling and setting up the machine comms correctly. You reference USB on your controls so I'm assuming all 4 of your machines are Matrix controls? Do they have a serial interface on board (RS-232)? Adapters and such will be needed to work this unless you plan on setting it all up as it's own network, Virtual LAN, etc.

Be careful integrating such machines into a live shop network especially from a virus protection standpoint. Machine controls don't care to have anti-virus running and in fact for most cases, slows the processing down considerably among other potential problems. Virtual LAN works best for this or just simply isolated networking.

Either way, These are all good questions for your dealer. Get specifics from them of their actual services and capabilities.