The new Version 9.1 Mastercam Wire EDM program delivers many new beneficial enhancements as well as bug fixes.  This version release is part of our ongoing software improvement plan as we progress toward Mastercam X.

Listed below are the Wire V9.1 product enhancements.

·        New Thread/Cut point styles; STCW removed

·        Simplified wire point creation technique

·        New error messages relating to using new thread/cut points

·        Track wire direction between rough and finish passes

·        Apply corner changes to all corners using the Wirepath Editor

·        Implement Work Coordinate System (WCS) support

·        Add Optimize toolpath

·        Add post processor numbered question 1520

·        Simplify Cuts dialog box page

·        New color options in Wire Backplot

·        Additions to color loop and Backplot colors

·        Show rapid moves differently in Backplot

·        Cutter compensation arrows

·        Remove rapid moves in Verify

·        Lead flag in Control Flags dialog box

·        Change NCI Line 1013

·        Add post processor numbered questions (4003, 4004)

·        Additional post processor changes

Please e-mail any bugs or comments to the QC department of CNC Software. The e-mail address is qc@mastercam.com.

Prior to Version 9.1, creating these special Wire points took approximately eight keystrokes. In Version 9.1, the new Thread/cut button on the Secondary Menu makes the creation of these points much easier.  The new menus are shown next, with the new options highlighted in yellow. When you select Thread/cut in the Secondary Menu:

You will see one of these menus:

The Pt style option will toggle between T (Thread) and C (Cut) point style.  With the new Thread/cut button, creating a thread or cut point can now require only two menu keystrokes.

Automatic thread/cut point creation

As an alternative, users can automate thread/cut point creation by entering a Thread (cut) distance in the Contours section on the General tab (last page) of the Contour parameters dialog box. Mastercam then automatically generates a thread/cut point at the specified distance from the contour. Users can also control whether the thread/cut point is placed inside or outside the contour in a closed contour, or to the left or right of an open contour.  Here is the dialog box:

Important:  There are now two Thread / Cut methods to choose from.   When using the new thread point style, it is not necessary to use a complementary cut point with each thread point.  The new cut point style will be used most often to define a unique cut position.  If a new thread point style is used without a corresponding cut point, the wire will return to the thread point or thread distance when Auto position cut point is selected.

Thread and cut point styles are also associative, so users can easily drag a thread point to the center of an existing drilled start point or make simple modifications by moving the points after the operation is made.  With the old STCW, these points were not associative and would have to be re-chained.

Here is a close-up of the new thread and cut points styles in action:

Note: When the wirepath contains multiple contours, the window chaining option will not include the start point. You may use the Start point style, however, to define the start point coordinates manually.

To better warn users of possible problems with thread and cut points, we have added a few new warning and error messages. 

No thread point or thread distance defined

A warning is displayed when a user has not chained thread or cut points AND also has not set the automatic thread distance.

When no thread distance is set and no thread points are chosen as shown in the following dialog box:

The following warning is displayed:

The user can still create the contour paths with these settings and allow Mastercam to thread all chains at the job 0,0 point, but runs the risk of encountering the “spider web” problem shown at the beginning of this document.

To see this warning message, window-chain the following .mc9 file:

Shoe sole no points.mc9

Chain the contours without using entry points and do not set a thread distance and the error box will appear.

Unequal number of thread/cut points and wirepaths

This message warns the user when the number of thread or cut points does not match the number of contours:

The user is given the choice to re-chain the wirepath with the correct number of points or continue anyway.  At any time, the user may elect not to show the message again for that session.

To see this message, create a contour toolpath on:

Shoe sole some points.mc9

Use window chaining and turn off the color mask chaining option, which will produce an uneven number of thread points to cut points.

Users now have more efficient toolpaths when transitioning from rough passes (before the tab) to finish passes after the tab.  In Version 9.0 SP2, reverse cuts caused a move back to the thread point to start the final finish pass after the tab cut. 

In Version 9.1, the final finish cut will begin exactly where the tab left off, even if it does not match the chained thread point.

Backplot Reverse.mc9 to see this functionality.

When using the Wirepath Editor and changing either a corner type or UV arc type, the user may now elect to Apply to end of pass.  This setting will apply the changes made to a single point to the rest of the contour.

For example, use the following part (puzzle.mc9):

puzzle.mc9

Start with a contour with conical corner types set for all contours:

If the user changes corner types to Sharp instead of UV arc types, sharp corner types will be applied to all sharp corners on the contour.

The following pictures show the edit menu in Wirepath Editor:

and resulting part:

Open All corner types.mc9 and use the Wirepath Editor to change either the corner type or the UV arc type to Sharp starting from any point to the end of the contour.  Note that you cannot change the arc type when you select a sharp corner. You can change only the corner type.

Version 9.1 adds a WCS button to the Secondary Menu, which opens the View Manager. 

While the View Manager has a number of different functions, a common use is to create and name new views to be used as a new Working Coordinate System (WCS).  Changing the WCS is useful for parts that have been drawn as part of a CAD drawing assembly but cannot be moved by coordinates.  It allows the user to define a new part work origin and system view to create toolpaths on it.

A new Optimize option has been added for use when cutter comp in control is used:

Operating similarly in Mill, Optimize, when enabled, will output a sharp corner instead of the arc that was chained from the geometry to the NCI file.  This is desirable when very small arcs are output which, when offset, would be converted into sharp corner moves anyway.  If a very small arc is output to the control that collapses to a zero radius when cutter comp in control is applied, many controls will have trouble with this condition. By outputting a sharp corner, it is easier for the control to handle.

By using Optimize, users can avoid this condition because the chained arc is ignored and a sharp corner move is output in the NC code.  Shown below is the first pass of a three-pass contour.  As you can see below, with simulate cutter-comp enabled in Backplot, the NCI representation in gray (the phantom color) shows a sharp corner move instead of the chained arc.  The simulated control cutter path is shown in magenta:

  Note: Be sure that Simulate cutter comp is selected in the Backplot Display options.

Optimize contour.mc9

When the remaining passes are backplotted, you can see that the radius in the second pass also collapses to zero. With the third and final pass, the radius is used because it simply collapses or is “compensated” to a smaller radius the control can understand:

Second pass:

All passes:

Post processor question number 1520 has been added to control warning message display when the Optimize option is enabled:

1520. Display a warning when cutter compensation in control simulation finds an error? y

When this question is set to y for Yes, the warning shown below occurs under two conditions:

·        when cutter compensation detects an error on an inside arc move with the wire diameter equal to or greater than an inside arc radius to be cut

·        when a lead in/out move is less than or equal to wire radius

Both conditions could cause a failure with compensation at the control:

The Cuts page of the Wirepath parameters dialog box has been redesigned to more accurately identify (or hide) available or applicable features.  The choices for multiple contours are hidden or “grayed out” when only a single contour is selected.

For example, when a single contour is selected, multiple-choice parameters (All cuts together) are disabled (grayed):

When multiple contours are selected, however, more options are available:

New options have been added to Wire Backplot for color display of wire passes. Shown next is the new dialog for these options:

With the settings shown above (that is, with Color Loop by Pass enabled), Backplot displays each pass using a different color.  See the following picture.

Color options.mc9

The colors can be “looped” (that is, changed incrementally using colors in the color bar) by Pass, by Operation, or by Tool Change. Users can also control the UV motion (and XY motion) from the color dialog box by selecting different colors for CW and CCW arc moves. The UV motion dialog box is shown next:

With these settings, Backplot will use different colors for CW arc (blue) and CCW arcs (purple):

Backplot color loop now picks colors from a pre-set group of complementary colors instead of using a starting color and incrementing the color based on its position in the color table. This feature can be configured in the Screen, Config, Screen dialog box.

Also, the Start color selection has been removed from the Display sheet dialog box.

The new Display sheet dialog box is shown below:

The starting color method of color looping used previously produced a series of yellow colors (the colors from about 11 through 15, shown below in the red box), which were difficult to differentiate from each other.

In addition, the colors would continue looping without a using a consistent color for pass 1, pass 2, etc. With the new method, each pass number is associated with a specific color, so each time a pass 1 is shown, it starts the color loop from the beginning. For example:

Close-up:

Here is the configuration dialog box for the loop colors:

Notice at the bottom of the dialog box, a phantom color is selectable as well. 

Color Loop by Pass now works when cutter Comp In Control is used and Simulate Cutter Comp in Control is enabled.  The phantom color shows the actual contour “comped” and fed to the control.  The color loop shows the simulated offset of how the control will handle the code:

A rapid move without a preceding wire cut is now differentiated graphically as a dashed line.  Preferably, the wire should be out of the material when this move takes place, otherwise the wire would most likely cut or break on its own if it still is in the material. 

The next example shows the new rapid moves with the threads and cuts starting off the material.  It is not necessary to cut the wire because it is out of the material.

The image below shows rapid moves while suppressing cut move:

Shown next is the dialog (on the Cuts tab) that allows you to suppress all thread and cut flags.  The thread and cut points can be re-enabled in the Wirepath Editor for the first and last cut (since ALL have been removed by the suppress command):

When viewing larger parts with a relatively small wire offset, it is sometimes difficult to see which side of the contour the wire compensation will be applied to.  To make it easier to see, we have added new direction arrows in Backplot that indicate the wire offset direction. 

Note: This feature can be activated only when the Compensation type is set to Control and the Simulate Cutter Compensation in Control Backplot feature is enabled as shown here:

In addition, Open GL must be off.  Open GL, which is enabled on the Screen, Config, Screen dialog box, enables shading surfaces and the use of the Verify option (shaded drawing) in Backplot.

Here is an example of these arrows, which show the wire offset to the inside of this contour:

Note:  Arrows only display on line entities, not on arcs.

The arrow color is also set the Configuration file.  Select Main Menu, Screen, Config, Screen, System Colors. The last entry in the color list is Backplot Color cutter comp vector (shown below):

The color set in this dialog determines arrow color.  To turn offset direction arrows off completely, set Backplot Color cutter comp vector to the color 0 (zero), which is black.

In previous versions of Mastercam Wire, Verify (now programmed exclusively by Lightworks) included rapid moves that did not represent the wirepath properly. The next image represents the incorrect display.   

  If the wire was cut, a rapid move should not appear to be a cut.  The next image shows the new display.

Users can now set a Lead flag in the Control Flags dialog box, which you access through the Change at Point dialog box:

Previously both parameters 9 and 10 of line 1013 of the NCI file had been used to make the opcode, which is the number passed to the post describing wirepath type (contour, no-core, etc.).  Now parameter 10 is the full path name of the power library used (similar to Mill's 1013 line with the tool library path).  Here it is highlighted below:

Two new post processor (PST file) questions have been added to address the situation in which a control produces an error if acceptable lead in/out information is missing from a No Core toolpath. Some wire controls (Agie and possibly some others) require the first two moves and the last two moves to be perpendicular.

To add these lead in / lead out moves automatically to the NCI file, set question 4003 to y and enable both Auto exit and Auto entry on the No Core dialog box tab:

      4003. Force perpendicular first / last move in no core rough pass? y/n

The default answer is n. When post question 4003 is set to y and Auto entry and Auto exit are checked on the No Core tab, Mastercam will add two small perpendicular moves after the thread and two small perpendicular moves before the cut.

Post question 4003 supplements question 4004.

      4004. Percentage of wire diameter to be used in perpendicular first / last no core rough moves? 10.0

Question 4004 won't have an effect unless post question 4003 is set to y.  If question 4004 does not exist in the PST file, the default will be "10.0" (10 percent of the wire diameter).  Question 4004 was added because the default of one-tenth of the wire diameter could produce a toolpath move too small for some controls to handle.  Question 4004 lets the user increase the size of the perpendicular moves, if needed. 

As a general rule, keep the percentage as small as possible because the perpendicular moves created on the first / last no core rough move are not checked against any boundaries.  Large percentages could cause gouges.  

If you use a post from a release prior to Version 9.0, Mastercam will issue a warning with instructions to run Update PST. There is a new post update utility called UPDATEPST9.DLL, which will alter Wire posts to run with Mastercam Version 9.1. You will find this function under the NC utils, Post processor menu. For information on how to use this function and what it does, double-click the UpdatePST9.HLP file located in the Chooks folder.

Note: Even if you updated your post processors in Mastercam Version 9.0, you need to update them again for use with Mastercam Version 9.1.

Post Numbered Questions Information

Post numbered questions are now listed in text files that can be viewed using any text editor. The post numbered question file for Wire is Wire9.PNQ. You will find WIRE9.PNQ in the Mcam9/Wire/Posts folder.  (PNQ = Post Numbered Questions)

After you run the UPDATEPST9.DLL, you will find the following additional numbered questions:

Questions 159, 1503, 1520, 1521 and 1530 are added to all post processors.

159. Show first and last position as fully compensated in simulation? n

1503. Write transform operations (0=transform ops, 1=source ops, 2=both)? 1

1520. Display a warning when cutter compensation in control simulation finds an error? n

1520. Display a warning when cutter compensation in control simulation finds an error? n

1521. Number of controller look-ahead blocks for CDC in control? 2

The 1521 question is for 'future use'.

1530. Ignore work offset numbers when processing subprograms? y

The 1530 question directs Mastercam to ignore the work offset numbers while processing transform toolpaths for subprograms. If the response to this question is 'y' (yes), transform toolpaths will create a single subprogram number even if though the work offset numbers do not match in copied patterns. This happens frequently with rotate transform toolpaths. Ignoring the work offset number prevents identical subprograms being generated.

4003. Force perpendicular lead in/out on no-core rough pass? n

4004. Percentage of wire diameter to be used in perpendicular lead in/out move? 10.0

Support for Full 360 Degree Arcs

With some simple changes to the post, it is now possible to output full circles as a single 360-degree arc move instead of two 180-degree moves.  Refer to the UpdatePST9.HLP file for details.

Additional Post Change Information

All new post information specific to Version 9 is documented in a file called Post Processors - What's New in V9.PDF. This file is installed in the same directory as the What's New files for each product (C:\Mcam9\Whats New).