Mastercam NewsFlash February 2008

Coming Soon! Create Mastercam Toolpaths inside SolidWorks

At last month’s SolidWorks World 2008 conference, CNC Software gave show goers a sneak peek of its new “Mastercam in SolidWorks” product.

Mastercam in SolidWorks runs seamlessly inside SolidWorks 2008. SolidWorks users can now program their parts directly within SolidWorks using Mastercam’s industry-leading toolpaths and machining strategies.

Mastercam in SolidWorks includes a suite of the most sought-after cutting strategies, including high speed machining toolpaths and Feature based machining strategies. Also offered is a powerful set of automated cleanup toolpaths, letting users get parts off the machine faster and with little or no handwork.

Mastercam in SolidWorks will be available after the release of Mastercam X3, which is currently in its beta test cycle.

DASA Racing, Mastercam, and Centroid: A Turnkey Success

Mastercam and Centroid Corporation have produced a customer spotlight video on DASA Racing. DASA Racing felt that they had hit a wall in their advanced engine development, that is, until they brought in a Centroid machine and Mastercam software to program it. They attended training at Centroid’s facility as well as in their own shop. Now they have reduced their head porting time by more than 90%, and have opened up new avenues for engine design.

Mastercam allowed them to analyze their cylinder ports, so that they can fix areas they normally couldn’t even see with the naked eye. Changing the parts allowed them to reach higher horsepower than ever before.

To view this video, please visit www.mastercam.com/SuccessStories/VideoTestimonials.

Mastercam on YouTube

Mastercam has many videos on YouTube that might be of interest to you! There are videos about current Mastercam software functions, as well as customer videos. Stop by and check them out!

There is a link from the Mastercam.com home page that will take you directly to Mastercam’s videos.

Click here or on the YouTube logo to see the videos on YouTube now!

Creating Lowercase Box Font Letters

When you choose the default MCX (Box) Font in the Create Letters dialog box, all the letters will be displayed in the Mastercam graphics window as uppercase letters regardless of how you type them in the dialog box. For example, when you choose Create, Create Letters, and choose MCX (Box) Font, no matter what letters you capitalize, Mastercam will create all the letters as shown below.

To set the MCX (Box) Font selection to display a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters (exactly as you type them in the Create Letters dialog box), follow these steps:

1. Open Windows Explorer to display the files and folders on your computer.
2. Choose the \common\fonts\Box folder in your Mastercam directory.
3. Open the Box Lowercase X2.zip file and extract all its files to the \common\fonts\Box folder. Note: Allow the letters.dat file to be overwritten.
4. Create your letters to see that they display with both uppercase and lowercase letters.

To reset the MCX (Box) Font selection to always display uppercase letters, follow these steps:

1. Open Windows Explorer to display the files and folders on your computer.
2. Choose the \common\fonts\Box folder in your Mastercam directory.
3. Select and delete all the MCX files that begin with “char” (such as char033.MCX, and char034.MCX).
4. Open the Box Uppercase X2.zip file and extract all its files to the \common\fonts\Box folder. Note: Allow the letters.dat file to be overwritten.
5. Create your letters in a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters to see that they display only as uppercase letters.
   

For more Mastercam Tech Tips, please visit www.mastercam.com/Support/TechTips.

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