There had not been any updates to HSMAdvisor for several months now.
And there is a very good reason for that.

We have been working hard on a lot of new super-cool features and improving the old functionality.

BTW: This Update Resets the Trial Counter!

Let us cut to the chase.
Here is a list of all the latest changes and improvements:

• New Cut Cloud controls added (beta only!)
• New Cast Aluminum materials
• New combined Tool Torque and Deflection Limit controls
• New and Improved Tool Display Graphics. Now for Turning too!
• Lathe Tools now consider Shank size when suggesting chip-load.
• New Mass Edit - > Set SFM/Feed Overrides command in the Tool Database
• Improved Tool Deflection calculations
• Improved and refined a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff

I am going to explain the most important improvements below.

Read More 

From this point on, all holders of valid HSMAdvisor licenses will be eligible to free Life-Time updates and upgrades to their HSMAdvisor product.
Likewise there is not going to be a big functionality jump between the version 1.99 and 2.0 like in some other software products.

This release model is called "rolling release" and it is becoming the new industry norm.
It offers smoother transition and no steep learning curve for existing users. It also helps prevent unavoidable bugs when a large amount of changes is introduced all at once.Read More 

Being a CNC Machinist/Programmer is sometimes more than simply creating a program and machining the actual part, often times it is about creating efficient and accurate fixturing.

In this little project:

I had to machine rectangular cut-outs and drill holes through an already-turned steel ring. Then I had to part each ring to 4 equal pieces.

There were about 100 such rings that worked out to 400 pieces in total.

After drilling holes on an indexer I had to machine a fixture to hold my part through 2 remaining set-ups.

First half of the fixture consists of the expanding mandrel:

The work-piece would be mounted on it like so. A hole on the side is used to properly position it:

Read More 

HSMAdvisor the Hook for MasterCAM x9 has had massive changes since the last update

• Completely redone Operation Import/Export functionality
• Added "Insert Operation" command (Add it to MasterCam toolbar through Customize->Toolbars->HSMADVISOR->select item,select toolbar-> Add..)
• Reworked MC Toolbar Icons
• Better tool Recognition
• Added support for ALL milling (2d, 3d, HST) operations. 
• Fixed a huge number of problems including those with coolant, tool numbers and some unsupported operations.

HSMAdvisor hook for MasterCAM currently supports only MC x9.

Due to large amount of work I have done on x9 hook I decided to not port it to support x8. I simply have no time resources to do so. I only have one life you know!

Later versions of MasterCAM will, however, be fully supported.

Tool Inventory Control has been added to HSMAdvisor as a free feature for our customers.

Here is a quick video explaining how to use this new feature.

Should you have any questions or recommendations please let me know via email or support forums.

Did you know there are three ways you can touch off your tools?

Because of how Machine Offsets add up, there are several ways CNC machinists can set their Tool and Work Offsets.

This is especially true for Tool Length Offsets.

Tool Offsets can be either Positive or Negative.
Depending on your Machine Shop equipment you should use one or the other.

Regardless of how you set your tool length offset, you apply it the same way.
Right after the tool change and after turning on your spindle and moving to your X Y position above the part.
The very first absolute Z movement should be the line where you apply the tool length offset.

Positive Tool Offsets (gage line tool length offsets)

In the case of Positive Tool Offsets, the offset represents the Length of the tool measured as a distance from the Gauge Line of the spindle (typically spindle nose) to the tip of the tool. The longer the tool, the larger your Tool Length offset will be.

Read More 

Canned cycles are used every time we need to drill, ream or tap holes on our CNC machine

Standard Fanuc G-Code language supports more than a dozen canned cycles.

The most common cycles that will cover 99.9% of your g-Code CNC programming work are:

Subsequent holes

You can drill additional holes After your canned cycle has been initiated.
Any line with X Y position will be treated as another hole position.

Each position can have its own Retract value, feed rate and retract height modifier.

G80 - Canned Cycle Cancel Code

After all the holes of the canned cycle have been drilled, it is required to call G80 code in order to cancel the current cycle.

Read More 

We have some (I am sure welcome) addition to our family of tool types supported by HSMAdvisor.

The new tool type is "Boring Head".

This tool is used for finishing holes on milling centres. Also in this release I have made a lot of improvements to operation of myCut Database and revised ssuggested depth of cut for milling tools when used at low radial engagement.

More details on the HSMAdvisor Download page.

Regards!

The First Ever HSMAdvisor Speed and Feed Wizard hook for MasterCAM has been released today for everybody to download for free.

Getting it to this stage has been a titanic effort for me and I am going to put a lot more of it in the coming months: i need to get it to pretty much perfect state before i start forgetting how i did all those things.

Because of this each update i release will extend trial period by 30 days.

This will last for as long as needed to finish the bulk of developing it.

At this moment the following toolpaths are fully recognized:

• Face Mill
• Contour
• Pocket
• Drilling
• Circle Mill
• All 2D HST Toolpaths:
  Dynamic Milling
  Dynamic Area
  Blend Mill
  Peel Mill

The only exception is: Coolant parameters are getting lost somewhere in the process. So please double check it before posting!

Things to be added in the coming days/weeks/months:

1. Fix Coolant
2. Engraving
3. Other Circular Toolpaths such as ThreadMilling etc.
4. Conventional and HST 3D Toolpahs
5. Turning

If you have any suggestions or find any bugs please let me know.

I would like to reassure my current customers that HSMAdvisor Hook is/will be included with your license once this all is set and done.

Please help me with your suggestions/bug reports make this thing even better for all of you!

Here are the latest 2 videos i uploaded to my Youtube chanel

Setting up HSMAdvisor hook:

Calculating cutting parameters for Face Milling, Saving Tool and Cut data and recalling it when needed:

Cheers. And a huge "thank you" to everyone who has been supporting me!

Micro 100 Specialty Carbide Tooling company has approached me asking for a branded version of my FSWizard:Online Speeds and Feeds Calculator.

Customer requests for Speeds and Feeds amount for a large portion of their customer support calls.

I hope this partnership will unload their phones AND bring some new users to my commercial products such as desktop HSMAdvisor and FSWizard for mobile platforms.

And here is the link for the custom Speed and Feed calculator i made for them http://micro100.hsmadvisor.com/

PS.

A big. A VERY BIG and VERY GOOD news are coming to those of my users who also use MasterCAM  :)