Mastercam.X3

What’s Coming in Mastercam X3?
T he release of Mastercam X3 is right around the corner, so we want to provide you with a peek at
some of the hot features that Mastercam X3 will be delivering to you!
Mastercam Mill
• Feature Based Machining – Mastercam’s new FBM (available for Mill Level 1 and higher) makes it
significantly easier to machine prismatic solids by automating the machining process. FBM offers
shops dramatic reductions in programming time by automatically evaluating a solid part and
programming pockets, contours, bosses, and drilling routines with minimal user input. It even
chooses appropriate tools from a list of preferred tools or libraries.
• 2D High Speed Toolpaths – A new entry to the Toolpaths menu, 2D High Speed is set of five
toolpaths optimized for high speed and hard milling. These new toolpaths use a new interface that
will eventually be expanded to include all toolpaths in the future.
• Multiaxis – General speed improvements were made in the processing time of the Multiaxis
toolpaths.

Mastercam Lathe
Tool Catalog and Library Changes –Sandvik and Kennametal® tool catalogs have been completely updated
and rebuilt. A new VTL right turret tool library was added with some basic tooling correctly oriented.

Mastercam Wire
Multiple 4-Axis Wirepaths in One Operation – You can now combine multiple 4-axis wirepaths in a single
operation by using appropriate chaining and point selection techniques.

Please remember, this is only a smal sampling of the new features that X3 has to offer – there are

important enhancements in all products. Look for the 3rd Quarter Customer Newsletter, our X3 focus issue!astercam’s Advanced Multiaxis Tools Mastercam has powerful Advanced Multiaxis
tools that you will find extremely useful when faced with generating toolpaths for 5-axis
machines.Plunge Roughing – Plunge roughing is an excellent way of removing material when you
need to use long tools. You can plunge rough in layers, picking away at material with much less
side deflection forces than conventional multi-pass operations.

Stock Recognition – This feature can really save you time. It is simple to
use and works every time! The toolpath is trimmed to the stock boundary,and you can even extend
it either by a percentageof the cutter diameter or by a specific value.Stock Recognition works
with every roughing method, including plunge roughing. One Mastercam customer shaved 60%
off cycle time on roughing one of their impellers by using the Stock Recognition feature.

Govern Cut Pattern – Mastercam has the ability to govern the cut
pattern by one set of surfaces, while cutting another. In this example,
the hub surface is used as the cut pattern. The blade surfaces are
the driver surfaces, but all cuts are parallel to the hub.
Dynamic Tool Axis Control – In the previous example, the drive surfaces are the blade and
the fillets between the blade and hub. The blade is warped, so you can use a Swarf cut. A tapered
ball nose cutter is preferred for rigidity. You can specify a side tilt angle you wish to maintain, but that would not work well on the fillet. Mastercam’s Advanced Multiaxis tools let you tilt away with a lead/lag or side tilt angle if any part of the tool (cutter, shank, arbor, or holder) gets within a specified range of any drive or check surfaces.

Morph Between 2 Curves – This very versatile toolpath strategy can be used on many different
parts.

Dynamic Incremental Tool Axis Change – This feature lets you machine the part completely in
one shot. Cuts Along Curve – You can create a line, arc, chain, or spline. Your cut pattern will be the result of perpendicular slices to it along the drive surfaces. When you are cutting ports, you don’t need to split your surfaces from one side to the next. You can simply create a spline and break it to control how far you wish to cut from either side.