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The ‘General’ section of the General Tab is an expandable/collapsible section that ; it enables you to do the following:

  • Specify the machining environment ('Tool library' and ‘Stock material’): ‘Tool library’and 'Stock material’.

  • Edit the properties of the chosen ‘Machine’.

  • Specify the ‘Machining mode’.

Layout

The layout of the ‘General’ section changes depending on your action for the following:

  • Machine - clicking the drop-down arrow for the Machine displays a set of properties that CAM Assist needs to compute a toolpath strategy.

  • Machining mode - selecting CAM Assist provides two modes: ‘3+2 Axis’ displays the Machining direction options,and ‘3 Axis’.

  • Machining direction - displayed when the selected Machining mode is ‘3+2 Axis’.

The screenshot to the right shows all of the ‘General’ section’s features, including the ‘Machine’ properties and the ‘Machining direction’ options.

For more information on each of these above features, see below.

image-20240617-081808.png

Features

The following table describes each feature in the ‘General’ section, as shown in the screenshot above.

Feature

Description

How to Use

Tool library

Lists all of the Mastercam tool libraries available to CAM Assist.

  • Click the down arrow to select from the Tool library list.

  • Click image-20240612-095343.png to refresh CAM Assist (if you change the selected Tool library).

  • Click image-20240612-095753.png to select a system-level folder containing tool libraries.

Tool Summary

Shows a summary of the tool, including the following:

  • Number of tools - the number of tools in the selected ‘Tool Library’.

  • Number of tools for material - the number of tools in the selected ‘Tool library’ that can be used on the selected ‘Stock material’.

This feature is display only.

Stock material

Lists all of the materials that you can use in CAM Assist (see Supported Materials).

Info

CAM Assist will select tools, machining strategies, and cut parameters based on the Stock material you select.

Click the down arrow to select the Stock material you want to use.

Machine

Shows the machine that will be used for the part. The machine is configured within Mastercam but there is a set of properties that CAM Assist requires to compute toolpath strategies.

Follow the instructions to the right to check/amend the CAM Assist ‘Machine properties’.

  1. Click the down arrow image-20240612-102523.png to the right of the machine name.

    • ‘Machine’ will expand to display the required Machine properties.

image-20240613-090601.png

  1. The properties can be amended as follows:

    • Enter the value directly into the box.

    • Use the up/down arrow to increment/decrement the displayed value.

  2. After ensuring the properties are correct, you may click the up arrow to collapse/hide the Machine properties.

Machining mode

See Machining mode, below.

Machining direction

Only displayed when ‘3+2 Axis' is selected for the Machining mode (see Machining mode, below).

Machining mode

Depending on which Machining mode is selected, the layout of the ‘General’ section changes, as shown in the following side-by-side screenshots.

Layout if the ‘3 Axis’ Machining mode is selected

image-20240612-101039.png

Layout if the ‘3+2 Axis’ Machining mode is selected

image-20240612-100912.png

Machining mode choices

As can be seen from the above screenshots, CAM Assist provides the following Machining mode choices:

  • 3 Axis

  • 3+2 Axis - if selected then a Machining direction is required:

    • Aligned to X, Y, Z axes - the tool orientation used to create toolpath strategies can only come from the +X, -X, +Y, -Y, and +Z axes.

    • User defined - the tool orientation comes from the orientation specified by the user in the Target setup(s) within CAM Assist.

    • Automatic - automatic 3+2 strategies are only available for evaluation through participation in CloudNC’s ‘Early Access Beta Program'.

Info

 For detailed step-by-step instructions on using all four choices, see Machining modes in the 'How-to Guides' section.