With all that education why do you only have an impression?
What were your expectations?
What do you have to modify about drill cycles? Why?
What MasterCAM features are you using?

Why should one really even need much software to drill holes?

If you have specifc complaints spit them out. Someone may have the answers.

jbtech

Thanks, Marty and welcome!

In my opinion Mastercam's drilling badly needs the following:

A user interface that allows you to set the depth of your drilled holes without the need for geometry to exist at the exact Z height you need.

A user interface that allows you to control the Z depth of your drilled holes using something like a "Holes Tree" in the Machining Operation Parameters. See link below for what a "Holes Tree" looks like.

An easy way to not only to do this but to later manage it if you need to make changes. It also needs to work on not only a solid but on 2D wireframe geometry.

The basis of how all this can easily be done is shown here:

http://jonbanquer.wordpress.com/how-drill-recognition-should-be-done-solidcam-gets-it-right/

As it stands now a Mastercam user doesn't have the needed control over drilling in Mastercam. It's yet another broken basic in Mastercam that doesn't get fixed release after release after release. Here are just a few of the broken basics in Mastercam:

1. Machining Operations Manager is filled with bugs and needs a total rewrite from the ground up.

2. The thin wireframe arrows used for chaining often disappear or don't show up at all and are often next to impossible to see.

3. Mastercam solids take too long to create and manage and are badly missing much of the functionality that's needed. There is no way a Mastercam user should have to click a button and tell Mastercam they want to enable selection on a solid. No other CADCAM modeler I've ever used requires you to do this. I should not have to create wireframe edges on a solid... they should already be there when the solid gets created. I could go on for pages with how out of date and broken Mastercam solids truly is.

Jon Banquer
San Diego, CA
http://www.jonbanquer.wordpress.com

Have you actually ever actually used MasterCAM solids? To make any parts?
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Why is it always a drilling problem? Don't you ever machine any surfaces? Or
do anything more than simple 2 1/2 axes? Or use fixture comp?

Have you ever used anything else? What and where and for what type of work?

jbtech