We began milling today; two of the arm pivot points got milled out of random 3/4" MDF we found lying around the shop – which is all well and good, since I could only ever manage to get 14 of the buggers to fit on the 4' x 22" sheets we needed to buy. That saves us some money and proves that I'm not completely incompetent.
The FMS, however, is another matter.
For some reason, any file I import from SolidWorks comes out perpetually sideways; that is, even if I reorient the geometry in MasterCAM, the machine still decides it's a good idea to try milling the part in one dimension.
Saving the SolidWorks Part as an IGES file before importing it seems to fix that (though, to be fair, it has it's own annoying tick: a habit of making two copies of the wireframe – which, when you're trying to chain geometry, is very, very annoying).
All problems aside, we've faced the gauntlet and lived. We've got a system going, and two parts to show for it. Now it's time to buckle down and knock out the rest of the milling.
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