OK, drove m’self  bonkers (really short drive) yesterday trying to get Dolphin lathe CAM to spit out code that Mach doesn’t choke on.  I’m hoping Hood or someone that uses Dolphin can recall what causes this.

The part was very simple, just a light bulb shaped widget with 3 arcs and a straight line.  The simulation ran well in Dolphin but when posted Mach won’t run it & gives a radius start/end error message no matter which “Reversed Arcs In Front Post” or “IJ Mode” or G90.1 or G91.1 or whichever special post processors sent to me by Andre last time this came up that I tried.  The only way I could make the part was to explode the arcs into teeny little line segments in CAD before importing & posting from Dolphin.  I’ve used the wizards in Mach which successfully spit out and ran G2/G3 arc codes but they don’t work when posted from Dolphin.  I made the parts OK but you can see the faceting caused by the line segments.  It was OK with my customer but may not be next time I run across it.

Anyone have any suggestions?  Here’s the .dxf to look at if it helps at all.  Forgot to bring the code as posted by Dolphin & am at work.  If someone wants to look at the code I’ll post it up later tonight.

Do you have a front or rear toolpost lathe?

If I recall that is V10 and there was an issue with arcs but memory is sketchy. Seem to remember something about choosing a front tool  but saying it approaches from rear but that may have been for internal.

Hood

Thanks, mine is a front toolpost and yes, it is v10 Dolphin.  Now that you mention it, I remember you mentioning something about arcs & rear toolposts.  Something else to try!  I forget; is it rub your stomach and pat your head or BANG your head 1st & PUNCH your stomach to make Dolphin work?

If that doesn't work I guess I'll tell my CAD program to break the arcs down into much finer segments & mebbe the finished part will look OK to the the nekkid eye.  After all, long strings of code don't cost any more $$.   Hafta watch my budget these days!

It works well once you know the wee tricks to get it going right, V11 was an improvement in that regard but V10 is just as capable.
Hood