[rigo430]

I just went on the MasterCAM website looking at the new versions they're offering and i noticed that they have MasterCAM for Solidworks. Has anyone on here used or are currently using it? The company i work for currently uses CAMworks but i've always been a fan of MasterCAM. If it works just as good in Solidworks i might try to consider talking to the boss some point at switching from CAMworks to MasterCAM for Solidworks since i'm guessing it would be a better program for CAMing with and would only produce the single file that we mostly use CAMworks for. Any opinions of the softeware?

[Flankmanoman]

I have been using MasterCam 4X for SolidWorks for 9 months. They offer 2 packages. I needed the 3D abilities. It's a good program if you know SolidWorks. A lot of things that were done in MasterCam now have become reliant more on SolidWorks. I make guitars which has many geometric complexities and It took time to get it together,but now i'm liking it more.

[TheBigJW]

Beware of the hidden cost of Mastercam from dealers that may just jack prices as much as 40%. You may have egg on your face trying to explain a 40% price increase to your boss. Our dealer did this a bunch of years ago. If you are in Canada try and find a US address you can use to save a bunch. I would be scared to add a crappy software like mastercam to such an awesome product like Solidworks. Also no x64. So you are stuck in 32bit. Just my opinion.

See the post. "real cost of Mastercam" in this section.

John

Look at Featurecam or Solidcam. This way you may be able to skip the whole dealer crap and deal directly with the software company.

[Flankmanoman]

Thanks for the info. I never knew about dealers jacking up the price. I checked with Camworks first and am a bit disappointed that I didn't go with them. I've gotta keep my eyes open. Again Thank You!!

[Derek Goodwin]

I really like Mastercam for Solidworks, for basic Mill work (it doesn't support Advanced Multi Axis or Lathe yet)

You work in the Solidworks interface all of the time. I don't have the inside info, but it feels to me like they built the Mastercam portion from the ground up. It feels faster and lighter weight than working in a normal Mastercam environment, and of course, all of the drawing is done in Solidworks, which is way better.

Not sure about the 40% dealer markup issue. That was not my experience when I purchased mastercam. It's not cheap, but they didn't spring any hidden costs on me.

Mastercam Training Online

[TheBigJW]

See this about old 32bit programs. Including Mastercam.

64-Bit Technology

John

[Robin Coope]

I've done a few parts with MasterCAM X4 in SW 2010 and I really like it. The initial version didn't have enough machining methods but X4 is a big step forward and if they add multi-axis and lathe you will never look back. The particular advantage is that path picking is vastly better, and you can create solidworks sketches to use directly as surfacing boundaries for example. To choose the path you just choose the whole sketch from the tree, rather than laboriously picking lines. I never really got mastercam direct to work properly so I can't compare if that is equivalent.

Having said that, I'm having trouble with the verify function on one of the two computers I use it on. It pauses all the time and basically doesn't animate. It works fine on the other computer though.....