[purpony]

Well I hope i made the right decision. I purchased solidcam today for my new HAAS VF1.

I looked at a bunch of different packages - Gibbs, Featurecam, DFS, Camworks, Solidcam, Bob-cam, mastercam.....

I really liked the DFS, Camworks, and Solidcam since they all ran inside of solidworks and i know that system and i am new to CAM and CNC programming.

I purchased the 2.5D professional with HSM 3D and Sim 3/4 axis with HSS.
Got a great end of the year price and the dealer i purchased it through is only mins away with a great history of customer support and satifaction.

To all of you using solidcam.... did you make the right choice?

thanks all

[mattpatt]

For sure!

I've tried a couple of other CAM systems but I always come back to Solidcam.

I love Solidworks and I really need something that integrates with it. I can't be having all this fuss importing my models into other software.

Play with it, and have fun with it. There's some great features and the post processor files are easy to modify.

I've had a Fadal 3016 with Fanuc 0i for about 4 years now and getting good posts wasn't an issue. And was certainly made much easier thanks to the easy to understand help files and the fantastic support from 'smarter them me' guys on this forum.

Three months ago my new Haas VF2 arrived, and within a couple of hours and a couple of .gpp file tweaks I was up and running. In fact within a couple of hours I had the machine pumping out boring mass production parts, and it only just stopped yesterday (12,000 parts later) to have a couple of days off for the New Year.

All said and done, a good choice.

Matt.

[ThomasRo]

I believe you did,

After spending money on other "solution",
Solidcam was the best decision i've made.
With Solidcam professor my employees learned how to save some time and $$$.

[MKproto]

I think you made the right decision. I have yet to come across a part that couldnt be programmed in solidcam. The integration into solidworks is great, and your package is what I started out with year ago minus the HSM as it was not around in 2004. As mentioned before you can really easily modify the post to your liking. I have a few different post that I use that are specific to certain materials and also ones for each machine .

[69owb]

We have a couple of seats of InventorCam at work (aka. SolidCam for Autodesk Inventor) originally we were using latest version of GibbsCam, not very happy with it so we demo’d InventorCam and MasterCam. We Liked InventorCam package with all the functionality that it offered, specially that it worked right inside of Inventor, and you can make updates to the model with out having to redo all the toolpaths. When they had the end of the year deal I couldn’t resist that offer to get a seat for my home-shop. Truly love everything that this software can do.

[foxsquirrel]

Just got my SolidCAM dongle this week and its working out better for me than Mastercrap. Made the first part without any training!!! so far its a positive experience.

[maparkopo]

You did the right thing.Solidcam is a one of the best on market and combined with Solidworks maybe the best choice at the moment
especially if you model your parts in Solidworks.I've been working with a lot of CAM packages starting with TC-APT some 20 years ago
and then Anvil 5000, Work NC and Hyper mill and on my opinion the best and the fastes for 3D programing was definitely WorkNC but
as overall CAM ( easy to learn and use, easy configurable postprocesors, a lot of CAM strategies and with HSS, HSM and 5axis module )
I think Solidcam is at the top and definitely worth the money you spend and you will be satisfied no doubt.
And remember one thing that the computer programs give you as much as you know how to use them .....
Good work

[foxsquirrel]

You did the right thing.Solidcam is a one of the best on market and combined with Solidworks maybe the best choice at the moment
especially if you model your parts in Solidworks.I've been working with a lot of CAM packages starting with TC-APT some 20 years ago
and then Anvil 5000, Work NC and Hyper mill and on my opinion the best and the fastes for 3D programing was definitely WorkNC but
as overall CAM ( easy to learn and use, easy configurable postprocesors, a lot of CAM strategies and with HSS, HSM and 5axis module )
I think Solidcam is at the top and definitely worth the money you spend and you will be satisfied no doubt.
And remember one thing that the computer programs give you as much as you know how to use them .....
Good work

What OS are you running?

[maparkopo]

What OS are you running?

XP 64 and soom migrating to win7 64

[Brakeman Bob]

XP 64 and soom migrating to win7 64

You will not regret that. I made that move last year together with upping my RAM to 8 Gb and now SolidVerify just flies.

[capsteve]

i really am curious as to how much a seat of solidcam would cost??

[Brakeman Bob]

If other software is anything to go by you will pay less in the US than here in the UK. Software normally priced in US Dollars (say) at $1000 becomes £1000 (GBP) here which means that it is about $550 more at current exchange rates.

What make the SolidCAM pricing so attractive to me is the software bundle with SolidWorks. That really is a good deal judging by what we pay for our Designers seats of SolidWorks. Mind you, it is only basic SolidWorks - no Toolbox, limited DriveWorks, none of the bells & whistles you fine in SW Office or SW Premium (but I can live with that).

[foxsquirrel]

Was not aware of a package deal, Solidworks was purchased long before Solidcam. If you design product the FEA tools are well worth the extra cost. I screwed up a design and caught the problem during simulation. This product required a casting so if the mistake was found in testing the product and everything else would have to be redone, that cost excedes the purchase price of a "complete seat" of Solidworks.

The integration is tight, I am going from SW into Solidcam then to a machined part in an extremely shorter amount of time and with out my blood pressure going off the chart.

FYI everyone on this forum that keeps telling me I need more MasterCAM traing. SolidCam is so intuitive I HAVE NOT HAD TO CALL THEM FOR HELP OR TAKE ANY TRAINING CLASSES, at some point I am sure their will be a time to call for support but so far its been productive and smooth.

[69owb]

capsteve

Here's a promo they just sent out today. take a look
http://library.constantcontact.com/d...EZ+Own-PRO.pdf

[TheBigJW]

capsteve

Here's a promo they just sent out today. take a look
http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1102073018002-228/EZ+Own-PRO.pdf

Is it ever refreshing to have a high end cam company release pricing on a public level. It must help everyone in the long run. Not like you know who.

Not allowed to discuss price on Emastercam. Might keep the dealers honest I guess. LOL.

John

[foxsquirrel]

John, When are you going to drop the hammer and pick up SolidCam, so far its been a very positive experience. Our old products are in MC and I had to tweak one today, made me feel like I was punching NC tape by hand.

[TheBigJW]

John, When are you going to drop the hammer and pick up SolidCam, so far its been a very positive experience. Our old products are in MC and I had to tweak one today, made me feel like I was punching NC tape by hand.

You must know. You made the mistake and invested money in Mastercam only to regret it.

I have to admit that I really like cad/cam software. It's the most rewarding and fun part of the job for me as a shop owner.

I just love Solidworks. Any gold partner should be a slam dunk but purchasing Mastercam in the past has made me gun shy. So many people say so many great things about Mastercam but it's almost all snake oil salesmen selling training books and subscriptions to training sites. It's how the old CAM sales model worked.

I will have to buy new seats of CAM software soon. At this point I can only tell you 100% for sure it won't be Mastercam.......

John

[jjacoby]

FYI everyone on this forum that keeps telling me I need more MasterCAM traing. SolidCam is so intuitive I HAVE NOT HAD TO CALL THEM FOR HELP OR TAKE ANY TRAINING CLASSES, at some point I am sure their will be a time to call for support but so far its been productive and smooth.

Mastercam is probably the cam system I'm best with but I never enjoy programming with it. Dealing with CNC Software is a real nightmare and In House Solutions is worse. What totally blows me away is the amount of free training on the Solidcam website and how incredibly awesome their written documentation is. The Solidcam mill manual done in Adobe PDF is 910 pages with loads and loads of high quality graphics. I have never have seen any cam program documented this well.

[foxsquirrel]

Mastercam but it's almost all snake oil salesmen selling training books and subscriptions to training sites. It's how the old CAM sales model worked.

I will have to buy new seats of CAM software soon. At this point I can only tell you 100% for sure it won't be Mastercam.......

John

Yes, MC sure did leave a NASTY impression, the SolidCam guys gave me a live demo twice!! If it does something Mastercam'ish I'll let you know, so far its been solid. Just did a 4 sided part yesterday and it was so much easier grabbing an origin on the corner, none of the MC BS rotate, translate,select your tool plane, construction plane and what ever this and that, just click the face, then check box to select corner. If you get down this way stop over and you can play with SC.

[mattpatt]

I tried MC and a couple of other CA systems, but nothing touched Solidcam when it came to ease of programming. I was already reasonably proficient in Solidworks, so within a couple of hours of installing Solidcam I was cutting.

MC on the other hand.........Took me about a week to try and set an origin, and no fun at all.

With Solidcam I can play with different strategies etc etc to get what I want and it takes no time at all. Brilliant.