[bmwjoe]

Hi,

I am a complete newbie at CAM software. I have an R&D shop with two very experienced machinists that have been making great parts for me with a manual Hardinge lathe and a Bridgeport EZ track mill. I just took delivery of a Haas TM-1P mill and ST-10 lathe. I was thinking that we could do the programming conversationally, but that will not quite cut it for the mill.

Our products are not too complicated from a machining standpoint. They are blocks with holes and threads, valve seats and solenoid stems etc. There is no complicated surfacing. The design work is done on SolidWorks and NX (mostly SolidWorks). We already have solid models for all of the parts. the machinists know some G-code and we have a few guys that write code directly for production parts.

I want CAM software that I can run from the SolidWorks environment and not too hard to learn. From researching the Haas and SolidWorks websites I fond that:

BobCad-Cam
Mastercam
Gibbs CAM
Esprit

May do the trick. Any pros or cons on any of the above packages? Suggestions welcome.

Cheers,

Joe

[hub]

Also take a look at solidcam, just as an idea. Works great inside solidworks.

[Daves12]

I've heard that CAMWorks is fully integrated and designed exclusively to operate in SolidWorks. It also offers knowledge-based, feature recognition and associative machining capabilities within SolidWorks.


You could ask for a trial version to start with.

- Dave

[DareBee]

HSMworks has a free version that gives you 2.5D.
Give it a try, until you know what you are doing and then purchase if needed.
BTW, this free version is extremely good software (I am looking right in the horses mouth).