[niallwc]

Hi everyone, this is my first CNC zone post. I have started a university placement a few months ago at a racing car manufacturer. We have an in house CNC mill, router and lathe. I am in charge or running all three. We use PTC Pro/E to model everything and also to create machining routines. It also had a built in post processor. However, it is quite a complicated and long process to get it working.

I have been told that SolidCAM is very easy to use but I would need to convert the models. I also understand that a 3rd party post processor is needed.

My question to you all is, has anyone had any expericence in using both packages and if so which one would you recommend? Also can anyone recommend a good post processor of use with a Heidenhain controller?

Thanks in advance

[VTPROS]

Niallwc,

I would def. recommend Solidcam, i'm a longtime mastercam user and solidcam's intigration with solidworks is amazing, I'm currently a mastercam/solidcam teacher as well, and have experience in many cam software but i only like to teach what i really believe works well. i would def. recommend solidcam.

[JamieB1992]

I use NCG Cam which I find generally does the job and is relatively easy. At the moment if creating an electrode for example. I model in Creo (Update to Pro-E, use to do this in Pro-E), save out as an Iges file and go into NCG CAM 11 to create the machining file to be sent to the machine. Its a bit long winded but it works with generally good results, but I have heard good things about solidcam especially its integration with solidworks. Also look at vero they have a machining software which seems very adept but I have only used the EDM software, and anyways trying to get money out the people above to pay for these things is near on impossible. ¬¬