[OnCreate3D]

Have you tried OnCreate3D? It is first cloud CAM. Checkout www.OnCreate3D.com.

For desktop CAM, my vote goes for MasterCAM. The Defacto standard in Industry.

[Green0]

I got a chance to see a Mastercam corporate application person use the software. It seems like there is greater functionality than I previously understood, but it is still quite complicated processing certain operations at times even when the people are pros. It seems they could almost freeze development of the software and simply work on ease of use and comprehensive video tutorials for a few years and that would probably be a great way to make a big leap with the software like the 2017 version remodel. There are some things that don't make any functional sense like how lathe stock isn't seen by mill operations, even in mill turn (the point of which was to build a tool to address mill turn machine programming). So there are redundant processes like depicting mill stock on a turned model that already has stock on the turning side of the software that is on the same screen. Depicting mill stock on a mill turn part can unlock some otherwise locked functionality with regard to mill tools in the mill turn product software. Some of the tools have defaults set up such that operations won't work unless a default parameter in a tool is altered.

It turned out that selecting the lower turret for the POCO operation allowed the mill turn software to bring across code that required 2 sync codes to be added in the software between mastercam and simulation. That is more simple than the 8 sync codes manually entered with an upper turret POCO operation, but it was still 2 manually entered codes which would be awesome for the software to automatically enter.

I discovered my machine environment tool holders weren't correct- an issue causing some false collisions in simulation, and that a few M-Codes weren't correct so their post department is taking a look at those issues currently.

I heard mill turn 2019 may include the ability to import lathe toolpaths into mill turn - this is currently not supported, so for example I worked with a consultant twice on a couple of very difficult parts, because I was prepping files to use for mill-turn training, that it turned out could not be brought from mastercam lathe into mill turn. Some of these points are so obvious it almost seems like the company engineers literally planned for these deficiencies to exist so that they could release them as improvements later.

[headscraper]

For 3D toolpath generation Moduleworks is probably the best. You will see their interface and engine rebranded plugged into a lot of major players like Alphacam, MasterCAM, SolidCAM, EdgeCAM, CAMworks, Sprutcam, VISI, Surfcam and so on.

[cadcam]

For 3D toolpath generation Moduleworks is probably the best. You will see their interface and engine rebranded plugged into a lot of major players like Alphacam, MasterCAM, SolidCAM, EdgeCAM, CAMworks, Sprutcam, VISI, Surfcam and so on.

Modul works is not the module for 3axis you see like in Mastercam. you see some of the modualworks 5th stuff yes. This is the same for all the other software you stated.Well most of them as I cannot speak for all of them. Mastercam does a mixture of the Modualworks 5th axis and there own classic stuff.

[cadcam]

I've got 10 years experience with SW, I'm not going to start over on the CAD end, I'm happy with where SW is at and it is a universal language when you want to share files at a place like GrabCad. Autodesk is grabbing middle market share but currently they are no threat to either Mastercam or Solidworks. I can see them gaining on MC in the near future because MC is so hard to learn but I doubt they are going to move on SW, it's so established and it's so easy to learn. Just look at how HSMWorks has moved up, and that's with established SW users. And it seems sort of cynical of Autodesk to price Works so high for SW and then so affordable for 360, like they are trying to force SW users to switch.

But I'm going to have to try 360 just for the CAM and the affordability, so I hope they keep the import feature fully functional. 360 is definitely becoming more popular. And Mach 3 is good but they should look at a post processor for PathPilot which is what Tormach, an industry leader in their segment, has moved to.

Here's the 2015 CAM survey results from the same CNCCookbook site

Think You Know Which CAM Packages Are Most Popular? Time to Find Out! - CNCCookbook CNCCookbook

I still do not understand when people compare Mastercam, HSM works to SolidWorks. Mastercam is a Cad-Cam system. HSM Works is a CAM add-on for solid works and Solidworks as of this month is a CAD system. there is no comparison.
Now with the release of SW 2018 and the included 2.5axis Camworks cam now included you can start to compare SW to Mastercam as a CAD-CAM tool.

[cadcam]

"mastercam aspects are becoming multicore processor aware" they haven't stated that any of mastercam actually has multicore processor support. As explained in person to me in by the owner of bobcam that for toolpath generation its much like being able to share equations across multiple cores which is complex and to do it efficiently enough to increase performance is even harder. No 3D cad or cam currently does this, what is happening is they are starting to compute tasks across multiple instances as a work around to utilise more of the additional cores. A bit like opening mastercam twice generating one tool path with one and another with the other then combining the gcode file. each instance will be assigned to one core. Not actual multicore support yet but a step in the right direction. This can be done with any exe instance that exist on just one core, sw are now including this practice in their training.

Mastercam is very good, I prefer hsm pro, in inventor not sw (seems to be less fussy to me to produce successful paths) because it does everything I need it to do and I find it simple to use. Nothing much more to it than that and it's a personal preference more than anything. Would be interesting to assign two trained technicians to see who could create effective toolpaths fastest for same part using mc and hsm. If it's within the capabilities of hsm my money would be on hsm.

I will say CADCAM does have its benefit of having just one program running.

It's horses for courses really, for routing a package with inbuilt nesting capability would likely sway their vote (bobcam would be a good contender) but as of such there is no such thing as best cam.

Autodesk are giving away the basic hsm package. But it's not the real deal. One must purchase hsm pro for all of the hsm features such as spindle tilt and five axis, not many hobby users have one of these laying around! But also quite a few additional options for 3axis I found from 360 trial.

(Would be interesting to assign two trained technicians to see who could create effective toolpaths fastest for same part using mc and hsm. If it's within the capabilities of hsm my money would be on hsm.) This would be something I would do.if that cam up.
I think they both would do well. I have to agree with the INventor HSM more user friendly then the one for SW. I felt the same way.

(One must purchase hsm pro for all of the hsm features such as spindle tilt and five axis, not many hobby users have one of these laying around! But also quite a few additional options for 3axis I found) Unless something has changed from when I was selling there were 3 stages. the HSM express free. HSM WOrks and thin the one you speak of HSM Works Pro.

[headscraper]

Modul works is not the module for 3axis you see like in Mastercam. you see some of the modualworks 5th stuff yes. This is the same for all the other software you stated.Well most of them as I cannot speak for all of them. Mastercam does a mixture of the Modualworks 5th axis and there own classic stuff.

Correct, usually these cam software companies tend to offer their own solutions for 3,4,5 axis and use moduleworks when customers want more advanced functionality. Moduleworks also offers 3,4&5 axis solutions. So Moduleworks seems like a good contender for best 3d cam software.

[cadcam]

Correct, usually these cam software companies tend to offer their own solutions for 3,4,5 axis and use moduleworks when customers want more advanced functionality. Moduleworks also offers 3,4&5 axis solutions. So Moduleworks seems like a good contender for best 3d cam software.

Well it cannot be a contender, do to you cannot buy Modulworks it is only sold to existing software developers for us to use.But they have some nice tools.

[headscraper]

Are we including Moduleworks as part of the software it's added to? ie When we decide if Mastercam is good or bad is that with or without non OEM stuff like MWorks.

[cadcam]

Are we including Moduleworks as part of the software it's added to? ie When we decide if Mastercam is good or bad is that with or without non OEM stuff like MWorks.

Really you are picking at straws but that is up to you as the modualworks is only a small piece of it.if you are going there are you buy the highest Mill level with Multiaxis so you get there paths for example.

[Green0]

I still do not understand when people compare Mastercam, HSM works to SolidWorks. Mastercam is a Cad-Cam system. HSM Works is a CAM add-on for solid works and Solidworks as of this month is a CAD system. there is no comparison.
Now with the release of SW 2018 and the included 2.5axis Camworks cam now included you can start to compare SW to Mastercam as a CAD-CAM tool.

People probably compare mastercam to solidworks because they wish mastercam could be as useable and entertaining as solidworks or supported with similar quality training materials. If mastercam could be taken to like solidworks, competing cam softwares wouldnt exist in a few years.

I had maybe 30 hours of training for 300$ tech course in solidworks and was designing parts for manufacturing. Ive had about 100 hours of one on one training in mastercam $12,000, and i dont really understand planes and cant draw lines in mastercam, which wouldnt really be bad if it was a 3d cad software but it needs line drawings. I can use the curve slice tool (the name of which bears testament to why it is impossible to self learn mastercam), but that wont really give you superb negotiation of milling operations. Not understanding planes is bad for confidence. I have lame snipping tool pictures i look at to remember plane combos for operations. C wcs alphabet soup on the planes page? Who knows just click around like a dumbass until something useful happens. When you spend 25k on mastercam you get a usb stick, a usb dongle, and a mouse pad. There isnt a manual or training disc provided. I would pay $5000 for a comprehensive official training tutorial collection if one existed- it would probably require a 125gig hard drive or something to supply.

The cad tools in mastercam might be useable but how would a guy know? There are no official solidworks style training tutorials or demonstrational videos to demonstrate how they are used. I have designed lofted 3d parts that were produced on plastic molds but i probably couldnt draw a cylinder in mastercam if my life depended on it.

There were some aftermarket materials that seemed potentially decent (not official but potentially useful) for x9, but i bought those a week or 2 before 2017 made them obsolete.

Ild love to be truly proficient in mastercam but it annoys me to think it might take 10 years to afford the training and time combination that will get me there.

[cadcam]

Not sure who gave you training or were you getting your stuff. but drawing basics in mastercam as easy as it gets. and as for planes. I cover all this when I teach in my beginning class. and everyone who walks out doing them from 3 axis to horizontal programming.
I have read you have spent all this money to go as you say no were in Mastercam.

Now why are you not running Mastercam4SW sense you are more comfortable in SW. if you have MC2017 and SW207 there is no extra cost to run you tool paths there.

there are other option for traning with out spending 12,000 on training. dang if you spent that with me you for sure have a clue for sure what you are doing.

[Green0]

Not sure who gave you training or were you getting your stuff. but drawing basics in mastercam as easy as it gets. and as for planes. I cover all this when I teach in my beginning class. and everyone who walks out doing them from 3 axis to horizontal programming.
I have read you have spent all this money to go as you say no were in Mastercam.

Now why are you not running Mastercam4SW sense you are more comfortable in SW. if you have MC2017 and SW207 there is no extra cost to run you tool paths there.

there are other option for traning with out spending 12,000 on training. dang if you spent that with me you for sure have a clue for sure what you are doing.

I never tried mastercam for solidworks because I don't have any training geared toward that.

I haven't gone no-where, but I feel like my understanding is about 15% of the software and that it may take another $68,000 in training to become actually proficient in mastercam- obviously as a business time to justify spending like that puts that on a long pathway. This is primarily because the software is not geared toward ease of use, and because there are no official mastercam training products like video tutorials for purchase that monopolize the use of time to get high training value for some semi-affordable price in the kind of time I as a working business owner have available to spend (probably 4-8 hours a week maximum). Available time and cost are both barriers to learning with the available training options I'm aware of.

I can run the program in lathe at what I would expect to be about 20-30% the speed of an industry cam worker as long as the Y axis milling operations are very basic like 2D contour off geometry I can get lines off of with curve slice, referring to planes JPEGs that I use for planes combos. I hear of some industry people posting to the machine. I can't do that- I post to cimco or code expert and make fairly extensive edits before bringing code to the control. I feel like I am on the edge of being able to fumble my way through a mill turn program with the same conditions.

It is underwhelming to have a multi-axis license and realize you can't really use those tools effectively, and when I consider other machines such as a wire EDM or a 5-Axis mill (such as I have yet to learn), I realize that a poor understanding of planes, milling operations, drawing tools, and stock depiction will essentially give those machines their own lengthy Mastercam learning curves.

Fortunately as you mentioned, Solidworks has begun to venture into Cam, and as you mentioned, Moduleworks is a for hire cam engine, so eventually, either Mastercam will become more like Solidworks, or Solidworks will probably be on its way to taking that marketshare.

I run a company and I learned a lot of lessons about competitive product over the years. You have to match or exceed whatever the competitor has or is bringing to the table to keep your space.

[awerby]

You might take a look at VisualCADCAM Mill and Lathe for Solidworks, made by Mecsoft. It's both more intuitive and less expensive than the alternatives. There's an extensive library of training videos and post-processors available for free, and technical support is included with the product. We sell it at a discount through computersculpture.com .

[mcdoggie]

cerritos college and norco city college have courses for mastercam with 4 units at $50 per unit.
they do offer too sw
maybe some other city colleges do offer too.

caminstructor have video tutorials for $350 i know somebody who got few years ago for mastercamx7

sw is powerfull for cad
mastercam is powerfull for engineering cam

for a hobbyist artcam is better

now hsm is "riding" with sw and with other firmwares which i think would be a game changer in coming months or year.

imo

[Green0]

cerritos college and norco city college have courses for mastercam with 4 units at $50 per unit.
they do offer too sw
maybe some other city colleges do offer too.

caminstructor have video tutorials for $350 i know somebody who got few years ago for mastercamx7

sw is powerfull for cad
mastercam is powerfull for engineering cam

for a hobbyist artcam is better

now hsm is "riding" with sw and with other firmwares which i think would be a game changer in coming months or year.

imo

I e-mailed a question to caminstructor and never received a reply. That gave me the impression that the product could be anything or nothing at all, because they claimed they would get back to people rapidly, and that failed before I had even paid for the training access.

This is why Mastercam having no comprehensive, official, competitive and direct video training material is not good for the customer. I know a person who a company probably heavily relied on who just got picked up by Sandvik. Awesome for that person, they deserve the best, and have earned that opportunity, but for the company, they will need to fill that position and 10 years of trial by fire Mastercam learning and investment just put in 2 week notice. Spinning up a replacement quick will probably be impossible for them.

[cadcam]

cerritos college and norco city college have courses for mastercam with 4 units at $50 per unit.
they do offer too sw
maybe some other city colleges do offer too.

caminstructor have video tutorials for $350 i know somebody who got few years ago for mastercamx7

sw is powerfull for cad
mastercam is powerfull for engineering cam

for a hobbyist artcam is better

now hsm is "riding" with sw and with other firmwares which i think would be a game changer in coming months or year.

imo

So do many other colleges here in Cali. I have been teaching College of the canyons for 17 years.

X7 at that time I was the eaprentice.net instructor doing live courses. Don't forget Santa Ana college. I am in the middle doing more train with the instructor.

And there is Mastercamu. We try and answerquestions.if you take the course and have a question contact one of the instructors. I will answer your questions.

[cadcam]

I e-mailed a question to caminstructor and never received a reply. That gave me the impression that the product could be anything or nothing at all, because they claimed they would get back to people rapidly, and that failed before I had even paid for the training access.

This is why Mastercam having no comprehensive, official, competitive and direct video training material is not good for the customer. I know a person who a company probably heavily relied on who just got picked up by Sandvik. Awesome for that person, they deserve the best, and have earned that opportunity, but for the company, they will need to fill that position and 10 years of trial by fire Mastercam learning and investment just put in 2 week notice. Spinning up a replacement quick will probably be impossible for them.

Your friend that just went to Sandvik what state Texas or Cali by chance?

[Green0]

No in Wisconsin.

I really like Sandvik product I've had the opportunity to experience. I would love to run all Sandvik, but we run mostly Iscar because it is about 40% less expensive. It would be cool if Sandvik could make an insert for the same price as Iscar. I mean they probably can, but they just don't seem to understand how competitive they would be if the pricing were similar to other market offerings.

I looked up the new Prime A type inserts and found 3 corner inserts selling for $42 per insert on Zoro.com. Insane. Even if you have right and left holders and run those 3 edges in one and flip flop them to another, that would be $7 per edge on a $14 corner. We have $2.60 edges on a 4 corner DNMG wiper insert we run at 800SFM to 13 minutes in tool life in 17-4 stainless steel. If (IF) the A-type insert hits the same 13 minutes at double the feed with the same finish quality, it would still be a comparable $3.50 edge. Doing everything right, getting ideal performance, you would pay more for the A-type edge to do the same amount of cutting.

The pricing makes it mentally difficult to consider switching brands. The initial Sandvik purchase on a cost compared working product would be an R&D project for the customer- an investment in a potential bath the customer might take if the insert under-performs.

[eriklander]

I'm surprised it was even mentioned. Apparently other humans are able to dig through hours, days, years and decades of research to figure out that everyone uses ModuleWorks/MachineWorks/ .... Heidenhain. In otherwords, we all use Heidenhain with different labels on the box. If you're using anything that doesn't required Heidenhain owned technology, then it's probably twice as much cost, and upwards of 3 or 4 times -- or it's junk, and might eventually be 2,3, or 4 times as much.