[turmite]

While this is true with Level 3 Mastercam, how would you create a Free Form Wire Frame Tool Path???

In Rhino!!! Sorry toby...I just couldn't resist! Actually I would create it in Rhino and machine it in Madcam.

Mike

[tobyaxis]

In Rhino!!! Sorry toby...I just couldn't resist! Actually I would create it in Rhino and machine it in Madcam.

Mike

This means you have to buy two separate Softwares to do one thing. Depending on what your doing this could be a budget Killer.

Rhino has the Virtual Mill Plug-In, but I wouldn't waste my time with a CAM that couldn't import a small 58MB Solid Model.

[turmite]

This means you have to buy two separate Softwares to do one thing. Depending on what your doing this could be a budget Killer.

Rhino has the Virtual Mill Plug-In, but I wouldn't waste my time with a CAM that couldn't import a small 58MB Solid Model.

Toby I may have to buy two different software packages, but they work as one, and they cost a fraction of what some of the packages listed cost.

Using this package I can get any tool path I need plus some I don't. It is also in development with new machining strategies and features being added at a very good pace.

I don't know what you mean by the 58mb file size. I am only limited in file size by the size of my ram and processor speed. It has nothing to do with Rhino or Madcam. I suspect that is the case with VisualMill/Rhinocam as well.

Mike

[tobyaxis]

Toby I may have to buy two different software packages, but they work as one, and they cost a fraction of what some of the packages listed cost.

Using this package I can get any tool path I need plus some I don't. It is also in development with new machining strategies and features being added at a very good pace.

I don't know what you mean by the 58mb file size. I am only limited in file size by the size of my ram and processor speed. It has nothing to do with Rhino or Madcam. I suspect that is the case with VisualMill/Rhinocam as well.

Mike

I have a friend with Virtual Mill Version 4 (not 100% sure on which version). When we tried to Import a Solid Model that was only 58 megs as an Iges, it Crashed. We then tried different formats, like wire frames, and just the solid and it still crashed.

The same file was imported into BCC V20, V21, V2007 and Mastercam V8.1, V9.1, X without any problems. My guess is that Virtual Mill needs a few updates or something.

Do you have any idea on how much gas I went through to get to 5 other places to do this???

Virtual Mill was a Thorn in My Side that Day!!!!!

[Tony the Ferret]

Mike, you are correct, in the real world you might create a Z level finishing toolpath, but when you look at the results, you think , i might do better with a X axis planar finish, and as you have filled in all the parameters for tools , stepovers etc,,, it is only one click to change from Z level to planar or vice versa. when you have so many different types of toolpath you certainly have one for all applications at your fingertips. Contour finishing is not the same as Z level finishing, this toolpath ONLY cuts where there is an material left from a previous tool

Tobyaxis, what do you mean by "Free Form Wire Frame Tool Path"

[turmite]

Tony is contour machining the same as rest machining, or is it re-machining?
BTW just as a favor to those of us who are cam experienced challenged, why don't you start a new thread and give us a good overview of what all these terms mean? I for one could sure use it.

Mike

[Tony the Ferret]

Sorry, i just get carried away, i use the product every day and just forget that there are some new users out there that have been blown away with the capability of their solutions that offer one roughing, and one or two finishing type of toolpaths.
i have nearly 40 types to choose from, and in between answereing these forum responses i am working, and this evening have completed 6, 5 axis trim jobs, postprocessed them, edited them, created the set up instructions and e-mailed them to the customer. so a new thread is a little too far for today, maybe towards the end of the week i am available for consutancy and or advice, time permitting.

(group)

[Piobaire]

Hi!
SolidCAM gets a vote from me... :-)
Fastest growing CAM-software 4 years in a row the last years.

[Tony the Ferret]

Does the speed of growth have any relationship with the product ?

If i had one chicken laying eggs and every year bought more chickens, by year 3 i would have quadrupled my number of chickens, and i could claim to be the fastest growing egg farmer...
the claim to be the fastest of anything is relative to the number to start with.
In my opinion the CAM system to look at is the one with sustained growth, new features, and enhanced existing features year on year.

Numbers of licenses do not mean that it is the best system for everybody
:banana:

[94vette]

WorkNC is easy and very powerfull. It's expensive, but work it.

[ckm]

As a newby, both as a machinist and CAD/CAM user, I have to say that the CAM market is confusing at best. I have a small mill driven by Mach3 that I built which I want to use to mill 3D parts designed in SolidWorks. Just as background, I have been a software engineer for 15 years, so I'm a little technology savvy.

I've tried the following:

- Mastercam X
- EdgeCAM
- GibbsCAM
- VisualMill
- MeshCAM
- Cut3D
- FeatureCAM
- MillWizard
- PowerMill
- FreeMill
- OneCNC
- ArtCAM
- DeskProto
- CamBam

My general impression is that a lot of CAM programs are attempting to replace CAD in certain situations, and that makes the interfaces complex, often unnecessarily so. Since I use SolidWorks, it's pretty much a waste of time for me to re-learn another interface and UI for design, so I was looking for something that could bridge the gap between SolidWorks and Mach3.

Since my experience with milling is rather limited (basically, I could never manually machine anything but the simplest shapes), I was looking for something fairly straight forward and easy to use, one that would automate most of the G-code production.

What I found instead was very, very complex interfaces with minute control over every aspect of machining. Useful, but also not really. While I realize that I know virtually nothing about this, it strikes me that most of this software is not designed to automate anything, just replicate what you might otherwise do manually on the computer.

And I don't think it's just me. I can't count the amount of times I have seen ostensibly experienced machinists ask for help on what tooling to use on X material and what speed/feed to use. It would seem to me that CAM software should be acting as an expert system to at least give initial parameters for machining, particularly given the endless combinations of tooling, materials and machining strategies. Instead, an operator is just expected to know all of this (for every combination) and input it into the CAM software..... Not very efficient when it comes down to it.

At any rate, out of all of this, there were a few that stuck out as at least attempting to automate large chunks of the design -> G-code process.

Deskproto
By far and away my favorite so far is DeskProto. It's fairly easy to use, with good automated tasks (like 2-sided machining with machined alignment guides and automated tab placement). It was obviously designed for doing exactly the kind of thing I am trying to do.

Cut3D
Not even close to being in the same league as most of this software, this is by far the best cheap 3D CAM you can get. It automates much of the process, but doesn't provide much in the way of manual tweaking. However, for a hobbyist or prototype designer, this may be the fastest way from design to machining, even with it's limitations.

PowerMILL
PowerMILL was my personal favorite of the 'power user' CAM tools. It's interface is less impenetrable than Mastercam and has a lot of fine grained control. That said, it's still probably a 3 month learning curve to use and you still have to know a lot about machining. By compairson, it took me a month to be fairly proficient in SolidWorks. What I don't get about PowerMill is why it has to start off in either metric or inches.

Strangely, while PowerMill is fairly easy to use, FeatureCAM's attempt at automating the CAM process just results in a long, difficult to understand, forced workflow, particularly if you start with an existing design from a CAD tool.

Honarable mention - CamBam
CamBam is a great first effort. Hopefully that project will eventually mature into something really useful.

I want to point out that I probably did not spend much more that 4-5 hours with each of these tools, but that was the point: Which tool would be productive the fastest?

I will say that Mastercam, as far as I could tell, did have a lot more options as far as machining strategies and it's wide install base would probably make it a safe bet if you were either a job shop or a machinist looking for the best tool to learn.

Maybe I'm expecting too much, but the state of CAM software reminds me of computers in the late 80's. A lot of DIY and requiring experts with huge amounts of training for anything productive to happen. I realize that's job security to a lot of machinists, but still......

The net-net of it is that I have spent more time evaluating and learning CAM software than I spent building the mill, and that's not a good thing. I'd love to see what WorkNC can do, given the huge amounts of positive comments around, but it's so far out of my budget it's not even worth looking at. Maybe if I ever buy a real VMC...

Chris.

[Chad_Clark]

It would seem to me that CAM software should be acting as an expert system to at least give initial parameters for machining, particularly given the endless combinations of tooling, materials and machining strategies. Instead, an operator is just expected to know all of this (for every combination) and input it into the CAM software..... Not very efficient when it comes down to it.

Chris,

VX does this by using your tool and material information. It gives you a start and it is all based off the machinist hand book. Then if you want to make changes based more towards your machine you can do this and save it as you want to further access it later!!

Chad

[JROM]

One guy seems to think that the software should do all your thinking for you.
He thinks that any bozo with a computer can be a machinest! He could not be more wrong. There are so many factors involved in making parts that the software can never make the right choices. So there has to be someone with some basic skills driecting the software. When I first started running CNC machines there was no CAM software and I had to sit and right the G code by hand. It took alot of time and it was easy to make mistakes. Cam software at best is just a way to crunch the numbers faster. And thats all it will ever be untill someone builds the replicator from Star Trek!!!

[ckm]

One guy seems to think that the software should do all your thinking for you.
He thinks that any bozo with a computer can be a machinest! He could not be more wrong. There are so many factors involved in making parts that the software can never make the right choices. So there has to be someone with some basic skills driecting the software.

That would be me, and that's not what I said. I don't think that software can do everything for you, but it can give you a good starting point. Look a drug interaction systems used by doctors and pharmacies. Do they do the thinking for you? No, but they can guide you to a usefull conclusion, but perhaps you'd rather that your pharmacist just remember that this drug interacts with that one....

A lot of CAM systems fail to do even rudimentary checking (like 'does the tooling DB have the correct tooling to machine this object, if not, suggest something appropriate') and certain things which could be automated (like automatically machining guide surfaces for parts that have two-sided maching) are rare.

What I am arguing is that CAM software should assist operators much more than it does now, particularly considering the cost. It may not matter for you, but it does for a lot of people or they wouldn't be asking 'How do I....' questions all the time.

Not everyone can know everything, and having guidance is often needed, whether the guidance comes from a piece of CAM software, a phone call to a friend or a online resource like CNCzone. Except, perhaps, for people who do know it all, apparently. The rest of us are just 'bozos', which is just fine by me.

Chris.

[ckm]

Chris,

VX does this by using your tool and material information. It gives you a start and it is all based off the machinist hand book. Then if you want to make changes based more towards your machine you can do this and save it as you want to further access it later!!

Chad

Interesting. What's the cost range for VX?

Thx.

Chris.

[big_mak]

Most noobies aren't gonna go and buy a high end CAM package. And I believe if you got 10 expereinced machininsts in a romm(all with better spelling and typing skills than I) you could get 10 equally relevant ways to machine a particular part. So having automated tabs and reference generation would in essence be useless. The more automated you make things, the more you lose control, and the more experienced users want CONTROL over much of what the package is doing. Most CAM packages will NOT tell you what tool to use, because every shop does things differnt.

One shop may use smaller cutters to machine things because the can scream on their machines, others may use larger tools and hamstitch corners. Form tools can be used for radii, or another clamping for an angle where another shop will Keller them.

So why invest so much $$ in automating stuff, when people want control over it!!!!

[ckm]

Most noobies aren't gonna go and buy a high end CAM package.

Well, I totally disagree. With the cost of CNC machines coming down, there are tons of people buying them for prototyping, one-off machining, etc. All those people need good tools to be productive.

I've already spent close to $10k on CNC things, and if you add my time, it's probably close to $40k. Saving 50% of my time by spending $5k to $10k on a piece of software would be good ROI.

And I'm an amateur, but, even so, it's highly likely that I'll purchase a small VMC in the next 2-3 years.

And I believe if you got 10 expereinced machininsts in a romm(all with better spelling and typing skills than I) you could get 10 equally relevant ways to machine a particular part. So having automated tabs and reference generation would in essence be useless. The more automated you make things, the more you lose control, and the more experienced users want CONTROL over much of what the package is doing. Most CAM packages will NOT tell you what tool to use, because every shop does things differnt.

Well, if I were a shop, I'd much rather have one standardized way rather than 10 different ways of doing it and I'd much rather have the new machinist being guided in the basics by a piece of software rather than 1/10th or more of my experienced workforce....

One shop may use smaller cutters to machine things because the can scream on their machines, others may use larger tools and hamstitch corners. Form tools can be used for radii, or another clamping for an angle where another shop will Keller them.

Fair enough, but automation does not mean you can't overide the recommendation, it just means that if the software does it OK, then you don't have to program it manually.

So why invest so much $$ in automating stuff, when people want control over it!!!!

Right, that's why manual machining is so much better than CNC.... There are lots of reasons to automate things, and it often helps keep shops competitive. Just because some people want to control everything manually doesn't mean it's the best thing to do. I mean, how often do you turn off your ABS brakes, or put a feedhold in your G-code to manually change the tool in your ATC?

It's not for everyone, granted, but when I hear people putting in conveyers under machine room floors for chip handling just to save 15 minutes/hour of downtime, I gotta think that automating more of CAM could yield additional productivity benefits, esp. in prototyping, custom and other short-run, rapid turn-around environments. This is particularly true where machining is not a core competency, but one used to supplement an existing business venture (design, custom car/bike parts, air guns, etc.), so it's much less likely that there is a machinist with 10+ years of experience just hanging around waiting for something to do.

Chris.

[Delcamfan]

I feel that there are no "machining standards" that everyone practices....These standards would include all of the best most productive ways to do any task. I fully believe that out of 10 seasoned men you would have 10 different approaches....None of which will be the "best" way to do things, but all approaches will work for each man that puts it together

[big_mak]

Thanks Del,

Most of these packages that have process libraries, need to be Taught!!!! So that these libraries can cater to each shops methodology.

I must agree with Geof and a few other guys here. Get your feet wet with Manual machining before you start in CNC!!!!!!! If everyone could do, I'd be out of a job, and so would a lot of people. If you want to buy the knowledge, GO TO SCHOOL!!!!! or GET AN APPRENTICESHIP, and learn like all the tradesmen did!!!!!

There is NO substitute for experience, no software, no machining calculator, no fixture encyclopedia nothing Beats experience. This includes doing a bit of shop hoping. Maybe not during your apprenticeship, but soon enough after your training, that you can go and learn how to do things differently before you are too set in your ways!!!!!!

[dannystooblue]

I must say, this has turned in to a very active spot here on cnczone. I have been reading along for a little while now and have enjoyed alot of the reading. I would have to agree that the cad/cam software should have some standard settings built in to a cutter library for different materials. I do agree that most of the software here have a process library of some sort that can be taught, but why reinvent the wheel for every shop? Just because no two people wouldn't do things the same doesn't mean that those two people can't learn from one another. I have about 10 years on a shop floor running manual machine and near 7 years now as a full time electrode designer and cnc programmer just to share my vantage point on the subject. I have seen the effects of the 10 different ways to get things done, I noticed that 6 out of those 10 would be considered less than effective even by the guy that did it. Bottom line is more automation in the cnc programming software is good, and so is more control over the software if you have time to take control, but don't force feed me a ton of extra busy work looking for recomended feeds and speeds of a cutter in my material... just fill in a suggested value and let me have the final say.


BTW, nice work on the mini mill conversion.

Danny