[Marcos Ruarte]

How's camsoft working for you guys???? Gotto be careful otherwise one can get banned in a heart beat here.

[Bob Pierre]

So far it's been several years. I have come along way since then and have got very good at making the system do what we need. So I guess we can say camsoft has been working okay. If you are a newbie you'll have a lot to learn to get good. Otherwise I would suggest you get camsoft to recommend a installer to help you on the first one.

Bob

[Karl_T]

Camsoft is simply the most capable open source control out there. IMHO nothing else comes close.

The complaints you see are almost entirely from folks new to the control that are in over their heads and don't understand why its not working. Learning to install Camsoft does have a steep learning curve. Many folks, myself included, struggle with their first install. I would not suggest doing Camsoft as your first refit. And I would further suggest doing a simple machine first.

Once you become proficient with Camsoft, making a machine do your bidding is just about the most fun that can be had, with all your clothes on

karl

[Marcos Ruarte]

Camsoft is simply the most capable open source control out there. IMHO nothing else comes close.

The complaints you see are almost entirely from folks new to the control that are in over their heads and don't understand why its not working. Learning to install Camsoft does have a steep learning curve. Many folks, myself included, struggle with their first install. I would not suggest doing Camsoft as your first refit. And I would further suggest doing a simple machine first.

Once you become proficient with Camsoft, making a machine do your bidding is just about the most fun that can be had, with all your clothes on

karl

when you say a simple machine you mean... maybe a 2 axis machine??? would that be easy?? do you know Ruben???

[Karl_T]

when you say a simple machine you mean... maybe a 2 axis machine??? would that be easy?? do you know Ruben???

Ruben and Earnie are the two smartest tech people I know.

My history, I bought a Mazak M4 twin turret lathe with a failed Camsoft install. I soon found out I was in over my head. So, I backed up and re did my stepper mill with Mach over to Camsoft. Then I changed it over to servos and added a professional operator panel. When I went back to that Mazak it was a piece of cake.


If you've got a two axis machine, get just the two axis running under a default setup. Then start adding capabilities. For me, the secret was to keep plugging away, one small issue at a time. I was fortunate, there was no outside imposed time deadline.

Now that I've done a few, the software takes very little time. Doing a pro job on the electrical hardware is the key. That is still very time consuming.

karl

[HuFlungDung]

So Karl, are you hanging out your shingle yet? If you've done a few, you must have either a full shop, or at least the beginnings of a customer list

I'd fully agree that it takes a lot of time to do the first one. Being under a time constraint to get it done and go make parts would be next to unbearable. You'd have to almost regard retro #1 as a hobby, with potential to pay you back, someday.

I don't know if it would be wise to get someone else to do it. That is because then you would not understand it. So it would become 'their control' instead of 'your control'. IF that other someone is at your beck and call to fix or modify stuff as you see fit, and you've got ample $$ to hand over for their trouble, then I suppose you don't need to really understand what is under the hood. But the point of Camsoft is to understand what is under the hood.

[Karl_T]

So Karl, are you hanging out your shingle yet? If you've done a few, you must have either a full shop, or at least the beginnings of a customer list

I'd hang out a shingle but; I'm not cheap, I don't travel, I won't be rushed, and I don't cut corners. My goal early in life was to be independantly wealthy. I've settled for just being independant.

I've got a big lathe, chucker lathe, and knee mill running Camsoft. I'm working on a plasma cutter. My wire EDM and big mill both have old but working controls. They will get camsoft someday.

Karl

[Carlo Rechi]

I have no shingle but I will do a Camsoft install. I love to do this now. She is beautiful system. I am independent, not cheap and don't like to travel like Mr. Karl.

Carlo

[Citron]

I might as well though my hat into the ring and offer my installation services for people that want high speed machining. I have got the CamSoft system honed in to go faster and tighter than the Fanuc and Fagor systems my customer originally had.

Johnny

[Farmers Machine]

I started programming in 1997. I never really understood how G1 X10. could make a computer move a piece of steel. After retrofitting a large gantry oxy fuel torch only 2 axis and having a very very smart man explain what was what, Cam Soft tells the Galil card what to do and the Galil card makes the motors go. we did this one under a ridiculous time schedule because I was holding a PO from a demanding customer with a ridiculous delivery date. After all of the dust has settled down, and making a few changes to the default CBK file I could not be any happier with the control and the retrofit. I dont know if it is Vista or a cheap computer, but one day when it was 112 degrees inside the shop where the torch works it locked up about half way through the part. Powered down and restarted the control and she hasnt missed a lick since. If you study and read the manuals over and over, you can do anything with this control. Kinda leanin toward the idea of not buying another new CNC machine because of the ability of the Cam Soft control to work on any machine that moves,spins,makes chips or sparks.
Big thumbs up
The Farmer.

[ontheroad]

My wife wanted me to write this.

I read what the farmer wrote here to my wife and she said it sounded just like me. I like to read the forums but I don't write. Everything is true he wrote. The Camsoft people must think I am doing a 180 on them because I complained in the beginning. It was me. You Camsoft people did good by me and stuck with us. It was my son and Camsoft that made this happen. The wiring was over my head. The whole retrofit came out good in the end and I really like it now. I thought I would be a man and say so.

John

[Al_The_Man]

I read what the farmer wrote here to my wife

John

How come farmer was writing to your wife:devious:
Al.

[Karl_T]

How come ...Al.

Al, with your expertise on general CNC machines and knowledgable use of Galil cards; you'd LOVE CAMSOFT if you took the time to get past the steep learning curve.

Any chance of making a convert out of ya?

Karl

[Al_The_Man]

I did use it some time ago.
At the time I did not appreciate the time it took to write the G code as well as the machine logic.
I also had a PC with a clean HD install that would not recognize the card.
When you have customers requiring retrofit downtime to be minimal, I did not have the luxury of time.
With the Mitsubishi I could do one in a week if I had to.
I still use the Galil on smaller jobs where I can use the Galil Opint S/W.
Al.

[battwell]

im looking at retrofitting my big biesse router. i have a few questions.
has anyone used the cut from drawing feature rather than running direct g code? a selling feature of camsoft pro i believe! does this work as advertised etc?

my machine has serial i/o cards all over it... to save huge cable runs
i would love to get the galil to talk to these rather than run huge bundles of long length wiring all over it! probably 60 i/o on the travelling head running spindle changer, x/y saw head and 20 drilling heads
around 95 i/o required alltogether! ....these are the same make as the original clunker controller CNI. as an option i have 8 mitsubishi i/o modules i could fit if anyone knows how i can talk to them??
if you want to see the machine search me on you tube biessebod

read lots of mixed reports from searching google!
had my hopes up when i downloaded the demo cd. shame it trys to sell you by a feature list but doesnt actually show anything in detail. it would of been good for instance to see a part drawing imported and cut.
seems nowhere you can actually see a real camsoft controller in action, before spending your hard earned?!

as i use the machine for production i would have to build a test rig to test everything with tempory hookups to the machine to test all was ok before decomissioning the old controller totally

the real question i suppose is mach/galil versus camsoft/galil. any good comparison info would be good.
by the way im not new to mach3. i have built a servo router and retrofitted a lathe and use both mach and emc2

[Karl_T]

im looking at retrofitting my big biesse router. i have a few questions.
has anyone used the cut from drawing feature rather than running direct g code? a selling feature of camsoft pro i believe! does this work as advertised etc?

Works as advertised. Understand that the CAM puts out a gcode file through a post that the control runs. Kind of like any other CAM package but it is easier to make a quick change, repost and run the part.

The great majority of I/O does not run through Galil. You want to get an adlink/nudaq 7296 card and opto22 I/O boards. I wouldn't try to clobber this together - no serial ports.

I personnally doubt that Mach is up to the task of handling the large amount of I/O you have. This is Camsoft's strength.

Karl

[Bob Pierre]

battwell

A big biesse router you say. Earlier this year I was asked to quote a camsoft on a beisse rover and another Italian router for a cabinet maker.

I looked into this quite a bit especially the bank of vertical and horizontal air drills & saws.

This is not you average router.

The IO logic complexity, M code management for each drill group/bank, offset table to keep track on the spacing between drills and horizontal movement of some of the drilling canned cycles were special indeed.

I don't have the job yet but I was worried that camsoft couldn't do this either. There was over 100 IO to program. mach couldn't do the large IO quantity or provide the special logic to give me the customization.

I did look into this far enough to satisfy that camsoft could handle the IO and give me the logic from some one else's machine.

I feel good about my other camsoft installations and know how to make their stuff work for me. The project just has to work.

I don't want to take any chances and wouldn't get a second chance.
I seen a large Weeke router bigger than the biesse with more drills, multiple table and router heads with a camsoft system on it that the shop owner swears by. Been working for 15 years.

Bob

[battwell]

thanks for your input guys. i know its a huge job. iknow im going to have to put half a day aside to do it :-)

does anyone have any video showing any of this? maybe a machine you have already done?

i need to work out if im going to be happy doing it the camsoft way or looking into a retrofit fast controller plc from one of the big names.
the machine runs my business so i cant mess up!

i have just bought some galil 5 axis cards and io relay i/op cards to get me going. will probably test these and run under mach until im familiar.
build a test rig etc

i was wondering whether to feed the i/o in and out of a plc to send serially to i/o cards on the machine. once the first one was programmed this would make doing others a doddle as there would be virtually no other machine rewiring. (apart from maybe swapping i/o cards new for old on the machine. ( i have wiring diagrams for each with function pinouts) everything could be done in the control cabinet. i could pre wire and pre program the plc on the bench as it would be only input to station number output etc and vice versa.
there are hundreds of these around the world crying out for a good refit!

[battwell]

re the biesse canned cycles etc. these can be read and edited from the cni controller d drive. or copied onto a floppy and read with rawrite.
while their front screen code is quite quirky the background stuff is mainly g and m codes with sub routines and jumps.

im sure i could rewrite one of these a night without getting too bored.

this is assuming the original controller will still power up!

some of the canned cycle code is written in the user manual too. to be fair they do a good manual!

[emti95]

I had Camsoft Pro installed on a Moore Jig Grinder about three years ago, replacing an AB8400 control that was down more than up. My installer did a good job on the hardware, but kind of left me hanging on the software. The machine runs okay today, but I had to learn a lot more about the operating code than I wanted to, primarily because of the time involved. The machine holds tolerances as good as the original control, but there are several quirks that I need to watch out for. For instance, the other day I stopped a program, and the control lost position. Now whenever I stop a cycle I am forced to check the part home position. I have been picking away at problems slowly, but some of the logic is above my pay grade. Tech support has generally been helpful, but I have to be careful to entertain single issues. I have also gotten some good ideas through this forum. I will be upgrading the PC soon, so I expect I will be needing some assistance soon.