[single phase]

Open Mind just had it's first in five webinar's covering the new features in the 2009.2 release of Hypermill.

Wow, Scott thanks for doing such a nice job. It was short but to the point and very easy to follow.

He covered the new job-list items like grouping parts of the list and new job features like transformation.

I am excited to see the the rest of the presentations.

Two things come to mind after seeing this. One is there was clearly a click of people there that all know each other but that I do not know. I sure wish you would all jump in here and make yourselves known to the Hypermill users here on CNCzone. Do all you guys live in the same place?

And secondly; If the very existence of these webinar's and the group of people behind them were made know to our forum, it would help sell Hypermill. It would reinforce the fact that Open Mind has a presence here in the states. I have friends that have attempted to evaluated Hypermill and come back to me and said well where is the on-line presence.

Many times I an others have asked questions here on details of the software features, there is no one on-line to answer. How do you all communicate among yourselves?

I know Openmind is scared to death of this forum, just look back through all the posts here, the attitude has always been " lets take this conversation off line!" That is the wrong way to create an on-line presence.

I know what you are thinking, what about the trolls? Well, we are in a unique position here to delete the trolls right off the face of our forum. I will not stand for it and neither would anybody else that wants to promote this forum.

OK, I am off my box. LOL

Thanks again Scott, Kevin and Ernie and the others who were involved in the webinar who ever you are. It was a refreshing treat.

Cheers
SF

[thebowman]

"Open Mind just had it's first in five webinar's covering the new features in the 2009.2 release of Hypermill."

These webinar's should be saved and made available for anyone to download and view.

"I am excited to see the the rest of the presentations."

I'd like to see all of them as well but I can't be on-line when they are held.

"And secondly; If the very existence of these webinar's and the group of people behind them were made know to our forum, it would help sell Hypermill. It would reinforce the fact that Open Mind has a presence here in the states. I have friends that have attempted to evaluated Hypermill and come back to me and said well where is the on-line presence."

I also have had the same reaction from shop owners I have mentioned Hypermill to.

"I know Openmind is scared to death of this forum, just look back through all the posts here, the attitude has always been " lets take this conversation off line!" That is the wrong way to create an on-line presence."

Agree strongly. Openmind isn't the only CAM company who has this problem.

"I know what you are thinking, what about the trolls? Well, we are in a unique position here to delete the trolls right off the face of our forum. I will not stand for it and neither would anybody else that wants to promote this forum."

Trolls are only a problem when your product has serious flaws. I don't believe this is the case with Hypermill at this point.

[single phase]

Todays webinar was even better. The new functions and options in 2D contour milling and 3D contour milling were astounding. I am so stoked to put the new software in my computer.

As an example I would point out a new feature that will cut down every 0.02" until it gets right to the bottom and it will make a pass leaving only a small amount say .003" and then take that last 0.003" off. Very cool, it always took two job steps to do this before. It will do this on the bottom or the sides too!

2D playback milling is a very good addition. Basically you can move the tool around with your mouse and it will record the movement and create a tool path from it. It will do collision checking at the same time. And it can use what you did to create a boundary in the model that you can use for something else.

This stuff is a very welcome addition. Thanks Scott, OM.

Cheers
Dave

[single phase]

. . .
I also have had the same reaction from shop owners I have mentioned Hypermill to.

"I know Openmind is scared to death of this forum, just look back through all the posts here, the attitude has always been " lets take this conversation off line!" That is the wrong way to create an on-line presence."

Agree strongly. Openmind isn't the only CAM company who has this problem.

. . .

Yea, thebowman, I agree, they need to look at the companies that have used the web in a positive way to increase sales. Look at OneCNC as an example. If they had a web presence, they could sell the product to places like mine that have no dealers. I have not had a dealer in my area for a great many years. Just any dealer is useless too, the dealer needs to be able to add value to me and very few can. My last dealer used me as a consultant because I know more than they did.

If OM wonders why we say these things here they should know it's because we have nobody to lean on. Sure there is a great tech support line and I use it from time to time ( thanks Doug) but that is not what we are screaming for is it?? What we need is a community of people like we have here on cnczone but with the one element that is missing OM freely distributing information that we can use. And involvement and feedback from our posts. If you do it here every English speaking person in the world gets to take part in it. That is a good thing right?


Cheers
Dave

[single phase]

Webinar Number 3 was good. It was given by a new guy, Jim Appel, but I do not know who he is. It covered the tool database and new turning features. I do not have the turning package so I can not speak to the changes as it all looked "new" to me. I do have a CNC lathe but I program it by typing g-code into NCPlot.

I used the old tool database a lot. The changes in the webinar came at me pretty fast and I would have to say I will not understand what was presented until I can load the software and try it out. It looked like they changed it all around and did away with the nice dialog boxes that were there. In their place are spreadsheet like grids.

One new feature that I saw was the ability to add a tool extension to the NC Tool set.

Lastly the post processor dialog boxes were also replaced with spreadsheet grids. It all seams to work well, as it did before.

Cheers
Dave

[single phase]

Webinar Number 4 was tough. This time it was Doug, finally a person I know! :rainfro: Thanks Doug.

3D cutter comp and the post requirements was useless as I do not even know a person with a mill that can use it.

Pocket feature Changes talked about using the Feature tab, something I do not understand even in the older software. That is on my to-do list, learn what that feature can do for me? LOL pun intended.

Finally Customized Process Features talked about setting up a set of "reusable" job steps. WOW cool but I did not understand a word he said as I had no frame of reference to work from. They asked for questions and I thought OK, could you do that again but slower. I could see it is powerful and I think I would use it if I understood it. Like a slot with a hole intersecting it. If you want to use an automated routine to cut the slot but have the cutter ignore the hole, this would be great.

Do any of you guys use the features tab? Please enlighten me.

Cheers
Dave

[thebowman]

Dave,

Literally hundreds of hours of free instructional CAM videos.

http://www.solidcam.com/solidcam_professor_en.html

This should be the standard that all CAM companies follow.

The person who makes these videos has fans all over the world. He sometimes gets mobbed at trade shows because users of the product are so grateful for the free instructional CAM videos he does.

I don't use the product and I'm not only grateful but filled with respect for what both he and the managing director of this company have done for users and potential users.

[single phase]

thebowman, that is amazing. I would love to have that for Hypermill.

[single phase]

Webinar Number 4 was great. Alan Zielinski started off with the new model analysis feature. It is like Inventor's measure function but on steroids. It would be very useful for anybody looking at models that somebody else made or your own old models that you do not remember any longer.

3D roughing and rest machining is becoming world class. It has so many new features I can't even begin. WOW. I will say the deep groove is very nice and I will use that for sure.

My thanks to everybody that was involved, you ALL gave first rate presentations.

Please consider doing a couple more presentations on introductory concepts. I personally would like to see an introduction to Features and another to Macros. These presentations could have an optional extended second half were us students could ask the instructor to go through personal requests. Just thinking out loud.

Cheers
Dave

[trprasad]

I am interested to know the performance status of Hypermill against Delcam software for 5 axis continuous programming? Is any body can help me out to get right information on the same?
T. Rajendra Prasad, India

[Alan L]

trprasad -

It's a pretty open question. I'll give you some talking points. But it would be best to share your requirements with OPEN MIND India guys. You will get a consultative response once they know more about the specific nature of 5-axis that applies for you.

Talking points ...

collision detection
collision avoidance
intuitive user interface
avoid unnecessary use of rotary axes
need to add auxiliary geometry
ability to predict shorter cutting length
capability and depth of post-processors
machine simulation
quality of machined parts !!!