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CAM Software Suggestions

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Message 1 of 10
Anonymous
562 Views, 9 Replies
‎10-23-2003 01:42 AM
‎10-23-2003 01:42 AM

CAM Software Suggestions

Hi, I'm new to the world of CAM and CNC and am looking at getting the first CNC machine for our shop. Not Only Is it a tough Choice to decide where to even begin with what type of machine then you have to decide on what CAM progranm you want to use to bring your parts to reality. SInce I use Inventor to design 95% of the parts we use I was wondering if anyone here had any recomendations as to the CAM software which would work best with inventor? I want to be able to take complex 3d shapes from inventor and create useable parts from there. Any Suggestions?
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9 REPLIES 9
Message 2 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous
‎10-23-2003 02:05 AM
‎10-23-2003 02:05 AM

Here are a few for you to take a look at:

MasterCAM
GibbsCAM
EdgeCAM
ESPIRIT

As far as the machine goes, have fun. We just bought our first CNC router and it took us about 2 years to make our decision. We don't regret it though, there's A LOT of variables to consider. HTH, Todd
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Message 3 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous
‎10-23-2003 03:30 AM
‎10-23-2003 03:30 AM

In January I complete a 3 month eval of CAM
software for our company.  While it cost more than some others, we found
that we saved time by using Esprit.  We just took delivery of a new CNC
lathe and milling center and with the exception of a tweaking the posts, we are
up and running.  We use Esprit to program both our wire machines, our
existing CNC and our two new machines.  Since we have started using Esprit
in March, we have scrapped two pieces in the wire. Both of those have been
traced back to poor drawings, and both would have been caught by Esprit if the
error checking would have been activated.   Also, Esprit is the only
that I found supports both Parasolids and ACIS.

 

Esprit2002 supports dual solid kernels: Parasolid
V13 and ACIS 6.3


size=2> 

Esprit2003 will
support dual solid kernels: Parasolid V14 and ACIS V10


class=550404523-16062003> 

Ed
O'Halloran

Automation Tool
& Die


style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
Hi,
I'm new to the world of CAM and CNC and am looking at getting the first CNC
machine for our shop. Not Only Is it a tough Choice to decide where to even
begin with what type of machine then you have to decide on what CAM progranm
you want to use to bring your parts to reality. SInce I use Inventor to design
95% of the parts we use I was wondering if anyone here had any recomendations
as to the CAM software which would work best with inventor? I want to be able
to take complex 3d shapes from inventor and create useable parts from there.
Any Suggestions?
Report
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Message 4 of 10
glennd
Contributor
in reply to: Anonymous
‎10-23-2003 04:19 AM
‎10-23-2003 04:19 AM

I use EdgeCAM and have for 3 years, Everything I models is done in Inventor. We have 4 axis wire, 2 axis lathe,3 ea 3 axis mills, and a 5 axis mill. Largest part so far has been 60"x200" x 6" smallest is .5" od by 1" long.

I like it because when I change the model in IV, when I open it or switch back to EdgeCAM it say do you want to update. If you check yes all of the geometry updates, you repost the code.

It has cut my time making code by almost 90% because of the ability to write extremely powerful macro's.



Glenn Davina

Jeld-Wen Engineering
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Message 5 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous
‎10-23-2003 06:02 AM
‎10-23-2003 06:02 AM

Thank you for your input. And thanks in advance for any more input to come. It is really good to get opinions of people who actually use the products in real world. I find that many sales-people just simply have no concept of the types of problems and benifits certain software can have.
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Message 6 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous
‎10-23-2003 06:52 AM
‎10-23-2003 06:52 AM

I looked at a lot of different ones and I narrowed
it down to Todd's list too. They're all expensive, but I thought Gibbs was too
expensive. MasterCAM is plain simple and pretty reliable. Esprit and EdgeCAM are
pretty comparable. If you're going with Haas
equipment (no windows interface, but nice to work with), you'll find out
that Esprit has a close relationship with Haas.

 

Are you doing production parts or prototyping? They
all try to show you they're automated programming tools. They look good at first
until you ask them to do something realistic. In my opinion,
the automation modules are worthless. And the automatic feature
recognition isn't as smart as they make it out to be..

 

Make sure you make them demo some of your parts
that they haven't seen before. Right now we are down to EdgeCAM and Esprit
(although MasterCAM keeps coming up every once in a while). For the second
demo, I asked them to do one of our simpler parts. They both choked on an open
pocket and a chamfered slot. On the chamfered slot, they both wanted
to start milling at the bottom of the chamfer (not a good idea).
Eventually, they would have made the part, but with a lot of time
spent cutting air.


--
Kevin Wehner


style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
Here
are a few for you to take a look
at:

MasterCAM
GibbsCAM
EdgeCAM
ESPIRIT

As far as the
machine goes, have fun. We just bought our first CNC router and it took us
about 2 years to make our decision. We don't regret it though, there's A LOT
of variables to consider. HTH, Todd
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Message 7 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous
‎10-23-2003 07:19 AM
‎10-23-2003 07:19 AM

Can anyone comment on Visual Mill as an inexpensive tool for fairly simple
mold cavities?
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Message 8 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous
‎10-23-2003 05:27 PM
‎10-23-2003 05:27 PM

EdgeCAM can inport both Parasolid and ACIS. You can
read in models from Inventor, SW, Pro/E, CATIA and a couple more

 

 


style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">

In January I complete a 3 month eval of CAM
software for our company.  While it cost more than some others, we found
that we saved time by using Esprit.  We just took delivery of a new CNC
lathe and milling center and with the exception of a tweaking the posts, we
are up and running.  We use Esprit to program both our wire machines, our
existing CNC and our two new machines.  Since we have started using
Esprit in March, we have scrapped two pieces in the wire. Both of those
have been traced back to poor drawings, and both would have been caught by
Esprit if the error checking would have been activated.   Also,
Esprit is the only that I found supports both Parasolids and
ACIS.

 

Esprit2002 supports dual solid kernels: Parasolid
V13 and ACIS 6.3


size=2> 

Esprit2003 will
support dual solid kernels: Parasolid V14 and ACIS V10


class=550404523-16062003> 

Ed
O'Halloran

Automation Tool
& Die


style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
Hi,
I'm new to the world of CAM and CNC and am looking at getting the first CNC
machine for our shop. Not Only Is it a tough Choice to decide where to even
begin with what type of machine then you have to decide on what CAM progranm
you want to use to bring your parts to reality. SInce I use Inventor to
design 95% of the parts we use I was wondering if anyone here had any
recomendations as to the CAM software which would work best with inventor? I
want to be able to take complex 3d shapes from inventor and create useable
parts from there. Any Suggestions?
Report
0 Likes
Reply
Message 9 of 10
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous
‎10-23-2003 08:26 PM
‎10-23-2003 08:26 PM

and... there is an AutoCAD plug-in called TahlCAM
that works great on open pockets and chamfered slots. Its almost free and easy
to use if you already have AutoCAD.

Jim


style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">

I looked at a lot of different ones and I
narrowed it down to Todd's list too. They're all expensive, but I thought
Gibbs was too expensive. MasterCAM is plain simple and pretty reliable. Esprit
and EdgeCAM are pretty comparable. If you're
going with Haas equipment (no windows interface, but nice to work
with), you'll find out that Esprit has a close relationship with
Haas.

 

Are you doing production parts or prototyping?
They all try to show you they're automated programming tools. They look good
at first until you ask them to do something realistic. In my opinion,
the automation modules are worthless. And the automatic feature
recognition isn't as smart as they make it out to be..

 

Make sure you make them demo some of your parts
that they haven't seen before. Right now we are down to EdgeCAM and
Esprit (although MasterCAM keeps coming up every once in a while). For
the second demo, I asked them to do one of our simpler parts. They both choked
on an open pocket and a chamfered slot. On the chamfered slot, they
both wanted to start milling at the bottom of the chamfer (not a good
idea). Eventually, they would have made the part, but with a lot of
time spent cutting air.


--
Kevin Wehner


style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
Here
are a few for you to take a look
at:

MasterCAM
GibbsCAM
EdgeCAM
ESPIRIT

As far as the
machine goes, have fun. We just bought our first CNC router and it took us
about 2 years to make our decision. We don't regret it though, there's A LOT
of variables to consider. HTH, Todd
Report
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Message 10 of 10
bill.costello
Advocate
in reply to: Anonymous
‎10-28-2003 02:56 AM
‎10-28-2003 02:56 AM

have you looked at Hypermill, it is very good and easy to use and cost effective too. I think it can be obtained from Man and Machine in the UK

regards

BIll
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