FeatureCAM 2018 Released

[mark.gadsden]

FeatureCAM 2018 has now been released. You should be able to find it in your Autodesk Desktop Application. If it is not visible there then you should be able to access it from your Autodesk account page here.  

The main features of FeatureCAM 2018 are:

• Ribbon interface - UX design improvements
• Automatic angle for parallel finishing
• Automatic 3+2 positioning
• Swiss synchronization
• Spiral toolpath improvements
• Laser machining (with PartMaker in FeatureCAM Ultimate)
• Keyway broaching (with PartMaker in FeatureCAM Ultimate) 
• Workflow improvements (with PartMaker in FeatureCAM Ultimate)

For more details please see http://www.autodesk.com/products/featurecam/features/features-by-release or view the full readme here.

Thanks,
Mark

[bhorstTGM48]

I have been down this road before. I refuse to upgrade until the dust has settled and all of your issues / gripes are addressed. 

[wmtcoinc]

Just upgraded.  Can't do 3d sim, can't do machine sims,  cant find anything.  you cant even minimize the program.  the minus sign is gone in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Real bargain $14,000 worth of lost time and aggravation for only $4000.00

oh I just found hiding behind the Nvidea tool bar.

[wmtcoinc]

Is where a way to run the 2017 interface on 2018 so we don't have to do all this double and triple clicking to do what we could in one click?

[cfarber]

As of typing this I have not found a way. But you can still run 2017. The 2018 did not overwrite 2017 (surprisingly) during install.

[jeff.brower]

Does the Ctrl-Rt-Click super-secret menu give you an option to turn off the ribbon?

Too busy right now to try the new 2018... almost sounds like I'm missing a party.

[Matthias.K]

Yes, the ribbon can be disabled via this menu. 🙂

[Anonymous]

Awesome...Wish that Autodesk made us aware of this!!

Thanks a ton Mattias!!!!

[wmtcoinc]

ok, so when you hide the ribbon, how do you run the software without buttons or tool bars?

[Anonymous]

You just create your custom toolbars as in previous versions.

See attached:

[cfarber]

Yup what programming said I just finished my toolbar setup on both my FCAM profiles.

But you do loose the nice open file window that Fcam starts in with ribbons enabled.

[cfarber]

The annoying heads up simulation ribbon goes away as well.

[cfarber]

Also was able to figure out the proper file path to have multiple FCAM icons on your desktop that all open a different toolcribs, materials, machine configurations, and or post for different materials or machines.  SEE PAGE 2 OF THE ATTACHED THIS IS FOR FCAM 2018, FOR 2017 JUST IGNORE THE RED TEXT BOXES

[Anonymous]

I ended up switching back to 2017 after a couple months.

[Anonymous]

I ended up switching to Mastercam

[Anonymous]

Why does it disappear every other time I reopen it?

[cfarber]

What disappears?

[Anonymous]

I actually ended up doing the ctrl/ right click and going back to my old
toolbar as someone suggested. Life is good again. Thanks for the reply!

[Anonymous]

Update:

Well, I used 2018 for well over 300 hours, and I can safely say that I am moving back to 2017 and staying there until they fix some major issues.

To many problems to list here.

A basic summary would be that they have geared 2018 toward the "standard/basic" user, and have left out us "power" users out..we all know who we are.

I would love to use the newest version of FeatureCAM, as I actually really like the auto selection on the surface milling parallel feature!

[cfarber]

I agree With ya Programmng!!

But I will stay running the 2018 since I have been able to get it to look like 2017 and act somewhat like 2017.

They did make it a lot harder to do the behind closed door tricks. Now my biggest gripe is I cannot use any of the macors since the update, when I did try setting up and using the macros I would get a argument errors over and over again so I gave up and now just suffer from not having my macros.

[Anonymous]

Totally agree with you on the macros...that is where its at for some quick "action" from click to code!

I got 2018 to mimic the look of 2017, but the buttons are too small for me that is and when you make them large...and setup a custom toolbar, the next time you open 2018 the toolbar is no longer there, so its just a waste of time, and I tried...trust me really tried to use the ribbon, but that, is just not happening...more wasted moves than I can deal with.

I really wish they would focus on toolpath improvements vs the stupid GUI...I don't care how it looks...I want better toolpath!

Fusion360 has some better toolpath than FC and it is free to the home machinist! I just don't get that logic..."Hey it looks cool, but your toolpath sucks"

without tweaking all the parameters to get it to do exactly what you want...I mean for example i use the roughing toolpath to do finish ops for some things because the finish toolpath just is horrible....sorry about that ...I went on a rant....Just give me some better toolpath and I will use the new GUI and love it!!

hahahahaha!!! Now don't get me wrong FC has some really nice toolpath when you are doing some complex milling, but the simple things are just crap.