Laptop for Injection Mold CAM programming

[swimleft]

Hello,

I am thinking of getting a new laptop for primarily injection mold programming.

My general thought process is this:

->I have a lot of travel and I need to be programming  while on the road -> my current desktop hangs for upto 5 minutes every time I  even just and select or deselect a toolpaths and also when I do other CAD operations -> maybe I should buy a high end laptop to replace my desktop and use a dock or similar setup for at work.

My current desktop is a Lenovo legion 730:

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700K CPU @ 3.60GHz, 3600 Mhz, 8 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB

RTX2070 graphics card

This current setup hangs for hours while I am programming molds (Maybe 3 out of 12 hours of programming), so I am hoping to avoid this the the laptop.

I am thinking of these:

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/P1-Gen-2/p/22WS2WPP102 

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/ThinkPad-P73/p/22WS2WPWP73

For the past years I have had a Lenovo W550 and been happy with it. However it can definitely not hang with what I need on the CAM front.

Does anyone have any experience with the above laptops or any other suggestions?

Thanks!

Eric

[brandon.gunderson]

That PC is so many levels of overkill, whatever you throw at it will be fine.

You know your files better than me but I'm guessing you don't really need a ~$500 gpu. If you want to save money and weight, as well as get better battery life, look for something with less GPU power. Like I said though, you know your files better than any of us, maybe check to see what your GPU usage while you go through your daily work is like.

I personally have had a lot of luck with AMDs Ryzen platform with fusion. It's cheaper and fusion seems to scale well with high core count but that's just me personally.

[swimleft]

I wish my desktop was over kill it hangs up endlessly. To project lines from the model takes upwards of a minute for the project tool to let me select a new line. The customer wont let me show the whole mold, but I can show a bit of a cavity.

Most of the molds have cavities like this, with tools down to .025". Which ends up being a lot of surfaceing, with program files around 50 to 70 mb.

The GPU usage is typically really low, but the CPU usage goes to maxed out frequently when I go to edit tool paths (not to recalulate, but to just click "edit")

I agree on the GPU, my understanding is that this does not do much in Fusion (for my needs). But if I get something prebuild, it seems that all higher end processes are paired with better GPU's. 

On the AMD front, are there certain laptops I should look at? I trust the ThinkPads from a durability perspective which is important for me.

[brandon.gunderson]

I have similar results in terms of GPU usage I just wanted to be sure you were experiencing similar results.

You may think you need a high end CPU for cam, and it will help, but you really don't need as much power as you think. Modern CPUs are very, very good. My $175 ryzen 3600 is 6 cores 12 threads and Fusion uses all cores, its much faster than the i7 6700k I use at work. The more cores philosophy in CPU manufacturing in the last few years has really helped productivity and workloads.

Is there anything specific features you are looking for? Any specific size screen? Storage amount? I can find you something pretty quick, I look at computers a lot. You would actually be pretty surprised to if you look outside of "workstation" laptops. Most gaming laptops have a really high end CPU and low end GPU because GPUs are very expensive and most people don't know **** about computers so they see i7 and buy it.

I am super confused though, if you currently have a 9700k you shouldn't be getting such low FPS/Hitching/freezing. Even with all the stuff intel is going through atm the 9700k is still a monster of a cpu.

[swimleft]

Some numbers:

CPU 22% and 2 minutes open mold file

CPU 30% and 1.5 minutes to unprotect parallel tool path (777kb)

CPU mostly 25% with spike to 55% during generating same parallel tool path 

CPU mostly 50% up to 70% while generating small adaptive tool path(.0625 x .015 Step over) (fusion hung up for 1.5 minutes after selecting generate)

I am not sure how to compare what I am seeing here with how a laptop will perform. 

[swimleft]

Also, by the seat of my pants, the model I just pulled up is moving faster today. It seems that as I get more into the CAM layout, things get slower and slower.

As far as features, My W550s is awesome as far as screen (size 15"). No preference on storage either. I think 100% of my files are cloud based. 

Also thanks for the responses. I looked around, but I could not find a recent thread on buying a laptop for Fusion.

[ChristopherMarion]

@swimleft 

I am currently using a Lenovo ThinkPad P52 and was using a P51 previously. 

I absolutely love this laptop.  I crunch very complex toolpath's with PowerMill and FeatureCAM and never have any real performance issues.

System spec's:

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8850H CPU @ 2.60GHz, 2592 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 64.0 GB

NVIDIA Quadro P2000

1TB Kingston SSD

Personally, the graphics card is something I would not cheap out on, but I don't think is necessary to drop a ton of money on.  Also, get a processor with some decent clockspeed.

Here is a site you can visit to check benchmarks......https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/  You will at least know what you are getting before you buy.  I think mine falls in the 80% range and it is not overly expensive.

[brandon.gunderson]

You for sure have something weird going on there. I can't really compare results with you because I don't have the file to mess with. If you could send me a file that you have issues with that a client is okay with others seeing I could compare. Either way something isn't adding up.

When you say it hangs up or hitches is it calculating or is it just frozen? Intricate toolpaths with small step overs on large areas are going to take time to calculate but I think the longest I've ever had a toolpath take to generate was under 5 minutes and that was on 2ft ferrari emblem program with a really small step over.


As far as laptop performance, well, no matter what it's going to be lower. The CPU and GPU models in laptops are cut down versions of the desktop hardware 99% of the time. The only exception to this is gaming laptops (read as 20lb bricks that play games) that are purposely built to offer the absolute maximum gaming performance in a laptop. Those laptops will not have a cutdown cpu or gpu. Most laptop CPUS have something after them, like a u or an h to indicate they are the cutdown version. They are lower power varients because laptops have to worry about battery life and thermals. Same with the GPUs. Laptops just can't handle the heat generated by full power chips, and they will throttle down as well. That's why if you don't need all that GPU power it's best to steer away from it, it hurts battery life but it also generates more heat which will cause your cpu to clock itself down to maintain thermals.

[swimleft]

Also, the desktop is some what of an aside. I am going to buy a new lap top for travel and for how much I will spend, it has to be as good as my desktop (hopefully better) at running Fusion. I am looking for advice to give me warm and fuzzies on this.

But,for reference, my desktop benchmarks at this:

[ChristopherMarion]

@swimleft 

I've seen issues in the past with gaming cards (yours....RTX2070) causing fits to CAD/CAM systems.

Just an FYI, GeForce cards are generally using in a gaming environment, while a Quadro are meant for engineering environments (CAD/CAM).  That could be an issue you are having with your highly detailed models where your software needs to render constantly every time you rotate, pan, zoom, etc.....  Geforce cards are not meant for this type of interaction with software, where as a Quadro card is.

https://www.velocitymicro.com/blog/geforce-vs-quadro-whats-the-difference/

It would be helpful if you can update a model you are having problems with so we can test it out with a different graphics setup. 

[DarthBane55]

Your desktop, compared to the current top of the line Lenovo Thinkpad - 9th Generation Intel® Core™ i9-9880H Processor with vPro, is this:

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i9-9880H-vs-Intel-Core-i7-9700K/m750169vs4030

I doubt you will find any laptop to outperform your PC.  And you have 32gb ram.  

I don't think you will find a computer at all that will cut that much time off your current wait time!

Only the top Ryzen (for PC) would be faster than your as a workstation it seems: https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-TR-3970X-vs-Intel-Core-i7-9700K/m970030vs4030

It almost seems like you need a threadripper!

Your files are maybe just too intense for Fusion.

[DarthBane55]

@ChristopherMarion 

Fusion and Inventor are both based on DirectX, and not OpenGL, therefore gaming cards are actually better for these softwares.  It seemed weird to me too at the beginning, but that's how it is.

[ChristopherMarion]

@DarthBane55 

Good to know.  I am not Fusion literate at this point, but am learning slowly 😀

Would still like to test one of his files in say PowerMill/FeatureCAM or PowerShape to see if it gives the same results as Fusion.  I've worked on some pretty intense injection molds in the past and they seem to do a pretty good job with rendering them, plus there are ways we can turn the shading tolerances down to aid in model manipulation. 

[brandon.gunderson]

Hmmmmm. I bet you are being gimped by the lack of hyperthreading on that cpu. The intel monikers used to be i3 was 2 core with hyperthreading so 2 core 4 thread. The i5 was 4 cores no HT so 4 core 4 thread. i7 was 4 cores with hyper threading so 4 cores 8 threads. In response to AMD's ryzen platform which had a ton of cores intel kinda borked their naming scheme. I wasn't aware that the 9700k didn't have hyper threading. You might just be getting super gimped out by that. You have 8 cores that are fast in your desktop but no hyperthreading. The 9700k is good for gaming because gaming generally excels on high clock speed CPUs and normally uses 1-3 threads, Fusion on the other hand will use all of them.

Honestly, looking around, if you like Lenovo products those aren't thaaaat bad of a deal. I personally don't like thinkpads that much but they are durable and meant to be serviced quickly because, again, they are meant for work.

IF, and it's a big if, you are willing to go with a lower end build quality here's a good link.
rb.gy/glpvkv

Just about any of those laptops will blow the door off of what the thinkpads are offering in the CPU department. Fusion scales super well with cores and like I said, the newest gen CPUs really lean towards cores. You can get a 10th gen i7 or a 4th gen ryzen 7 for under a grand easily if you're okay with a lower build quality. They will probably actually beat your desktop in CAM performance because you'll have 4-8 more cores. If you don't want to go with the uber cheap options there are plenty in that link that are higher build quality as well.

Let me know if you need more help or have questions. Laptops are a bit tricky to pick out because they always seem to have one thing or another about them that's not super great.

[swimleft]

Hello all,

Thanks again for your feedback, I got nervous about going with anything else than a Lenovo. I travel a bunch and my current laptop lasted, so they have my trust.

I bought the P53 with the following trim 20QNS00X00

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/P53/p/22WS2WPWP53

This computer seems to crush it on the CAM front. I was able to knock out a mold program in easily half the time of my desktop 6ish hours. Also, even when bogged down with calculating tools paths, Fusion continues to work seamlessly. I will pay for this computer in a few weeks with the decrease in programming time. AWESOME.

Now to get a dock set up and toss my desktop (joking... not really).