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Esprit vs Featurecam for a Y 2 spindle lathe.

plutoniumsalmon

Hot Rolled
Joined
May 27, 2014
Location
Los Angeles
Hello.

I am in the process of getting a CAM package for a y axis two spindle lathe. I got it narrowed down to Esprit and Featurecam. I will be probably getting it Tuesday of next week and before I did so wanted to, for the last time, get your guys opinions on them. I know about the stuff going on with Autodesk but I like how fast it seemed to work a part out. I liked esprit because it seemed very well thought out, torque settings for handoffs, and other okuma specific setting baked in.

Thank you.
 
Purchased Esprit for our shop to use with our Mori's and Mazak. Posts are clean and I've been making good parts right out of the box. I used FC a long time ago and it's good software also. They're pretty similar in some ways, go with what feels natural. Hopefully you got to demo each software.
 
We use both, Esprit on the Wire EDM's and Feature Cam for 3 axis 3D cnc milling and mill turn on the cnc lathe. We import solidworks file's and prog. from there. I like Feature Cam because it's so user friendly and the support is great. If your doing mostly WEDMing I recomend Esprit. If your milling and turning I recomend Feature Cam.
 
We use both, Esprit on the Wire EDM's and Feature Cam for 3 axis 3D cnc milling and mill turn on the cnc lathe. We import solidworks file's and prog. from there. I like Feature Cam because it's so user friendly and the support is great. If your doing mostly WEDMing I recomend Esprit. If your milling and turning I recomend Feature Cam.

Christian told me there are only a handful of FeatureCAM shops in AZ. I have worked at 4 of them (5 counting mine). And know of 2 or 3 more.
Where are you at? Just curious. No need to answer if you don't want.
 
Christian told me there are only a handful of FeatureCAM shops in AZ. I have worked at 4 of them (5 counting mine). And know of 2 or 3 more.
Where are you at? Just curious. No need to answer if you don't want.

Sturm Ruger and granite mountain design in Prescott use featurecam, so does Bent River in clarkdale... Yavapai college shop also uses featurecam... They are a bit north of you but still in az! Hytechusa in Phoenix also uses fcam...

I'll put in a vote for fcam, though never used espirit.
 
I worked at Bent-River for 2 weeks. What a cluster-fuck that place was.
The Q/C guy seemed to be the only guy with his head screwed on straight.
I can remember sitting there for an hour waiting for a solid with about 900 holes in it, to import, because the PC was a piece of shit.
And it would crash on me several times a day. But! "it works for every body else, we don't need to replace it".
They didn't like my reply of "it works for every body else because it is a great excuse to slack off!"
Their "tool-crib" was a joke. two clapped out cabinets, with who knew what in them. It was bad.
Actually, come to think about it. there was a deaf guy running manuals that knew what was up as well.
But, he did everything out of his own box. And, re-locked it every time he went to it.
I couldn't make it there.

The owner seemed like a nice lady. But, she really needed some guidance.

Ohh-yea, and the hill-jack from Colorado living in his trailer parked out back, working day-shift, with the HUGE pile of Budweiser cans right by his trailer door.

After these made it through QC, I quit:

 
Sorry OP for derailing your thread!

I have never used Esprit. Nor done any twin spindle or Y lathe work.
But, I have done a lot of turning, and live-tooled, lathe work with FeatureCAM.
It is excellent software. Quite user friendly, and easy to use. And the post support is excellent.
Actual tech-support for the software itself is hit or miss. If you are not in a hurry, its fine I suppose.
They use a "portal" for support. Which is basically a fancy way of getting support through emails.
I personally hate it. Lucky for me I don't need it very often.
 
Hello. Thank you.
Bought esprit. Feature can was a bit worrying with them switching to subscription. Also esprit was the only demo that showed a working hand-off.
 
Starting in 06/01/2015 through 04/01/2016, we tried to work with Esprit’s CAD/CAM software that was unable to function safely or properly and this product does not function as advertised.

Fact:
Esprit is not a proven post for our 2015 Multus B300II

Proof:
We purchased MasterCam at the end of March 2016 and in 72hrs we was able to program and make its first complete part with our new Multus.
All issues with MasterCam that arose were phoned into the techs and resolved in 24hrs and those items no longer show again.

We have completed a dozen completely different parts with MasterCam, in the last few weeks, these parts where completed first try each with no tool breakage or wild code that sends our programmer to tech support.

1. The proof is that MasterCam came into our facility and programmed a fictitious part that we handed them and they proved the post on our machine. Live in our shop!!!! Unlike Esprit taking over 6 months and still not figuring out that we had a Submicron option on our Multus, until Jan 2016. Even though we told them this was the issue with their software countless times in 2015.

2. Esprit’s software never was able to complete a sellable part. Esprit on the screen in the office looks great and throws no errors. Nor did it show the removal of the wall of one part in particular, but improper nc code that was outputted to the Multus gave a result of removing the wall of the part. The simulator on the Multus is what constantly saved us.

3. We have not had any broken tooling or scrap raw stock with MasterCam. This is the difference between a properly working post (producing good nc code) from a good software company. Compared to Esprit that just says they have a proven post. We broke several tools and a long stick composite chamfer tool from Sandvik Coromant.

4. Proof of the day and night difference between MasterCam and Esprit is our sales. Zero when we tried using Esprit and everything we touched with MasterCam has been all green.

5. Esprit's go to argument is the need for more training for Esprit’s complicated software. This is null and voided when you compare it to 72 hours later with MasterCam and completed parts coming out of our Multus. That ends any Esprit Training remark.

6. Esprit really thinks that we should believe that 6 to 12 months is an industry standard for bringing a Multi Tasking Machine like the Multus up and running with a CAD/CAM like Esprit. When the sales guy sent out the applications engineer to our shop, I also had a 25 yr medical engineer present at the facility for the discussion. When he mentioned again about 6 to 12 months being industry standard the older medical engineer spoke up and said (No, 30 days to operational level and if it crosses 30 days a replacement program is being brought in. This is the true standard and no company that he has ever worked in has tolerated more than this.)

The walk away from this story?
Make them prove it works on your machine. I can tell you MasterCam was eager to come in and prove it.

By the way with the package and all of the options we needed we spent over $40K on Esprit and about the same with MasterCam.
But guess what? Even though Esprit never worked nor could they produce a part, they will not refund the money.

That means you just tossed over $40K into the fire and watched it burn.

Make them prove their Post or send them out the door quickly.
 








 
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