HSM Works User Opinions

gkoenig · Feb 8, 2015

About to pull the CAM trigger here, and I'm leaning heavily towards HSM Works (or perhaps HSM for Inventor). I've tested pretty much everything, and HSM seems to be the clear winner in UI and overall speed from taking a solid model and laying tool path on that bad boy.

My only hesitation is that it seems... incomplete. Much like I was saying in the Fusion 360 thread, it's a new tool without 10 years of feature additions behind it. I'm just wondering if you guys who have experience with HSM Works AND something else have ever run into problems you couldn't solve with HSM Works (or could solve, with a lot of rigamarole) that other CAM systems spit out no problem.

I don't want to invest the time really learning this thing inside and out only to get down the road and find some sort of brick wall.

Atomkinder · Feb 8, 2015

Support is very key in my mind, and our VAR for Mastercam wasn't great (found better advice here), and I keep hearing about at the current job it's like pulling teeth to get a post changed for our current CAM. Well, even through Fusion the support has been fantastic. I can get questions answered, posts modified by the next day, and they work across the spectrum.

I have very little experience with HSMWorks as I only just got HSMXpress on the work computer, but I spit out a 2D adaptive path that I had running the next day. I had never made a setup in it before, had to make myself learn a little about Solidworks in the process (not a bad thing, I have had zero experience with it until this job), and if I can get code from a new program onto a machine that WORKS, and that fast then I consider it a winner. It's stupidly intuitive, easy to modify, very fast toolpath calculations, basically a hands-down no-brainer if I was looking at CAM.

Provided you aren't depending on the turning, or so sayeth the interwebs. Basically the mill is supposed to be very nice (and the 2.5D is from what I can tell so far), the tool library is a breeze and breath of fresh air, but word is the turning is very incomplete as of yet.

Very interested to see what others say as well.

Stihl290 · Feb 8, 2015

I have HSMXpress with SolidWorks and its good enough for being free. It's pretty self explanatory in the setup. Here's a link for HSMXpress with Solidworks on youtube->https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD4p7NgS5zIoFJcm5VFwxHg

gkoenig · Feb 8, 2015

Atomkinder said:
Provided you aren't depending on the turning, or so sayeth the interwebs. Basically the mill is supposed to be very nice (and the 2.5D is from what I can tell so far), the tool library is a breeze and breath of fresh air, but word is the turning is very incomplete as of yet.

Anthony Graves (the CAM manager at Autodesk) has said that their big focus next is to improve HSM's turning module. Oddly enough, they are also working to improve the tool module, but that side of HSM blew everything else out of the water during my evaluations, so I don't know why they are bothering. Also on the list is baked in support for probing and 4 axis tombstone handling baked deeply into the software.

The only feature I really wish it had is taking the remaining stock model from the previous operation set and letting me start a new operation set with it, even allowing me to pick a new G54 right off the in-progress stock geometry.

Also, I'll throw in a dumb question - how are people programming soft jaws? I'm grabbing the profile I want to clamp off of my model and setting them into a stock model of soft jaws I already have, but I basically end up slicing my model down the middle so I can machine the jaws in a vise with a 1" block seperating them. I sorta hacked that, I'm figuring there is a better way?

gkoenig · Feb 8, 2015

Stihl290 said:
I have HSMXpress with SolidWorks and its good enough for being free. It's pretty self explanatory in the setup. Here's a link for HSMXpress with Solidworks on youtube->https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD4p7NgS5zIoFJcm5VFwxHg

I've been using HSMExpress for a while, but now I've got access to a 5 Axis mill and we'll be needing some 3D toolpath tools. I've been using HMSExpress for a while and dicking around with it inside of Fusion - but the Fusion implementation is very limited and sorta buggy (and I've yet to mind-meld with modeling in Fusion).

Atomkinder · Feb 8, 2015

gkoenig said:
Anthony Graves (the CAM manager at Autodesk) has said that their big focus next is to improve HSM's turning module. Oddly enough, they are also working to improve the tool module, but that side of HSM blew everything else out of the water during my evaluations, so I don't know why they are bothering. Also on the list is baked in support for probing and 4 axis tombstone handling baked deeply into the software.

The only feature I really wish it had is taking the remaining stock model from the previous operation set and letting me start a new operation set with it, even allowing me to pick a new G54 right off the in-progress stock geometry.

Also, I'll throw in a dumb question - how are people programming soft jaws? I'm grabbing the profile I want to clamp off of my model and setting them into a stock model of soft jaws I already have, but I basically end up slicing my model down the middle so I can machine the jaws in a vise with a 1" block seperating them. I sorta hacked that, I'm figuring there is a better way?

I have read a little on the direction that things are expected to go. It's too bad Anthony is leaving though, I think he was a great voice for Autodesk. Al Whatmough is taking over Anthony's position.

At any rate, there has been a lot of chatter about the stock model wish (including on the Autodesk CAM forum) and I think it's great that it's being pushed for so heavily. I think it could change a lot of assumptions about the way we model toolpaths in CAM without having to resort to exporting stock as its own model. The idea of integrating probing would be pure gold if implemented properly.

Soft jaws? I haven't made any in years, (the last guy did that and we don't have much in the way of new product ATM), but I used to just pull the profile of the part, stick a 1/2" parallel between the two jaws and machine with a cutter offset -.002 or so to allow the part to come out. Just helix or ramp down. If you need more space in between for drill clearance or other reasons, use a few more parallels?

gkoenig · Feb 8, 2015

Atomkinder said:
Soft jaws? I haven't made any in years, (the last guy did that and we don't have much in the way of new product ATM), but I used to just pull the profile of the part, stick a 1/2" parallel between the two jaws and machine with a cutter offset -.002 or so to allow the part to come out. Just helix or ramp down. If you need more space in between for drill clearance or other reasons, use a few more parallels?

Let's say I have a part that is 5"x5" that requires 2 ops in a vise and has a funky profile. I want to cut soft jaws to hold it for the second op. It's easy enough to grab the geometry and make the toolpath but... I don't have a precision block or parallel to hold the vise jaws apart that far while I cut them. So, I wind up taking a copy of the model, cutting the middle out of it so it spans my soft jaws at the 1" separation I can make with my parallels, and programing that. I'm figuring there is a better way to do this...?

Atomkinder · Feb 8, 2015

gkoenig said:
Let's say I have a part that is 5"x5" that requires 2 ops in a vise and has a funky profile. I want to cut soft jaws to hold it for the second op. It's easy enough to grab the geometry and make the toolpath but... I don't have a precision block or parallel to hold the vise jaws apart that far while I cut them. So, I wind up taking a copy of the model, cutting the middle out of it so it spans my soft jaws at the 1" separation I can make with my parallels, and programing that. I'm figuring there is a better way to do this...?

Sounds like it could work pretty well without too much fuss. Why not stack two 1-2-3 blocks together along the 2" measurement? Then you've got a half inch per jaw.

gkoenig · Feb 8, 2015

But I can only use vintage Moore 1-2-3 blocks, because all other 1-2-3 blocks are inferior, and I can't afford them for the going rate of $500 right now!

Stihl290 · Feb 8, 2015

With HSM I know that you can edit the g code after it posts' in the NC Editor but it's kinda limited in axis of freedom. If you want a CAM software that does 3+ axis I would look else where. I've tried Bobcad-cam before and it's kinda "junky".

Atomkinder · Feb 8, 2015

On the subject of software again, I would stay the hell away from Camworks. It has really limited 3-axis surfacing paths from what I've seen already, and the tool library is a nightmare all unto itself. I very much liked how Gibbscam handled 3D paths. Very little having to mess with constraints, and I have seen what it can do in 5-axis mill-turn at a previous job. Of course I have no experience in programming it at that level, nor in HSMWorks. Hopefully others will chime in with their experiences (I believe csharp is doing some of this work with HSMWorks).

implmex · Feb 9, 2015

Hi All:
I've been watching my buddy and new business partner driving HSMWorks on our mills and I have to say, I've been very impressed with what he can do with the software.
Keith is an expert user, having participated in the development, as well as sold and supported HSMWorks for a number of years, and is also a very talented toolmaker; his name will be familiar to some of you who have bought HSMWorks in the past few years.
There isn't much he can't tackle effectively, and he's a lot more efficient with HSMWorks than I am with Master Scam, even though I've been a Mastercam driver for a long time now. (15+ years)
He can also make nicer parts than I can and can mill them faster; and I say that confidently because we've done some side by side comparisons, running identical parts with MCam code and then with HSM code.

When you say it seems "incomplete" GKoenig, I know what you mean, having felt the same way when I first tried it out on Keith's rather passionate recommendation.
But I do assure you, that once you've spent some time with it, you'll begin to appreciate how much you can do by manipulating your stock and geometry models and by defining your tools well.
The full capabilities that come from the ability to redefine the job models and the stock models freely were not intuitively obvious to me; and it's been an eye opener watching an expert driver getting the most out of the software.

Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix – Design & Innovation - home
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining
Home

Red James · Feb 9, 2015

gkoenig said:
But I can only use vintage Moore 1-2-3 blocks, because all other 1-2-3 blocks are inferior, and I can't afford them for the going rate of $500 right now!

BS! Even the import stuff from Shars matches blocks w/i 0.0002, and I doubt if any vise movable jaw slides that precisely.

Chris59 · Feb 9, 2015

gkoenig said:
Also, I'll throw in a dumb question - how are people programming soft jaws? I'm grabbing the profile I want to clamp off of my model and setting them into a stock model of soft jaws I already have, but I basically end up slicing my model down the middle so I can machine the jaws in a vise with a 1" block seperating them. I sorta hacked that, I'm figuring there is a better way?

We have Assembly with SolidWorks so we just put the part where we want it in the block sized for our soft jaws and create a cavity. Then make sketches from that cavity in the soft jaws. Usually I just make the single block represent both soft jaws so it might be cutting air where you have the spacer. We make small parts and I usually use a 1/16" spacer so that's not an issue. Since you're only making one fixture per set up I suspect it's not an issue for you either.

rlockwood · Feb 9, 2015

gkoenig said:
I've been using HSMExpress for a while, but now I've got access to a 5 Axis mill and we'll be needing some 3D toolpath tools. I've been using HMSExpress for a while and dicking around with it inside of Fusion - but the Fusion implementation is very limited and sorta buggy (and I've yet to mind-meld with modeling in Fusion).

If you use Solidworks and need to go from model->part as quickly as possible, there's nothing better. I've been using it a few years now, haven't run into any glaring holes or issues. It's pretty limited for simultaneous 5x, but there's really only a handful of people who handle that well. For 3+2, it's excellent.

isaac338 · Feb 9, 2015

gkoenig said:
Let's say I have a part that is 5"x5" that requires 2 ops in a vise and has a funky profile. I want to cut soft jaws to hold it for the second op. It's easy enough to grab the geometry and make the toolpath but... I don't have a precision block or parallel to hold the vise jaws apart that far while I cut them. So, I wind up taking a copy of the model, cutting the middle out of it so it spans my soft jaws at the 1" separation I can make with my parallels, and programing that. I'm figuring there is a better way to do this...?

Put your part into an assembly with the modeled jaw blanks and do the CAM inside the assembly. Make a job using the jaws as stock and it won't cut air, it'll only cut the jaws. You can just dimension them to be at whatever separation you need, and then put a 123 block in the vise or something.

You can set a coordinate system to a jaw corner or vise corner and use that as the jaw and/or second side job coordinate system in HSMworks, so you can program first side, jaws, and second side all in the same assembly without futzing around with figuring out where the zeroes will wind up.

Then when you do the CAM for the second side op, you can set the jaws as a fixture and then check for collisions if you want.

gkoenig · Feb 9, 2015

Red James said:
BS! Even the import stuff from Shars matches blocks w/i 0.0002, and I doubt if any vise movable jaw slides that precisely.

I was being sarcastic...

Still want a set of vintage Moore 1-2-3 blocks though, just as an artifact.

gkoenig · Feb 9, 2015

rlockwood said:
If you use Solidworks and need to go from model->part as quickly as possible, there's nothing better. I've been using it a few years now, haven't run into any glaring holes or issues. It's pretty limited for simultaneous 5x, but there's really only a handful of people who handle that well. For 3+2, it's excellent.

It's odd how there is hardly any information about their multi-axis tool-path strategies. You basically get swarf, flow and multi-axis contour... but no tutorials, videos or even decent documentation. Everything we make is done in 3+1 or 3+2, but I have one part right now that is begging for 1 or 2 milti-axis operations.

I downloaded the Inventor HSM trial (right now, for $10k, you get HMS 5 Axis + Inventor Pro in a bundle deal...). Inventor is actually pretty slick, though (like my time with NX) I'm still having to mind-meld with the sketch methods which are just different enough from SolidWorks to be super annoying. HMS inside Inventor is not very mature though - I can see things missing from it that HMS Works has (stock simulation, being an example). I mostly got the demo to try out Inventor and play with the multi-axis path - laying down a swarf toolpath on a model was trivially easy. I'll play with miltiaxis contour later on.

XD341 · Feb 9, 2015

For milling in the production environment and in tool and die making I think HSM is awesome. I've had it for 4 or 5 years now...I was a ONEcnc user so I may be easy to impress but as a SW pro HSM just works.....I don't really spend much time thinking about how to use it.

I've used it for some turning...it needs further dev time there but the milling side is worth it. If you are already a SW user you would be crazy not to use HSM for milling.

Pattnmaker · Feb 9, 2015

gkoenig said:
It's odd how there is hardly any information about their multi-axis tool-path strategies. You basically get swarf, flow and multi-axis contour... but no tutorials, videos or even decent documentation. Everything we make is done in 3+1 or 3+2, but I have one part right now that is begging for 1 or 2 milti-axis operations.

I downloaded the Inventor HSM trial (right now, for $10k, you get HMS 5 Axis + Inventor Pro in a bundle deal...). Inventor is actually pretty slick, though (like my time with NX) I'm still having to mind-meld with the sketch methods which are just different enough from SolidWorks to be super annoying. HMS inside Inventor is not very mature though - I can see things missing from it that HMS Works has (stock simulation, being an example). I mostly got the demo to try out Inventor and play with the multi-axis path - laying down a swarf toolpath on a model was trivially easy. I'll play with miltiaxis contour later on.

I would love to see more information on 5 axis as well. I am currently using HSMworks for foundry patterns and love it. I am considering buying a 5 axis router in the next couple of years and would love to learn more about 5 axis toolpaths before pulling the trigger. It would be nice if I could stick with HSMworks if I go 5 axis.

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