I know I will get different answers on which is best if for nothing else as a matter of taste, but I'm so close to trying to work a deal for HSMWorks I wanted to get some perspective from someone who may be running SolidCam on a older control or even someone who has used both quite a bit. I have a Fanuc 0M-B (late 80's/early 90's) and it can only run so fast without data starvation. I know this whole thing might seem like an oxymoron trying to get the most CAM performance from an old machine not designed for the new toolpaths, but we all have to start somewhere with CNC, and this is the machine I've got as I transition from turning wheels on a manual. I've spent close to 2 weeks without cutting a chip, just pulling my hair out with each successive CAM package I was demo'ing trying to learn it to create a solid toolpath on a part that was a 50/50 mix of 2.5D and 3D. I was using that part as a baseline because if I got good results and quick programming on it I knew it would work well for most everything I do.
Then I found HSMWorks and everything changed. Compared to all the packages I tried it was the best by far when weighing toolpath, ease of learning, and ease of programming. I was able to create a solid tool path that blew away most all of them in just a couple hours of poking around with it without even needing to read a manual or watch a video. Very refreshing!!! I'm not a fan of it not having "exclude" boundaries (from what I could find), only "include" boundaries, but with the easy Check Surfaces feature it overcomes a lot of that. The simulation is one of the best and actually being able to know the exact amount of rest at any spec on the part by mousing over it is huge (I couldn't find this in SolidCam BTW, just color coding based on user defined thresholds).
This part ran very well on this old control using the adaptive roughing due to the the way uses a lot of arcs naturally (or through the use of the arc fitting settings). 65% of my roughing moves came out as arcs which is huge for a control like mine because I could run it upwards of 30-40 IPM with only very occasional jerkiness. Trying to do that point-to-point would make the machine look pretty bad.
So what's the problem...? Well, I'm greedy I guess and I know I shouldn't be at this stage, but I want to make the most of what I have and spend each minute and penny as wisely as possible. Despite all the good I noticed plenty of room for the cycle to be optimized by dynamically increasing the feedrate. I was being on the light side as it was... 1018 Steel, 1/2 Carbide 4FL EM, .500 DOC (max model height is .500), .030 stepover, 30 IPM. I'm sure I could go much more on the stepover but I'm just getting used to programmed feed/speeds instead of my manual background where I would do everything by feel. The spindle load would get close to 40%, but that might have been due to the cutter not being the greatest quality and/or the RPM not being dialed in the best. In fact, that is why I am still searching for the best solution because in theory I should be able to get close to 7 CuIn/Min MRR if I believe what I read (1 CuIn per HP), and even if it tops out at just 4HP constant, that is still 8X less MRR than I am doing at the moment. I am sure the reason probably has more to do with me, and less to do with the tool, and even less to do with the CAM... just trying to illustrate I'm working on trying to get the most from what I have and it a long learning curve doing it all at once.
Anyways, when it was cutting shallower stuff I would have loved for the stepover or feedrate go up proportionally, but it seems fairly static, so I would have a load of like 10% on the spindle knowing I could be running that part of the op WAY higher. So if it was doing 40IPM at .500 DOC/.030 Stepover, it would be nice to up to .060 stepover or 80IPM in .250 DOC, or whatever the math would be if it is not as simple an even proportion. I'm sure I would have problems at 80IPM with data starvation so the increased stepover would be more ideal I believe.
This is why SolidCam looks appealing. The iMachining has dynamic feed throughout the op to try to make the op as efficient as possible while keeping an optimal MRR throughout. My only fear is though is if my control will choke with it (poorer arc fitting/too many points, etc if it is geared towards new controls) or if the toolpaths are still "good" at lower feeds... like 50IPM and under?
I know most of you are probably thinking "Just demo SolidCam and see for yourself" and I started to but I ran out of time and patience and before I invest all the time into I want to see if I am barking up the wrong tree to begin with. To really learn the software it seems I need to really lock myself in a room for a couple days and do all the training videos and such, but I really need to be getting parts made instead. Plus, I became pretty frustrated with SolidCam pretty quickly, and even though it is more intuitive than some of the packages that make you go "WTF was the person designing this software thinking?", I was put off by the lack of a traditional manual being replaced with just the training videos and interactive PDFs available. I could never find a resource that explained all of the options and walked you through the software beginning to end like other packages. Instead it became kind of a guessing game at what strategy does what, what option does this, etc.
With all that said, do you think SolidCam can allow me to get significantly more from the machine/control than I can do with HSMWorks? It does seems like SC will have a little longer learning curve just from the large number of strategies in it and the lack a start to end resource for it (that I could find). I already feel like an old pro at HSMWorks after just a couple days despite still not knowing what all the features do or the tricks to it. But if I can reduce an op by 50% compared to HSMWorks even with my limited control then it would be worth pursuing it further.
At this point I'm not really interested in any other CAM package it is just between the two. I demo'd just about everything I could get my hands on and I believe that there are other options that could be better, but nothing else resonated with me enough in terms of toolpath generation or user interface/workflow enough to want to master it.
Then I found HSMWorks and everything changed. Compared to all the packages I tried it was the best by far when weighing toolpath, ease of learning, and ease of programming. I was able to create a solid tool path that blew away most all of them in just a couple hours of poking around with it without even needing to read a manual or watch a video. Very refreshing!!! I'm not a fan of it not having "exclude" boundaries (from what I could find), only "include" boundaries, but with the easy Check Surfaces feature it overcomes a lot of that. The simulation is one of the best and actually being able to know the exact amount of rest at any spec on the part by mousing over it is huge (I couldn't find this in SolidCam BTW, just color coding based on user defined thresholds).
This part ran very well on this old control using the adaptive roughing due to the the way uses a lot of arcs naturally (or through the use of the arc fitting settings). 65% of my roughing moves came out as arcs which is huge for a control like mine because I could run it upwards of 30-40 IPM with only very occasional jerkiness. Trying to do that point-to-point would make the machine look pretty bad.
So what's the problem...? Well, I'm greedy I guess and I know I shouldn't be at this stage, but I want to make the most of what I have and spend each minute and penny as wisely as possible. Despite all the good I noticed plenty of room for the cycle to be optimized by dynamically increasing the feedrate. I was being on the light side as it was... 1018 Steel, 1/2 Carbide 4FL EM, .500 DOC (max model height is .500), .030 stepover, 30 IPM. I'm sure I could go much more on the stepover but I'm just getting used to programmed feed/speeds instead of my manual background where I would do everything by feel. The spindle load would get close to 40%, but that might have been due to the cutter not being the greatest quality and/or the RPM not being dialed in the best. In fact, that is why I am still searching for the best solution because in theory I should be able to get close to 7 CuIn/Min MRR if I believe what I read (1 CuIn per HP), and even if it tops out at just 4HP constant, that is still 8X less MRR than I am doing at the moment. I am sure the reason probably has more to do with me, and less to do with the tool, and even less to do with the CAM... just trying to illustrate I'm working on trying to get the most from what I have and it a long learning curve doing it all at once.
Anyways, when it was cutting shallower stuff I would have loved for the stepover or feedrate go up proportionally, but it seems fairly static, so I would have a load of like 10% on the spindle knowing I could be running that part of the op WAY higher. So if it was doing 40IPM at .500 DOC/.030 Stepover, it would be nice to up to .060 stepover or 80IPM in .250 DOC, or whatever the math would be if it is not as simple an even proportion. I'm sure I would have problems at 80IPM with data starvation so the increased stepover would be more ideal I believe.
This is why SolidCam looks appealing. The iMachining has dynamic feed throughout the op to try to make the op as efficient as possible while keeping an optimal MRR throughout. My only fear is though is if my control will choke with it (poorer arc fitting/too many points, etc if it is geared towards new controls) or if the toolpaths are still "good" at lower feeds... like 50IPM and under?
I know most of you are probably thinking "Just demo SolidCam and see for yourself" and I started to but I ran out of time and patience and before I invest all the time into I want to see if I am barking up the wrong tree to begin with. To really learn the software it seems I need to really lock myself in a room for a couple days and do all the training videos and such, but I really need to be getting parts made instead. Plus, I became pretty frustrated with SolidCam pretty quickly, and even though it is more intuitive than some of the packages that make you go "WTF was the person designing this software thinking?", I was put off by the lack of a traditional manual being replaced with just the training videos and interactive PDFs available. I could never find a resource that explained all of the options and walked you through the software beginning to end like other packages. Instead it became kind of a guessing game at what strategy does what, what option does this, etc.
With all that said, do you think SolidCam can allow me to get significantly more from the machine/control than I can do with HSMWorks? It does seems like SC will have a little longer learning curve just from the large number of strategies in it and the lack a start to end resource for it (that I could find). I already feel like an old pro at HSMWorks after just a couple days despite still not knowing what all the features do or the tricks to it. But if I can reduce an op by 50% compared to HSMWorks even with my limited control then it would be worth pursuing it further.
At this point I'm not really interested in any other CAM package it is just between the two. I demo'd just about everything I could get my hands on and I believe that there are other options that could be better, but nothing else resonated with me enough in terms of toolpath generation or user interface/workflow enough to want to master it.
