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Machining Strategist V8.0

Ivan

Plastic
Joined
Apr 25, 2006
Location
Canada
For those looking for a true HSM stand alone product, it would be benificial to check out the new Version 8.0 of Machining Strategist. Since being taken over by Vero International 3 years ago, Strategist has progressively gotten stronger and faster then most of their competitors. With the release of Version 8.0, users will be introduced to the first 3d HSM stand alone CAM system which will be fully customizable.

This latest release sees a massive amount of work done on the tool library that now underpins the whole system and it's use really does have a dramatic affect on how you work with the system – essentially, if it’s set-up correctly, it takes a lot of the repetitive work out of the process. It does not use macros or machining templates to attack a job, it uses settings and variables setup by the programmer on how he likes to machine ie: stepover, stepdown, rapid type, lead-in/out etc. It is truely innovative and saves a dramatic amount of time.
 
I know, and have used, 8 different CAM systems over the last 12 years. I have seen some good, some bad and some that are real ugly. Just trying to bring some usefull information to the forum.
 
At least make it a little less obvious, or just come right out and tell us you sell the product! Either one would be better then pretending to just be a satisfied user.

Dan
 
It IS obvious, IVAN, which is why we brought it up. You are NOT an objective party in the matter. Clearly you work for the vendor. Your profile says it all.

Member Status: Plastic
Member Number: 10124
Registered: 04-25-2006
Posts: 4
Email Address: [email protected]
Location: Canada
Occupation: Applications Engineer
Homepage: http://www.veroint.com

Nobody begrudges you the opportunity to post your company and its warez. But the rules from the semi-appropriate section of the forum state:

The Resource registry is for Practical Machinist members only that have prior participation history in the discussion forums...at least a "Brass" rating. Listings by those without prior history will be deleted.
So why should anyone just be able to waltz in under false pretences, pretending to contribute, and not be called on it?

Moderator: How about a separate forum for the jackals?
 
This is true. But in my defence, up until 2 months ago, I used WorkNC, Powermill, Mastercam 2-5 axis, Edgecam and Machining Strategist. I do applications for Vero, not sales. I may work for this company, but I remain far more objective then most I meet when it comes to software comparison. If you would like an educated and experienced comparison between the products I know, I would be more then happy to do so.
 
Hi Ivan,

Does Machining Strategist now do simultaneous 5-axis?

And since you mentioned WorkNC, can you elaborate on the advantages MS has over WorkNC?

Dan
 
So why should anyone just be able to waltz in under false pretences, pretending to contribute, and not be called on it?

Moderator: How about a separate forum for the jackals?
Failsafe 7,

I’ll let this one slide for now. It’s going to be hard to keep this sort of thing to a minimum when the subject of this forum is about products that are forever evolving.

You’ll have to talk to Don about a separate forum. Jackals may be a little harsh don’t you think?

Ivan,

We welcome your contribution and feel free to continue but please be upfront about your affiliations in the future.

Thanks
 
Jackals may be a little harsh don’t you think?
If, in retrospect, Ivan turns out to be a regular, then yes, I suppose so. Given the number of users on this forum that begin and end with post #1, however, isn't my sentiment a bit justified?
 
Thank you Ivan,

There are some members here who are very interested in HSM. Hopefully one of them will be able to contact you if they have a specific question about the software you mentioned. If you have anything useful to add to our discussions about other cad/cam systems your input would be appreciated.

Charles
 
Yes, I am one of those very interested in HSM. Now that we've established where Ivan is coming from, lets get some productive discussion going. Ivan, please stick around and talk about MS 8.0!

I did the demo for MS a while ago, and it was positional 5X only. If it is now full continuous motion, then I want to look at it again.

Dan
 
Let me answer Dan's questions first:

1) Advantages of MS over WorkNc

Lets be honest, Sescoi revolutionized the market when WorkNc was introduced. It was, and still is a very good product. It has evolved as have the other CAM products, but Machining Strategist is very unique amoung all the other stand alone 3d systems. Here are a few of the advantages:

a) MS was written from scratch on the Microsoft NT platform. There is no DOS or Unix code in the database. This allows the product to take full advantage of the power of Windows, and development is rapid, with much fewer bugs in beta stages because there is no worry of "blowing up" old code.

b) MS is multi threaded. If you are using a dual processor box, MS will use one processor for graphics and the other for calculating. If you are batch processing a job, the system will use both processors in the calculation process, as long as the operations are independant of one another. On a large job, it is calculaed in half the time.

c) Unlike most other CAM systems, when Machining Strategist calculates a toolpath, it does it in 2 stages. First it calculates the passes ie: roughing, finishing , rest material etc., then you have to link them to get a toolpath. The reason for this is because a user can calculate the slices (which will remain the same), but link them many different ways utilizing different lead-ins/outs, rapids, etc. Also, when you do trimming, you are doing it on the slices, which means you won't get hundreds of retracts when you trim out an area.

d) There are many other reasons I could list, but I believe the biggest advantage of MS over WorkNc is that every cutter path outputted is optimized and very efficient. There is virtually NO air cutting.

I have done many cutting tests against WorkNc and Powermill and have always reduced the overall cutting time by a minimum of 20%, with better surface finish, and a lot less broken inserts.

I hope this answers your questions Dan and to date, MS is still only a 3+2 system. The 5axis module will probably show up in a release or two.
 
Thanks for the response. I also looked at DepoCam, which appeared very similar to MS. What is the relationship between the two?

Dan
 
Depocam and Machining Strategist were the same product up until 3 years ago. Depo, is a German mold shop (www.depo.de), which provided the ideas and cutting strategies to a company called NcGraphics, which developed the product. In their agreement, NcGraphics was allowed to sell the product worldwide as Machining Strategist, and Depo was going to sell the product as DEPOCAM only in Europe. As time went on and the software got very popular, Depo branched out worldwide and caused alot of confusion.

Since Vero purchased Machining Strategist from NcGrpahics, the two products have been developed independantly.
 
The retail price of MS is $16,000US. Posts are included (even 3+2). Usually 1 day of training is included. The maintenance is 15% of the list price/ year. If you don't want to renew your maintenance, you don't have to, and can continue to work for years with the same release. There is a 20-25% maint. cost to get back on after 2 years of no updates.

Depending on how many seats you order, the discount gets quite large.
 
Hi everyone,

I know my response is a bit delayed, but I only found this interesting forum discussion now.

I'm a DEPOCAM reseller and yes Machining Strategist is different to DepoCAM. The tool path generation found in Depocam is way different than Strategist.

DEPOCAM is more advanced than MS. NC Graphics are developing 5-Axis machining in DEPOCAM as we speak. I will post a link to a Power Point File as soon as I have uploaded it to my web server. I also suggest you download both demos to see what the real differences are.

From my point of view: DEPOCAM are more advanced than MS and less expensive. We selling it for about half the price in South Africa.

If you are looking to buy a High speed machining CAM software, I suggest you go to the people that developed it in the first place.

[ 03-03-2007, 04:53 AM: Message edited by: Sean.M ]
 








 
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