MasterCam to NX learning curve.

zr1nsx · Dec 14, 2015

I have been using MasterCam for the last 7+ years and am now facing a opportunity to move to another company. I use MasterCam everyday, but mostly on 2.5D and maybe 20% in 3D surfacing. I'm very comfortable with MasterCam in 2.5D(almost automatic) operations but continue to learn each and every time I get into 3D surfacing and solids importing and modifying. The company I am considering going to uses NX to program DMG-Mori 3 axis and 5 axis mills as well at their turning center. The company I'm presently with doesn't really have a Design Engineer so the machining I do now is on Solids that I have designed, or files that are supplied to me from a variety of design packages. Solid Works, Pro-E, etc. How similar are the two packages and what can I expect as far as a transition from MasterCam to NX. It weighs heavily on my mind wondering if I can pick up NX quickly and be able to generate reliable G-Code.

DMF_TomB · Dec 14, 2015

nx

zr1nsx said:
I have been using MasterCam for the last 7+ years and am now facing a opportunity to move to another company. I use MasterCam everyday, but mostly on 2.5D and maybe 20% in 3D surfacing. I'm very comfortable with MasterCam in 2.5D(almost automatic) operations but continue to learn each and every time I get into 3D surfacing and solids importing and modifying. The company I am considering going to uses NX to program DMG-Mori 3 axis and 5 axis mills as well at their turning center. The company I'm presently with doesn't really have a Design Engineer so the machining I do now is on Solids that I have designed, or files that are supplied to me from a variety of design packages. Solid Works, Pro-E, etc. How similar are the two packages and what can I expect as far as a transition from MasterCam to NX. It weighs heavily on my mind wondering if I can pick up NX quickly and be able to generate reliable G-Code.

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there are few tutorial books on NX. on internet i found
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Dr. Ming C. Leu
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NX has option to have a built in tutorial which i highly recommend doing, it is not always installed. i believe it is a install option that some do not bother to save hard drive space. for myself i found NX difficult but was able to eventually do CAD and CAM on it. NX CAM books are even harder to find. Writing a post processor for a Prototrak took me over 100 tries.
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for myself after 5 years i did not get far. after finding book on it and doing built in NX tutorial after only a year i was able to actually do CAD CAM with it.
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if you can get help by somebody actually using it then instead of being stuck for hours or days a teacher can show you in seconds what to do. in my opinion NX was harder to learn than Solidworks and Mastercam mostly by lack of books on it and nobody where i worked was expert enough to help teach me.
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in my opinion NX was so hard to use it put my former company at a competitive disadvantage as it took longer to do anything compared to Solidworks and Mastercam. My company was offering Solidworks too and i would say Solidworks was at least 2x my popular to do work with.
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but a lot depends on if you have access to tutorial, books and other experts to help teach you

Joec@westminster · Dec 15, 2015

Having made this exact transition myself, I can tell you that it is challenging but doable. The biggest hurdle is the terminology, MC calls theirs water line and NX calls their similar path z level profile, as an example.

MC as you know is strong with 2d stuff and 3d is cumbersome, NX is all about the 3d and not as easy to do 2d stuff, but you can do it.

The next hurdle I had to overcome was my self, I had become proficient with MC and transitioning to NX I saw productivity drop and that put a negative mind set to my work.

Having settled in to using NX for electrode design and programming exclusively, I can tell you it was the right choice for us, I really like the software, it is extremely powerful and the more you learn about it you will too.

I am happy to help if I can.

Joe

LockNut · Dec 15, 2015

Don't be afraid of it. Dive in and learn. I used NX when it was still Unigraphics. I used it for 5 years up until 2000. I have to say it was the most powerful CAM software I used. I don't know what it is like today but it will put Mastercam to shame. There is a steep learning curve. NX hides stuff all over the place and certain features of the toolpaths are hidden 2-3 pages deep in some cases, much like Mastercam. But I will say, once you use a program like Mastercam and learn the terminology inherent in all CAM systems, you will take to NX and never look back. As for 2D toolpaths, NX is very strong even though it emphasizes 3D. We took our other CAM software off of the PC's and had to bite the bullet and learn NX. We were generating code within a week. Sounds like this company has been using it already. Take advantage of any resources available to you. Their customer service was awesome at that time, I don't know about now. But use it if you have it. Having used Mastercam for 7 years, you already have what it takes.

Paul

Mike1974 · Dec 15, 2015

LockNut said:
Don't be afraid of it. Dive in and learn. I used NX when it was still Unigraphics. I used it for 5 years up until 2000. I have to say it was the most powerful CAM software I used. I don't know what it is like today but it will put Mastercam to shame. There is a steep learning curve. NX hides stuff all over the place and certain features of the toolpaths are hidden 2-3 pages deep in some cases, much like Mastercam. But I will say, once you use a program like Mastercam and learn the terminology inherent in all CAM systems, you will take to NX and never look back. As for 2D toolpaths, NX is very strong even though it emphasizes 3D. We took our other CAM software off of the PC's and had to bite the bullet and learn NX. We were generating code within a week. Sounds like this company has been using it already. Take advantage of any resources available to you. Their customer service was awesome at that time, I don't know about now. But use it if you have it. Having used Mastercam for 7 years, you already have what it takes.

Paul

Funny you haven't used it in 15 years but you "know" it will put mastercam to shame. :rolleyes5:

Mastercam in the year 2000 is a very different program than it is now. Also, isn't that "hiding toolpath features" one of the biggest bitches about mastercam?! Too many button (mouse) clicks if I recall the latest bashing haha.

Seriously, I don't know NX, but if you have been using cam for 7 years now, surely you can pick something new up. Like was said, probably alot of just learning the terminology and the actual software navigation i.e. 'how do I get to xxxx and make my cut like this' will be the biggest challenge.

zr1nsx · Dec 15, 2015

I want to thank all of you who responded with positive remarks. I had been a Surfcam for 15+ years when I came to my present job. I was responsible for setting up the machine shop here and while I wanted to continue to use Surfcam because I was comfortable with it, I thought it only fair to my employer to get into Mastercam simply because there are so many people who know it. My thought process was that if I didn't stay long term, the chances of my employer finding a guy with Mastercam experience was far greater than Surfcam.

Now I have a opportunity to start up with a new company who has just obtained a handful of DMG-Mori machines and use NX exclusively. the Programmer they had has moved on for a other opportunity and now I have been offered the position he vacated. My main area of concern is simply that I program only via a CAM package and have never really bothered to learn the variety of controls that are on the various manufacturers machines. Makes no sense to me to learn the various controls when I would rather be proficient with the cam package and post the code to whatever machine I choose. I program almost daily simple lines and arcs, profiles, and such with simple 2D data and post this to our machining centers to cut a very large variety of parts. Rarely do I even save the CAD data as the parts are developmental and reasonably simple to machine and program. I'm curious how easy it is to do these same types of maneuvers using NX? It usually takes me less than 10 minutes to draw a 2D routine, create my tool paths and post to the machine. It did take 6 months or so to feel very comfortable with MC, and now it is very easy for me. I like MC very much for the various job shop parts that I make. Nervous about a change to NX, but I'm sure I can be successful with it as well.
Thanks again for the responses.

FeatureBoy · Dec 15, 2015

Mike1974 said:
Funny you haven't used it in 15 years but you "know" it will put mastercam to shame. Mastercam in the year 2000 is a very different program than it is now.

I'd just like to say that Mastercam is NOT a very different program than it was in the year 2000, and I know that for a fact.

My programming mentor had been programming for around 20 years, and he hated Mastercam X when it came out. He maintained that the DOS menus were much better, so he never upgraded and still uses mastercam V9 (not x9) to this day. One day when I asked him why he still uses V9, he told me that there was nothing that I could do in X8 that he couldn't do in V9. I kind of scoffed at him, and then began to test out his theory every time I found out some cool new trick to do in X8. Sure enough, every time, he would look around for a while and find the exact same menu or option in V9. Every time. The only things he did not have were a few new high speed tool paths (that I never use), and that was it.

In 15 years, Mastercam has tossed a couple more trinkets onto the pile that is their software, and have not seriously redone anything in any significant way. This is why almost all other CAM systems are lightyears ahead of them now, and mastercam is so damn lazy about it, it doesn't even seem like they're trying to catch-up. Instead of seriously engineering anything new, they're still living off of their legacy from the 90's.

And I am a current Mastercam Programmer, so please don't tell me that it's just because I don't know the software, or I'm not good with it. I use it every day and it's pretty automatic for me at this point, but I still constantly reminisce the days when I used something better.

Anyway, sorry to derail the thread, but I get pretty fired up when people try to defend Mastercam.

P.S. Good luck with NX! It'll seem a lot more complicated at first because the layout is a lot different than mastercam, but once you get the hang of it and see all it has to offer, I'm sure you'll love it! I salivate every time I watch the NX demos. It's the one CAM system I really wish I got to play with, unfortunately I've only heard of one shop that uses it around here.

Mike1974 · Dec 15, 2015

FeatureBoy said:
I'd just like to say that Mastercam is NOT a very different program than it was in the year 2000, and I know that for a fact.

My programming mentor had been programming for around 20 years, and he hated Mastercam X when it came out. He maintained that the DOS menus were much better, so he never upgraded and still uses mastercam V9 (not x9) to this day. One day when I asked him why he still uses V9, he told me that there was nothing that I could do in X8 that he couldn't do in V9. I kind of scoffed at him, and then began to test out his theory every time I found out some cool new trick to do in X8. Sure enough, every time, he would look around for a while and find the exact same menu or option in V9. Every time. The only things he did not have were a few new high speed tool paths (that I never use), and that was it.

In 15 years, Mastercam has tossed a couple more trinkets onto the pile that is their software, and have not seriously redone anything in any significant way. This is why almost all other CAM systems are lightyears ahead of them now, and mastercam is so damn lazy about it, it doesn't even seem like they're trying to catch-up. Instead of seriously engineering anything new, they're still living off of their legacy from the 90's.

And I am a current Mastercam Programmer, so please don't tell me that it's just because I don't know the software, or I'm not good with it. I use it every day and it's pretty automatic for me at this point, but I still constantly reminisce the days when I used something better.

Anyway, sorry to derail the thread, but I get pretty fired up when people try to defend Mastercam.

P.S. Good luck with NX! It'll seem a lot more complicated at first because the layout is a lot different than mastercam, but once you get the hang of it and see all it has to offer, I'm sure you'll love it! I salivate every time I watch the NX demos. It's the one CAM system I really wish I got to play with, unfortunately I've only heard of one shop that uses it around here.

Different strokes for different folks. Those "few new high speed tool paths" that you don't use are pretty much everyone's bread and butter now. Not saying that mastercam has better high speed paths because I don't know that.... Matter of fact there was a thread discussing something to the effect that NX charges extra or something for those "few new high speed tool paths"... I am not sure the exact nature, maybe it was just not included in their 'base' package, I am not sure.

FeatureBoy · Dec 15, 2015

Well, by "few new high speed toolpaths" I did not mean "all high speed toolpaths", I mean that they added some. And all the other CAMs have them too. But hey, I'll agree with you on the different strokes for different folks part. I mean, I program in mastercam every day and there's nothing I HAVEN'T been able to do yet. And there are a few pluses. It's just cumbersome, and old.

What really irks me is the way they seem so lackadaisical about making their program better. For instance, their tool display is broken (try defining a corner radius on a facemill) and they told me they knew about the issue and were going to try to fix it, but that was in X8! It's been broken since X7 (I think, little hazy on that) and it's still broken in X9! They also told me they were going to start coming out with a new version of mastercam every year, and when I aksed them why, he said "because that's what all the other software companies are doing." :angry:

They just sit back on their asses and know people will buy it because it's mastercam.

zr1nsx · Dec 15, 2015

This wasn't a does MasterCam suck post!!!!!! I simply am looking for those with experience moving from MC to NX. I actually love the MasterCam product. It does everything I have ever asked of it and then some. For simple projects it's easy, and for difficult projects it does fine, if you know enough about how it works. There is a lot of machining being done that doesn't need a $200000 software package to process. I don't do 5 axis every day. I'd say that 70% is simple 2.5D, 20% 3D and perhaps 10% 5 axis. I don't expect that to change in this now potential position. Everyone is entitled to a opinion, and I have mine as well. Looking to form a new opinion with some potential ideas about NX.

FeatureBoy · Dec 15, 2015

You're right, and I'm sorry for going off topic. I would say that as long as they're aware of the situation and are willing to let you get up to speed (wich will probably take a little while), you should jump all over this opportunity, assuming that the actual job is better of course. I really do think you'll understand what I'm saying more once you get used to NX. If nothing else, it's always a good idea to diversify your skills to pad your resume and open up even more possible job prospects in your future since you will already know more than one CAM software.

And with that, I will kindly gtfo

JMC · Dec 15, 2015

I did the transition thing a few years back. I had been using mastercam for quite some time...since 1994 or so. Fast forward to 2011, I decided to change jobs and they used NX. It wasn't easy...things that I thought were intuitive in mastercam were way cumbersome in NX. Lots of different terminology. "Non-Cutting moves" instead of "Lead in/out". Picking boundary's is alot different. Despite what many might say you do gotta create some geometry on occasion in NX...and depending on how you do it it can be easy or way convoluted. All in all the transition wasn't too terrible.

Biggest thing I missed was the high speed roughing toolpaths that Mastercam has had since X4 or so. You can get a addon to get them, tho from what I have heard it doesn't come cheap.

Ideally they would smash the 2 software packages together, keep the good, throw out the bad.

And sorry...whoever posted that you can do the same stuff in Mastercam V9 that you can in X9 is not using the software even remotely close to its potential.

Joe788 · Dec 15, 2015

FeatureBoy said:
I'd just like to say that Mastercam is NOT a very different program than it was in the year 2000, and I know that for a fact.

LMAO. Why do people say stuff like this?

Rstewart · Dec 15, 2015

Joe788 said:
LMAO. Why do people say stuff like this?

Joe, maybe you could give us a chart with all the changes since Ver9 lol

Jessss Kiddin'

Some people just are just too lazy to put the effort into really learning the software.

zr1nsx · Dec 15, 2015

I must add as well that anyone comparing X9 to versions from 10 years aren't getting the training and support they need to exploit all of the enhancements to Mastercam over the last 7-10 years. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, most of the machine work I am doing is predominately 2.5D machining and the enhancements over a short period of time have been quite significant. Add the 3D high speed routines and there is a bunch that has been greatly improved over that same period of time.

DMF_TomB · Dec 15, 2015

books on mastercam are easy to find and i never had a problem learning any mastercam version when i had a tutorial book.
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NX without any training books. let me say if i got a combination lock but i do not have the combination (tutorial book) the chance of me opening the combination lock will take much longer often years longer compared to 1 minute if you got the training book in front of you.
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i remember trying to get a cnc into jog mode once. i spent hours pressing various button and failed. i eventually got the operator manual and read press X button and hold in for 3 seconds til job mode is active. duh like once you know how anything is possible. if you do not know the tricks or secrets then chance of failure is a lot higher

LockNut · Dec 15, 2015

I use Mastercam now and have used it at various times since V6. And NX is not a "CAM" program. It is a CAD/CAM program and is a powerful distinction. Designing in NX or taking a customers file and going from design to manufacturing in a native file is what NX is all about. Like CATIA and others, there is a reason they are used to build cars and airplanes. Mastercam has evolved and I don't have many problems with it today. But I also know NX has evolved since 2000 and has probably stayed way ahead of Mastercam. Like I said to the OP, embrace it and consider yourself lucky to get to use such a package as NX. It is powerful and will be a powerful addition to your resume'.

Paul

solidworkscadman · Dec 15, 2015

FeatureBoy said:
I'd just like to say that Mastercam is NOT a very different program than it was in the year 2000, and I know that for a fact.

My programming mentor had been programming for around 20 years, and he hated Mastercam X when it came out. He maintained that the DOS menus were much better, so he never upgraded and still uses mastercam V9 (not x9) to this day. One day when I asked him why he still uses V9, he told me that there was nothing that I could do in X8 that he couldn't do in V9. I kind of scoffed at him, and then began to test out his theory every time I found out some cool new trick to do in X8. Sure enough, every time, he would look around for a while and find the exact same menu or option in V9. Every time. The only things he did not have were a few new high speed tool paths (that I never use), and that was it.

In 15 years, Mastercam has tossed a couple more trinkets onto the pile that is their software, and have not seriously redone anything in any significant way. This is why almost all other CAM systems are lightyears ahead of them now, and mastercam is so damn lazy about it, it doesn't even seem like they're trying to catch-up. Instead of seriously engineering anything new, they're still living off of their legacy from the 90's.

And I am a current Mastercam Programmer, so please don't tell me that it's just because I don't know the software, or I'm not good with it. I use it every day and it's pretty automatic for me at this point, but I still constantly reminisce the days when I used something better.

Anyway, sorry to derail the thread, but I get pretty fired up when people try to defend Mastercam.

P.S. Good luck with NX! It'll seem a lot more complicated at first because the layout is a lot different than mastercam, but once you get the hang of it and see all it has to offer, I'm sure you'll love it! I salivate every time I watch the NX demos. It's the one CAM system I really wish I got to play with, unfortunately I've only heard of one shop that uses it around here.

Sounds like you have the same outlook as your old mentor.

Do you know how to use the software properly?
Have you had formal training?
Do you know how to use and embrace the HSM toolpaths?

I can name quite a few things that could not be done in V9 vs X8.

You are going to be stuck and keep wining about how bad mastercam is when you say "The only things he did not have were a few new high speed tool paths (that I never use), "

Qwan · Dec 17, 2015

NX rocks for 2.5/3D and has enhanced 2D quite a bit. I use NX modeling and manufacturing on a daily basis for mold manufacturing and our environment is a mix of NX and MC. I see our MC guys creating a lot of geometry to keep cutter paths exactly where they want them to go. I use some boundaries too but almost never create curves and surfaces to contain operations. Also, NX modeling and drafting capability is extensive whereas MC has virtually none, save for the basics for tool path containment. NX does not have peel milling whereas MC does so if that's important to you then you'll have to look at a third party for peel mill such as Volumill or iMachining.

Some sort of training is key to climbing the steep initial learning curve for any software. For NX, Siemens replaced their CAST training product with an online product call Learning Advantage which is a good start and is inexpensive. Attending Siemens classes or having someone go to your site is nice but you'll have to check your budget first. ;

A long time ago I used MC when my friends were on Camax and MC was super basic at the time but MC has come a long way and is no longer a simple software. After watching co-workers program 3D parts I can tell you they really don't have any less complexity as far as settings and behaviors are concerned and in many ways NX, IMO, seems to have more consistent behavior overall than MC. If you model and program a lot of 3D parts I would take a long look at NX because it has full blown parametric, associative modeling, drafting, assemblies and manufacturing in an integrated package.

Whatever software you decide to evaluate, I recommend test driving them or at the absolute least have an applications engineer and sales person run it using your part model so you don't get bamboozled by a canned demo. Anything running loose tolerances and big step downs will calculate fast so be sure to ask them to show you what you expect it should do.

MasterCam to NX learning curve.

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