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Saw a Solidworks CAM demo at the 2018 SW Launch Event in Austin (MLC CAD)

Bruce Griffing

Titanium
Joined
Jan 1, 2003
Location
Temple, Texas
So a version of Camworks 2.5D is included in Solidworks 2018. The demo was impressive in terms of integration, feature recognition and tool management. Demos are made to look good, but I was impressed anyway. Will be interested to try it, but I never load the new version of SW until after the new year. So I have to wait.
 
So a version of Camworks 2.5D is included in Solidworks 2018. The demo was impressive in terms of integration, feature recognition and tool management. Demos are made to look good, but I was impressed anyway. Will be interested to try it, but I never load the new version of SW until after the new year. So I have to wait.

I've had it in beta and pre-release SW2018. It's not bad actually. The fact it comes w/ Solidworks in a "free" version is really pretty sweet. From what I am hearing the "Pro" CAM version isn't a whole lot of $$ to upgrade and includes some 3D toolpaths, Volumill roughing etc...

Solidworks teamed up w/ CamWorks for this. Oddly CamWorks was still very interested in selling me an 11k package about 2 months ago...but now seeing that it's going to be something that comes direct from SW makes me think that maybe CamWorks was purchased or partly purchased? Kind of a good thing really - maybe some cool things will come of it? I will know more tomorrow after talking to mt VAR about it. It is encouraging news anyway....something formidable to go against HSMWorks.
 
I think I am going to buy Solidworks 2018. I have been using SW for years at my day job. I have been working with the re-seller to try to get an evaluation copy. Not sure how all this works. Also, I have seen in the past that SW comes out with end of year deals. I don't think these have come out yet. My plan for now is to get the SW professional and the CAM professional. I am tempted to go for SW premium to get some of the analysis tools but realistically I probably won't be using this for a while so will likely cheap out on that. Anybody got any more experience/comments on the CAM integration?

As far as the licensing goes it appears their new licensing system allows the software to be installed on as many pc's as you want and you just have to deactivate/reactivate to change pc's. I'd like to have the option of working off a laptop or desktop as needed. Anybody know how much of a pain this is to use?
 
Anybody got any more experience/comments on the CAM integration?

Have not used the Solidworks 2018 with CAM (Camworks) integrated, but I've used Camworks running as an add-in to Solidworks since 2006. It's definitely "different" than most CAM systems, which some folks have a problem with. But, if you can get your Technology Database the way you want it (machining strategies in an Access database), it works pretty sweet. Posts can be an issue too (as in a lot, if not most CAM systems), but with help from your VAR you can solve that. Or, do what I did, and learn how to write your own.
 
I’m newish to Cam (tinkered with fusion some) so i don’t have any current way of doing things. I got a demo activation code and installed on my current pc. Still waiting to see what if any sw comes up with in December.
 
So that makes 3 different CAM packages you can run inside of SolidWorks now? HSMWorks, CAMWorks, and MasterCAM?

I'm currently running SW2015 every day, and that still ships with HSMXpress as a default free CAM add-in (2.5 axis CAM) so it sounds like they're just going to start shipping it with a limited/free version of CAMWorks instead. I wonder if the SW end of the UI is going to be the same, and they'll just have a different engine running in the background? That would make sense to me, but I'm not a software guy. Isn't CAMWorks supposed to have some weird/unique advantages compared to the 'other' CAM programs?

The whole HSMXpress SolidWorks add-in thing was weird though. I personally never understood why a company (Dassault) would put another company's (AutoDesk) program as a default add-in for their software? I guess they knew/thought it wouldn't cost them any business.
 
They are offering the CAM 2 ways. There is a standard and a professional version. The standard comes with SW for free and the professional is an up charge. My plan is to go with SW professional and CAM professional. Loading the software on my old pc was painful in almost every way. I just bought a CAD pc wow what a difference. The new pc has a NVIDIA adapter, 32gb ram and a solid state hard drive. I ran the benchmark test in sw and the graphics number was about 250 seconds. On the pc with the NVIDIA display adapter it was 4 seconds.
 
As far as the licensing goes it appears their new licensing system allows the software to be installed on as many pc's as you want and you just have to deactivate/reactivate to change pc's. I'd like to have the option of working off a laptop or desktop as needed. Anybody know how much of a pain this is to use?

This has always been the case. It was actually better in the past where you could activate SolidWorks on 2 computers and even run them simultaneously with only one license.
 
This has always been the case. It was actually better in the past where you could activate SolidWorks on 2 computers and even run them simultaneously with only one license.

Unless they're changing this in 2018 (and I don't know why they would) this is still the case - you just have to use a Network License setup instead of a standalone license. It's a little more complicated initially, but especially if you have a lot of people using SolidWorks, it's the way to go. You can install SolidWorks on 50 different computers even if you only have 30 licenses, but every computer that has SW open 'pulls' a license, meaning only 30 people at a time can use it.

What some companies do is buy a seat (license) for every person who will use it every day, and then a couple more for people who will only use it sporadically, like Apps or Sales Engineers.

Anyone can do the same thing, but it's my understanding you need a dedicated license server. I'm not really a Network guy, so that could mean a lot of things.
 
This has always been the case. It was actually better in the past where you could activate SolidWorks on 2 computers and even run them simultaneously with only one license.

Hence why they changed that policy, one was a work install and the other was for home, not 2 work computers even if on a laptop.

The old 80/20 rule was for desktops because laptop were not capable enough to run SW, now they are, so you can take it home from work.

i worked for the SW VAR 3 years and always had to answer this question. This really became a stickler when SW went web activation instead of regcodes.
 
Unless they're changing this in 2018 (and I don't know why they would) this is still the case - you just have to use a Network License setup instead of a standalone license. It's a little more complicated initially, but especially if you have a lot of people using SolidWorks, it's the way to go. You can install SolidWorks on 50 different computers even if you only have 30 licenses, but every computer that has SW open 'pulls' a license, meaning only 30 people at a time can use it.

What some companies do is buy a seat (license) for every person who will use it every day, and then a couple more for people who will only use it sporadically, like Apps or Sales Engineers.

Anyone can do the same thing, but it's my understanding you need a dedicated license server. I'm not really a Network guy, so that could mean a lot of things.

Dedicated server is preferred but not mandatory any PC can run it just has to have flexlm.

also with the network version you are allowed to checkout a seat for up to 20 maybe 30 days you don't have to be connected to the server. Worked for a company that did work in China engineers were in areas without Internet and could still work.
 
Unless they're changing this in 2018 (and I don't know why they would) this is still the case - you just have to use a Network License setup instead of a standalone license. It's a little more complicated initially, but especially if you have a lot of people using SolidWorks, it's the way to go. You can install SolidWorks on 50 different computers even if you only have 30 licenses, but every computer that has SW open 'pulls' a license, meaning only 30 people at a time can use it.

What some companies do is buy a seat (license) for every person who will use it every day, and then a couple more for people who will only use it sporadically, like Apps or Sales Engineers.

Anyone can do the same thing, but it's my understanding you need a dedicated license server. I'm not really a Network guy, so that could mean a lot of things.
I have
a network license for Solid Edge and wish I had one for Edgecam. I had to get a favor from my VAR to get the SE network license because their policy is to not issue them to holders of less than 5 seats. I paid $500 for the license and pay a yearly maintenance fee to keep it. To get one for edgecam I'd have to pay $2000 plus a maintenance fee so we are doing sneakernet with the dongle. I had an Edgecam dongle fail about a year ago and edgecam (Vero) had no procedure to allow us to work other than mail the dongle back and wait for the replacement. i asked them what would happen if it was lost in Fedex, never got a clear answer other than "You'd probblby have to buy a new seat."
 
I had an Edgecam dongle fail about a year ago and edgecam (Vero) had no procedure to allow us to work other than mail the dongle back and wait for the replacement. i asked them what would happen if it was lost in Fedex, never got a clear answer other than "You'd probblby have to buy a new seat."

That is why you need to insure your dongle, insurance companies say they do not insure software, well a dongle is hardware and they have to cover that, no different than having your computer stolen.

as for Vero, surfcam used to send the dongle with a 45 day timer and once you received it you had to send the bad one back, of course that was the Surfware days. What they want it to eliminate all dongles, they (Vero) sent out an email stating that if your dongle dies you will have to activate on only on computer because rainbow no longer has those old dongles.
 
I have
a network license for Solid Edge and wish I had one for Edgecam. I had to get a favor from my VAR to get the SE network license because their policy is to not issue them to holders of less than 5 seats. I paid $500 for the license and pay a yearly maintenance fee to keep it. To get one for edgecam I'd have to pay $2000 plus a maintenance fee so we are doing sneakernet with the dongle. I had an Edgecam dongle fail about a year ago and edgecam (Vero) had no procedure to allow us to work other than mail the dongle back and wait for the replacement. i asked them what would happen if it was lost in Fedex, never got a clear answer other than "You'd probblby have to buy a new seat."

Haha... And people get paranoid about CAD/CAM in the cloud.
 
I spoke to our reseller about SW CAM Professional because I was curious if it might be a viable option.

Turns out there is no functionality for mill-turn (not just B/Y axis, but even simple live tool and C axis) and they had no information about if it was ever going to be included in the future.

Bit disappointing.
 
So What features does Professional add? 3 axis? 5 Axis?

I am using HSMWorks but am thinking of adding another seat of Solidworks here. Pretty much all my work is 3d and hope to add 5 axis one day.
 








 
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