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Is it worth switching from MCOSMOS to PCDMIS?

007Rob

Aluminum
Joined
Sep 24, 2015
Hi Everyone,

I work for a mold shop which currently uses a Mitutoyo Strato-Apex CMM with MCOSMOS software for quality purposes, checking production parts is the main use but also mold parts and electrodes etc. when needed.

We are shopping for another CMM for "shop floor" use checking electrodes and mold parts mostly and maybe production parts when the quality department is overloaded.

The two machines we are currently looking at are:

-Hexagon/Brown&Sharp Global S Green 7.10.7
-Mitutoyo Strato-Apex 574

The two machines have some differences in specs between them, and the exact model we choose may change but that's what we're looking at right now.

We have been meeting with both companies and comparing the specs and features of the two machines and we have a pretty good handle on all of that, but one thing that has come up during these meetings is the choice of software.

Even though they are already familiar with MCOSMOS, our quality guys feel that PCDMIS has a better interface which would be more efficient for daily use, and that it seems to have more advanced "programming" functions available when it comes to using variables, loops and other advanced functions that they use for checks on the production parts.

Another possible benefit that has been brought up is the fact that PCDMIS is more common, with (according to Hexagon) 70% of all CMM's using it which could make it easier to find operators/programmers in the future.

The problem is none of us here actually have any experience with PCDMIS, so it's hard to decide if it really is that much better and if it's worth switching everything over.

We are fully willing to switch over our current Mitutoyo to PCDMIS software, along with whatever new machine we buy if we feel it's worth it.


Has anyone here used both softwares, and can give their opinion whether PCDMIS is easier to use and if it has better or more advanced features than MCOSMOS?
 
Anybody who thinks PCDMUS is better than Mcosmos is truly fucked in the head. Not only is PCDMUS a joke, Hexigon is one of the shittiest companies you could ever hope to deal with. We shitcanned Hexigon and went with Mitutoyo and have had no regrets whatsoever. I've also heard nothing but good things about Zeiss.
 
Thanks for the input. Gives us something to think about, will need to do some more research for sure.

We are supposed to get them in here so we can get some seat time on PCDMIS to make a better decision.

But what about PCDMIS makes it a joke that MCOSMOS does so much better? Is it buggy? From what I've seen they are pretty comparable and it "seems" like MCOSMOS takes more steps/mouse clicks to perform some of the same functions?
 
Thanks for the input. Gives us something to think about, will need to do some more research for sure.

We are supposed to get them in here so we can get some seat time on PCDMIS to make a better decision.

But what about PCDMIS makes it a joke that MCOSMOS does so much better? Is it buggy? From what I've seen they are pretty comparable and it "seems" like MCOSMOS takes more steps/mouse clicks to perform some of the same functions?

I believe Hexigon wrote the book on buggy glitches. Constant restarts and crashes. Tutorials were worthless, learning curve really steep. We had this on a B&S machine, POS was broken 3 days out of 5.

With the Mits, no problems at all, ever.

Depending on what type of parts your trying to check, you might also look at Verisurf. Extremely powerful with almost no learning curve. The shop idiot can run it. (no kidding)
 
I would not go with hexagon/PCDMIS whatever you do. I could go on and on about Hexagon, but here are the main reason why not, there software is glitchy, support is absolutely terrible, if your software lapses out of the contract it’s 500$ a question, and lastly the probing system is garbage.

If you had to choose between the two go mitutoyo, I would go with MCOSMOS with a renishaw PH20 head. PH20 gives you way more throughout knocking down inspection time 5x over typical 3 axis CMM.

Also you say this is going on the shop floor. Is it in a controlled environment? How are you going to keep it thermally stable?

I have even a better idea, retrofit you an older machine with a 5 axis head from renishaw and put a Equator on your shop floor. You would get way better throughput on your current cmm and way better throughout out on the shop floor. Did I mention the user interface on the equator is for dummy operators.
 
I believe Hexigon wrote the book on buggy glitches. Constant restarts and crashes. Tutorials were worthless, learning curve really steep. We had this on a B&S machine, POS was broken 3 days out of 5.

With the Mits, no problems at all, ever.

Depending on what type of parts your trying to check, you might also look at Verisurf. Extremely powerful with almost no learning curve. The shop idiot can run it. (no kidding)

Thanks. We have do have MCOSMOS now on the existing Mitutoyo CMM and it works fine so we don't want to be making a backwards move that's for sure.

Have you guys thought about switching to CMM Manager? It is much more user friendly, has less of a learning curve and will be a straight forward set up with the Mitutoyo.

We have not heard of that one before, but will look into it thanks!

I just wanted to jump in and eco pcdimus is horrible buggy garbage

Thanks for the input, looks like a lot of votes against PCDMIS :scratchchin:

I would not go with hexagon/PCDMIS whatever you do. I could go on and on about Hexagon, but here are the main reason why not, there software is glitchy, support is absolutely terrible, if your software lapses out of the contract it’s 500$ a question, and lastly the probing system is garbage.

If you had to choose between the two go mitutoyo, I would go with MCOSMOS with a renishaw PH20 head. PH20 gives you way more throughout knocking down inspection time 5x over typical 3 axis CMM.

Also you say this is going on the shop floor. Is it in a controlled environment? How are you going to keep it thermally stable?

I have even a better idea, retrofit you an older machine with a 5 axis head from renishaw and put a Equator on your shop floor. You would get way better throughput on your current cmm and way better throughout out on the shop floor. Did I mention the user interface on the equator is for dummy operators.

Thanks. I'm not 100% sure since I'm the CNC guy, but we might already have that Renishaw setup on our existing Mitutoyo CMM. I will double check, they keep it pretty busy checking parts so I'm sure anything that could speed it up would be worthwhile.

I think we want to stay with a new machine, we have some fairly tight tolerance parts we make and the shop floor CMM will eventually be part of a cell we're "building" to cut sink edm electrodes at night in the CNC so we want to make sure it is as reliable as possible.

I have seen the Equator and it looks interesting, but part of the reason we want the same software on both machines is so that we can utilise the shop floor CMM to check production parts at times when the "old" CMM is bottlenecked with part checks so if the Equator is not as accurate it could be an issue. And also, many of the parts we will be checking will be one or two-off kinda stuff so it might not be as suited to that.

The new CMM will be going on the "shop floor" but we have a pretty good environment for it, we build some very tight tolerance molds so our toolroom is temperature controlled in a well insulated building with mist collectors on the machines etc.
 
PCDMIS lets you get round a part quickly, hitting all the points etc BUT when you have done that and you want to process the results into data MCOSMOS is far superior to PCDMIS.
Variables in MCOSOMOS are far easier to use, built in functions like MIN/MAX in MCOSMOS are far easier to use, getting the minimum say Y value of a curve in MCOSMOS is far easier than in PCDMIS.
MCOSMOS for me (I currently program a PCDMIS machine) Crashing software in PCDMIS is the bane of my life.
Statistical software for MCOSMOS i.e. Measurlink is far better too.
 
Anybody who thinks PCDMUS is better than Mcosmos is truly fucked in the head. Not only is PCDMUS a joke, Hexigon is one of the shittiest companies you could ever hope to deal with. We shitcanned Hexigon and went with Mitutoyo and have had no regrets whatsoever. I've also heard nothing but good things about Zeiss.

Agree on Hexagon. too much disapointment
 
Hi Everyone,

I work for a mold shop which currently uses a Mitutoyo Strato-Apex CMM with MCOSMOS software for quality purposes, checking production parts is the main use but also mold parts and electrodes etc. when needed.

We are shopping for another CMM for "shop floor" use checking electrodes and mold parts mostly and maybe production parts when the quality department is overloaded.

The two machines we are currently looking at are:

-Hexagon/Brown&Sharp Global S Green 7.10.7
-Mitutoyo Strato-Apex 574

The two machines have some differences in specs between them, and the exact model we choose may change but that's what we're looking at right now.

We have been meeting with both companies and comparing the specs and features of the two machines and we have a pretty good handle on all of that, but one thing that has come up during these meetings is the choice of software.

Even though they are already familiar with MCOSMOS, our quality guys feel that PCDMIS has a better interface which would be more efficient for daily use, and that it seems to have more advanced "programming" functions available when it comes to using variables, loops and other advanced functions that they use for checks on the production parts.

Another possible benefit that has been brought up is the fact that PCDMIS is more common, with (according to Hexagon) 70% of all CMM's using it which could make it easier to find operators/programmers in the future.

The problem is none of us here actually have any experience with PCDMIS, so it's hard to decide if it really is that much better and if it's worth switching everything over.

We are fully willing to switch over our current Mitutoyo to PCDMIS software, along with whatever new machine we buy if we feel it's worth it.


Has anyone here used both softwares, and can give their opinion whether PCDMIS is easier to use and if it has better or more advanced features than MCOSMOS?

I know this post is old however coming from someone who is finally familiar with PCDMIS and ZEISS, I feel that I can help shed a little light. PCDMIS in the past may have been buggy but as of current is less buggy. A lot of bugs occurred due to technical issues not supported or known on the user end as well as client. We have a pretty beefy computer running pcdmis and most bugs occurred because of UAC issues which are MICROSOFT WINDOWS issues. Pcdmis is very powerful when it comes to programming parts or even inspecting. Yes, it was a learning curve. I myself learned everything on YouTube. As this may not be practical for most especially for the computer illiterate but it was an educational journey and I am in a much better position for it. Differences between Zeiss and PCDMIS are like Apple and Android devices. Most people want "easy" and others don't mind a little challenge. As for an even larger crowd, "just show me the GO button" are the reasons why forums are filled with anti-pcdmis users. To each their own I suppose, but keep an open mind. Same can be said about Mastercam vs Feature cam or Mazatrol and Moriseiki. There will always be a "better than" scenario.
 
PC-DEMON is like trying to deal with a three year old, you must constantly watch it. I have worked with about 6 or 7 softwares for CMMs, PC-dmis is cumbersome and the slowest as far as getting results.
 
PC DMIS is just not a good software IMO, too buggy and difficult to learn for new users. Zeiss software Calypso is user friendly, easy to learn and you can get new users up and running very quickly and at a higher level than PC DMIS.
 








 
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