New Cam Software NX or Esprit

[Mike1974]

Just to let you know the difference, on Featurecam's tombstone utility I could program one part, then launch the utility and load up 4 of the same parts on each of the sides of the tombstone exactly where I wanted. I could then sort all of the operations with a click of a button. I could organize hundreds of toolpaths by tool, or by face, or by feature and simulate it and adjust it right there on the tombstone page.

Now I could do the same thing in Mastercam, and it wouldn't be hard. But it would take me 10x longer and be a lot more tedious. And when you're programming horizontals every day it made a huge difference.

I'm not actually sure if the multiple fixture option Wheelie is talking about is the same thing, it's been years since I programmed a mill in featurecam.

I guess I am not understanding the difference? I am at home so nothing to screen shot, but I can as well program one part, select transform, then pick -

number of instances, rotation(s), work offset numbering, translate between points, or dynamic, by operation, by tool number, etc etc... ? I suppose it's not one single click, but sheesh it isn't rocket science either...

 

[Mike1974]

Chaining in X9 is sucks. Try to use chaining in Mastercam 2020 or 2021 and you will see how slow you are now at X9. Also drilling geometry was dramatically improved since.

How does it suck? You literally pick the first entity, and it automatically (by default) goes around the chain... we must be talking different things, or...? Also, there is solid chaining as well, by face, edge, or loop...

 

[Mike1974]

Tangent about selection in NX...

I've just started using NX but it has immediately become clear that understanding selection is an extremely important part of being productive. The default is what you said, but there are also a dozen other ways of selecting things. There's a filter that may be set to "single edge" by default, but you can change that filter to select edges tangent to an edge, or connecting to an edge, or all edges of a face, etc.

Selection technique has a huge impact on both speed and feature stability as well. For instance, selecting tangent edges of a fillet might disassociate if you later change that filter to a chamfer, but selecting the bounding edges of the top face may be stable.

I wondered about that. Found it odd you would have to manually pick each entity? Apparently I have never used a good, set up, version of NX, which is too bad becasue some of the stuff I saw was pretty great (but hard to find on your own)

And to that point, if NX would have some pre-configured builds, they would probably dominate the market. BUT the way it was (is?), a noob coming in just drowns in what they don't know so it is a major turn off to learn it...

 

[Mike1974]

We stoped paying for maintenance this year. MasterCam left me disappointed. Now I started to look for another software. My choice is between NX CAM and Hypermill. I would consider Catia as well but it’s too expensive.

Honest question, how long have you used Mastercam? Any formal training? These are things with ANY software that will make a huge difference in your workflow and efficiency. Myself, I have been programming almost exclusively with it since 2005.

Yes, I am biased, yes I (used to) know the software very very well, although I am using a very old version now.... I have used Bobcad, Surfcam, NX, Pro-e (creo), Esprit, but mostly MCX so it's what I know, and am very familiar with....

 

[boosted]

do yourself a favor, got NX...
more than unhappy with Hypermill right now.

Care to elaborate? As a counterpoint I've been using hyperMILL for nearly 5 years now, and it is by far my favorite CAM. Prior to hypermill it was Esprit, MCAM, CATIA, and SolidCAM.

I could see if perhaps you were banging out dozens of brackets and other simple parts hyperMILL might get annoying, but for complex machining I'm really happy with it.

 

[OVodov]

Honest question, how long have you used Mastercam? Any formal training? These are things with ANY software that will make a huge difference in your workflow and efficiency. Myself, I have been programming almost exclusively with it since 2005.

Yes, I am biased, yes I (used to) know the software very very well, although I am using a very old version now.... I have used Bobcad, Surfcam, NX, Pro-e (creo), Esprit, but mostly MCX so it's what I know, and am very familiar with....

Honestly, I’m using MC much less than you. Since 2013. Took an essential course at beginning. The rest learned by myself including 5axis. Spent hours and hours trying to get the most. Once my wife told me that I married Mastercam, not her. Now programming in a shop of 13 machines 4 of them are 5 axis. Is it enough experience for you?

 

[OVodov]

How does it suck? You literally pick the first entity, and it automatically (by default) goes around the chain... we must be talking different things, or...? Also, there is solid chaining as well, by face, edge, or loop...

If it was so perfect why they changed it?
What's New in Mastercam 2020: Chaining - YouTube
MasterCam 2019- 2D For beginners : New in Drill interface - YouTube
In YouTube you can find much more stuff that was changed since X9.

 

[empower]

Care to elaborate? As a counterpoint I've been using hyperMILL for nearly 5 years now, and it is by far my favorite CAM. Prior to hypermill it was Esprit, MCAM, CATIA, and SolidCAM.

I could see if perhaps you were banging out dozens of brackets and other simple parts hyperMILL might get annoying, but for complex machining I'm really happy with it.

roughing is the WORST strategies i've ever seen in any CAM i've used before (fusion, mastercam, solidcam, tiny bit of NX). it's destroyed 2 tools on 2 different jobs so far, with simulation not showing any warnings. horribly inefficient even compared to fusion, the software everyone loves to bitch about.
made a part yesterday that checks out in simulation, yet real part has some surface gouging.

for the most part, their complex 5 axis paths are incredibly good. its the simple things that are dogshit about it. unfortunately, roughing is pretty important to do before you go finishing a part...

there are also some surface finish quality issues that we're trying to deal with, but so far it has not been what we were promised.

 

[mutiny]

roughing is the WORST strategies i've ever seen in any CAM i've used before (fusion, mastercam, solidcam, tiny bit of NX). it's destroyed 2 tools on 2 different jobs so far, with simulation not showing any warnings. horribly inefficient even compared to fusion, the software everyone loves to bitch about.
made a part yesterday that checks out in simulation, yet real part has some surface gouging.

The same thing happened to me with Fusion yesterday. Simulation was fine, but real world rapids (edit: linking, not rapids) blew through an inner feature. Happens pretty often on the Speedio unfortunately since the control likes to take liberties with roughing movements to maintain velocity. Fixed with a slight change to the toolpath and a different accuracy mode in the control.

That's all to say: sometimes it's the CAM, sometimes it's not. Can't really trust simple toolpath simulation unless you're simulating the output in an environment simulating the machine's kinematics, and even that may not be fully possible if you're using things like accuracy/smoothing modes where you're giving the machine control the leniency to cheat a little bit.

I do however appreciate your honest assessment of hyperMILL and its drawbacks.

 

[SD&M]

Hi Mutiny:

I'm curious to know if the difference between "simulation and reality" happened while the machine was in a feed move, or in rapid....IOW, do you think it's really a CAM simulation error, or just something like dog-leg rapids instead of linear rapids? (Is there any way to tell Fusion how your machine behaves in this regard? And if there is, is it able to model things like axis acceleration rates...my guess is no, but am curious to know for sure.)

 

[mutiny]

Hi Mutiny:

I'm curious to know if the difference between "simulation and reality" happened while the machine was in a feed move, or in rapid....IOW, do you think it's really a CAM simulation error, or just something like dog-leg rapids instead of linear rapids? (Is there any way to tell Fusion how your machine behaves in this regard? And if there is, is it able to model things like axis acceleration rates...my guess is no, but am curious to know for sure.)

I'm 99% sure it's not possible to model any machine kinematics in Fusion. I believe it was in a high feed repositioning move, not a rapid. I think there are some linking move parameters that would have avoided it and matched simulation more closely to reality.

 

[Mike1974]

Honestly, I’m using MC much less than you. Since 2013. Took an essential course at beginning. The rest learned by myself including 5axis. Spent hours and hours trying to get the most. Once my wife told me that I married Mastercam, not her. Now programming in a shop of 13 machines 4 of them are 5 axis. Is it enough experience for you?

Well if you want to get into a pissing match, you can program 100 10 axis machines, but still not be efficient, or good at it. That wasn't really my question. So you started in 2013, and apparently you are using something different now as "mastercam is the sucks" ( ) so.... got 5-6 years under your belt with it??? That's like a machinist with 5 or 6 years, don't know what they don't know. I have been machining since '93ish and I am still learning stuff (alot of it thru this very website)....

If it was so perfect why they changed it?
What's New in Mastercam 2020: Chaining - YouTube
MasterCam 2019- 2D For beginners : New in Drill interface - YouTube
In YouTube you can find much more stuff that was changed since X9.

I never said it was perfect, (NX has some good stuff about altering single line entity stock to leave and such) I asked what was so hard about it.

But I get this is a losing battle as you are convinced "mastercam is the sucks" so you do you

 

[OVodov]

Well if you want to get into a pissing match, you can program 100 10 axis machines, but still not be efficient, or good at it. That wasn't really my question. So you started in 2013, and apparently you are using something different now as "mastercam is the sucks" ( ) so.... got 5-6 years under your belt with it??? That's like a machinist with 5 or 6 years, don't know what they don't know. I have been machining since '93ish and I am still learning stuff (alot of it thru this very website)....



I never said it was perfect, (NX has some good stuff about altering single line entity stock to leave and such) I asked what was so hard about it.

But I get this is a losing battle as you are convinced "mastercam is the sucks" so you do you

Nothing hard, just people call MasterCam - 1000 clicks software.
Go please to official website MasterCam.com and see all complaints about last releases, that what killing me the most. And still using 3 planes in each tool path is stupid.
I started to use Mastercsm since 2013. And still using it.
Before that I used Solidcam for 3 years and before that was just a machinist.
I’m tired from this argument.
Have a good luck.

 

[cameraman]

Honestly, I’m using MC much less than you. Since 2013. Took an essential course at beginning. The rest learned by myself including 5axis. Spent hours and hours trying to get the most. Once my wife told me that I married Mastercam, not her . Now programming in a shop of 13 machines 4 of them are 5 axis. Is it enough experience for you?

Ouch !

Eeeeek !

That's a pretty good one or a bad one ?

That comment definitely sticks in the mind.

 

[cameraman]

I;m not sure what is so hard about MCX transform toolpath ops, it is literally a couple button clicks... but I am not familiar with others so....??

I would however like to iterate, what you don't know, you don't know. I'm sure veteran Esprit/NX/etc users could school me on what MCX ca't do, and vice versa... couple examples, when I was using NX (and possibly just cause I didn;t know) there wasn't a chaining feature like MCX? In MCX, you picked the start point (depending on options in your toolpath chain feature) and it automatically selected a full chain, in NX (from what I used) you had to select each entitiy, one by one... However, you could apply different stock to leave options on each individual chain in NX so...? I guess they each have their place...

*I wish I was a bit more computer savvy to record videos of me using MCX to address some of the issues I see repeatedly brought up about how hard MCX is, but alas...

I don't "make" Youtube videos - but I'm sure there's a way to onscreen video grab and upload + audio / commentary.

Might be a good skill as you can only explain so much in wordy words and occasional static screen shot (although any explanations and illustrations always appreciated (of course).).

Also might (one day) be good to see the counterpoint alternate techniques in other packages CAD/CAM software.

I think (from the CAD) side some folks prefer things to be broken down into lots of individual steps and menus vs others that might prefer keystrokes and much fewer steps, menus and clicks. Originally I liked Solid Edge (for example) as the steps were in line with other professional 3d graphics design software and yet "Rigorous" geometrically / dimensionally ~ Whereas Solidworks always kinda frustrated me as there seemed to be so many more menus and clicks and things to be checked off to accomplish relatively "Medium" level things. I.e. broken down into too many individual steps.

The difference is in the type of user - some users "mentally" "GET" compound/ nested functionality (i.e. a few mouse clicks and a key stroke or motion) achieves a LOT versus someone that wants things (in the interface) broken down into a more extended "locked sequence" of steps to achieve essentially the same operation. The latter "Mode" I just find kinda frustrating but that's not for everyone.

 

[OVodov]

Ouch !

Eeeeek !

That's a pretty good one or a bad one ?

That comment definitely sticks in the mind.

For about two and a half years I was working 9 hours day shift as a CNC programmer, than after work, having a dinner with my family and from 9:00 pm till 11:00 learning mastetcam almost every day. Certainly my wife didn’t like it.

 

[cameraman]

roughing is the WORST strategies i've ever seen in any CAM i've used before (fusion, mastercam, solidcam, tiny bit of NX). it's destroyed 2 tools on 2 different jobs so far, with simulation not showing any warnings. horribly inefficient even compared to fusion, the software everyone loves to bitch about.
made a part yesterday that checks out in simulation, yet real part has some surface gouging.

for the most part, their complex 5 axis paths are incredibly good. its the simple things that are dogshit about it. unfortunately, roughing is pretty important to do before you go finishing a part...

there are also some surface finish quality issues that we're trying to deal with, but so far it has not been what we were promised.

I'm wondering if some of that will "Clean up" on your new Mikron E 700 U.

I think @LarryDickman , he's a Hypermill user and speaks very well of it for not gouging. I think he does more mold work ? ???

I don't know if he's about.

@empwoer in your case you are talking about roughing for impellers (primarily ) ? As opposed to different more rectilinear geometries where you more often see roughing as mainly a 3 axis trochoidal "Blitz" and then a couple of rotated positions to complete roughing cycle. [I wonder if Hypermill assumes it's users would have nor quite near-net shape and the roughing / "grunt" work IS done on other machines before they make their Hermle demo videos lol ].

@Empwoer I think what you may be after in terms of "Roughing" is to have really pretty and clean looking scallops in your floors , edges and sweeping surfaces. [I would imagine tool "Poise" and kinematics (at the control) being quite important for that also .].

What materials are you working in / with to test with... Assuming aluminum - like not Titanium

 

[cameraman]

For about two and a half years I was working 9 hours day shift as a CNC programmer, than after work, having a dinner with my family and from 9:00 pm till 11:00 learning mastetcam almost every day. Certainly my wife didn’t like it.

Hey at least you actually got to go home for a few hours LOL !

When I started out in the UK people used to ask me why I have all these couches / sofas in my programming (Software Development) office...

(That must be frustrating especially with a young family ) - In my late twenties I used get up at 4am and hack out code + ritalin before the young kiddo's wake up. (when I used to work from home) - Then later when I had my office - Code dev. and patent roll outs - two packs of cigarettes - Ritalin and espresso machine IN the office sadly 20 espressos a day. - I don't miss those days- and probably explain why I started getting migraines in my mid 30s lol.

Building a small outfit of my own (getting away from rented commercial spaces)/ partial retreat so (luckily) wife number 2 understands + starting a new second family (at a more advanced age - TMI). But at least I will be able to saunter out of bed at 2 am. and "flip" another run If need be go back to bed lol. -This all hinges on the possibility of useful "Grand parents" which I didn't have before. More old school "manufactory" on the farmstead lol.

That does suck if you have a formal programming job at a company that's not your own and you are chained to software problems for years at a time. It all adds up.

 

[empower]

I'm wondering if some of that will "Clean up" on your new Mikron E 700 U.

I think @LarryDickman , he's a Hypermill user and speaks very well of it for not gouging. I think he does more mold work ? ???

I don't know if he's about.

@empwoer in your case you are talking about roughing for impellers (primarily ) ? As opposed to different more rectilinear geometries where you more often see roughing as mainly a 3 axis trochoidal "Blitz" and then a couple of rotated positions to complete roughing cycle. [I wonder if Hypermill assumes it's users would have nor quite near-net shape and the roughing / "grunt" work IS done on other machines before they make their Hermle demo videos lol ].

@Empwoer I think what you may be after in terms of "Roughing" is to have really pretty and clean looking scallops in your floors , edges and sweeping surfaces. [I would imagine tool "Poise" and kinematics (at the control) being quite important for that also .].

What materials are you working in / with to test with... Assuming aluminum - like not Titanium

a machine will not clean up a tool plunging into stock... :P

the surface finish issues we're having are with the LX160, forgive me for having a hard time believing that a machine of that caliber would be responsible for bad surface finish...

impeller roughing is fine, no issues there. the roughing issues are doing your typical everyday roughing of pockets, islands etc.

no, you're wrong about what i'm after in roughing, i'm looking for an efficient toolpath, that doesnt rapid retract a million times when its completely unnecessary, causing needless wear on the machine. and i'm looking for a toolpath that wont plow an endmill full bore into stock, destroying it. a plus would be a toolpath that isnt a total cunt to program, as it is, i have to split roughing into multiple jobs to get it to do what fusion can do in one... but that would be icing on the cake, first thing is to actually get it to work right and not destroy my fucking tools.

this happened in both aluminum and stainless.

 

[TeachMePlease]

Well if you want to get into a pissing match, you can program 100 10 axis machines, but still not be efficient, or good at it.

Why are you attacking me like this?