SolidWorks CAM / Camworks with double station vises

[Marvel]

Cheat. Put you setup assembly in a new assembly. Copy the subassembly where you want it and copy your toolpaths.

After using HSMworks you may not like Camworks very much.

I tried HSMWorks and hated it, couldn't make the switch. I know or maybe should say knew quite a few HSMWorks users that have since moved to other software and said they didn't like what Autodesk was doing with it. I dont know any specifics but just know a few that have left HSMWorks.

 

[len_1962]

I tried HSMWorks and hated it, couldn't make the switch. I know or maybe should say knew quite a few HSMWorks users that have since moved to other software and said they didn't like what Autodesk was doing with it. I dont know any specifics but just know a few that have left HSMWorks.

I for one am a die hard HSMWorks guy, so damn easy to use.
Have used it since before AD bought it (stupid SolidWorks) and it was going well with updates and then not so much except to stay current with SolidWorks versions.

Hence why people have left no new features like they have added to Fusion, FYI they haven't really added new stuff to Inventor CAM either.

I will use till it gets killed off, we have 3000 seats here at ASU and 8000 seats of SolidWorks to boot for our students to use across campus.

 

[Marvel]

I for one am a die hard HSMWorks guy, so damn easy to use.
Have used it since before AD bought it (stupid SolidWorks) and it was going well with updates and then not so much except to stay current with SolidWorks versions.

Hence why people have left no new features like they have added to Fusion, FYI they haven't really added new stuff to Inventor CAM either.

I will use till it gets killed off, we have 3000 seats here at ASU and 8000 seats of SolidWorks to boot for our students to use across campus.

There were a couple features I really liked in HSMWorks but not enough to make the switch and at the time I worked for a bigger company that brought me on to manage/move their programming department away from SurfCam and find something more efficient, we tried a few different systems, but in the end the programmers decided to go with CAMWorks, it ended up being about a 50/50 split, half put forth the effort and were happy with CAMWorks, the other half went back to SurfCam.

When I finally went on my own, I gave a few other CAM systems a try, but after doing trial and a lot of research and learning most the CAM software (CAMWorks, MasterCam, NX, Gibbs, etc the list goes on) license their toolpaths from ModuleWorks and MachineWorks, (you can go to both their pages and see their partners listed) I came to realize there isn't really a "best" CAM software, at the end of the day behind the scenes of the software its doing the same thing, and only what you see on your screen changes and every programmer is different and prefers the software to be laid out one way or the other and you get accustom to where buttons, switches and settings are and finding what you are efficient in and is user friendly for yourself is the "best" CAM for you, it may not be the same for everyone. So it made sense for me to stick with CAMWorks, I can make it do any and everything I need to do no problem, I've never not been able to get it to create the toolpath I needed.

 

[BluishInventor]

... after doing trial and a lot of research and learning most the CAM software (CAMWorks, MasterCam, NX, Gibbs, etc the list goes on) license their toolpaths from ModuleWorks and MachineWorks, (you can go to both their pages and see their partners listed) I came to realize there isn't really a "best" CAM software, at the end of the day behind the scenes of the software its doing the same thing, and only what you see on your screen changes and every programmer is different and prefers the software to be laid out one way or the other and you get accustom to where buttons, switches and settings are and finding what you are efficient in and is user friendly for yourself is the "best" CAM for you, it may not be the same for everyone. So it made sense for me to stick with CAMWorks, I can make it do any and everything I need to do no problem, I've never not been able to get it to create the toolpath I needed.

Yup. When someone is looking for the 'Best', they are really looking for the best implementation of ModuleWorks. One thing I want to add to this, even though MW drives the backend calculations, you can still implement the technology poorly. There are a few companies that do their own toolpaths that I found when I did a CAM system evaluation recently and those are Esprit, Hypermill, and CamTool. I'm sure there are more, but I was only looking at Top Tier CAM systems. Esprit does license the MachineWorks kinematics simulation, and Hypermill licenses Volumill like Camworks does. But other than that, they do their own toolpaths AFIK. In a comparison of toolpath generation times on a seemingly simple part using dynamic roughing or volumill, Camworks took hours, Mastercam 45 mins, Hypermill 10 mins, CamTool 1 minute. All for the same or similar toolpath. If Camworks and Hypermill both use Volumill, why is Hypermill so much faster? Well, the licensed software is implemented and utilized better.

I think why Mastercam is held in such high regard is because it's implementation of Moduleworks is better if not the best. I've demo'd it over the course of a few weeks, but never became proficient. I saw a lot of really useful tools. But like you said, it's often more about what people prefer and are used to.

 

[Shawnrs]

I was just trying to emphasize that the software, even at SP5, still has bugs and some of those bugs have been present for years. And some are pretty bad. Also, comparing a software 'update' to a new product release is not a great comparison. 2021 isn't completely re-written for 2022. They add some new features/tools to an existing product.

Either way, it still feels like they don't even use their own product in a real world setting and only fix bugs when people complain about them, and sometimes even that doesn't work. Hell, I even gave the Product Manager for CW and the product manager SW Cam a 1.5hr presentation on ways the software could be improved. Nothing came of it.

I think all software has some sort of bugs no matter how good it is. I think with the constant changes in such a short time it is hard to beta test it. When I worked for a cad/cam reseller I did a lot of phone support for Edgecam and it was tough walking people through temporary fixes for bugs. Most people I did phone support for were decent people with exception to the assholes that spend their all of their time trying to find bugs. I think Camworks is a good software but over the last 5-10 years I have not seen hardly anything I could live without.

 

[len_1962]

There were a couple features I really liked in HSMWorks but not enough to make the switch and at the time I worked for a bigger company that brought me on to manage/move their programming department away from SurfCam and find something more efficient, we tried a few different systems, but in the end the programmers decided to go with CAMWorks, it ended up being about a 50/50 split, half put forth the effort and were happy with CAMWorks, the other half went back to SurfCam.

YEP I was using surfcam traditional before I migrated to HSMWorks and still use it for the things that give HSMWorks fits or cannot do or I just like surfcam's path better, mainly 3D paths.

surfcam user since 92\93 version 3 dos.

 

[BluishInventor]

I think all software has some sort of bugs no matter how good it is.

You're absolutely right.

I think with the constant changes in such a short time it is hard to beta test it.

I think when a company is making more changes than it can test for, it's digging itself into a hole. People shell out big bucks for all these CAM software packages and the software should reflect that price tag. Does it have to be perfect, of course not. But when a shop relies on this tool to make money and that tool gets in the way of of making money, people start to second guess the software as being a reliable tool for success.

Resellers unfortunately get caught in the middle and can only help with work arounds. Many praises to those folks. They work very hard and keep companies rolling.

Do I spend all my time looking for bugs? Hell no. I have parts to deliver.

Do I submit bug reports and enhancement requests often? Yep. It benefits my future self, everyone else who uses it including those in my group, and also the company who makes the software as well.

Am I an asshole for that? In my eyes, no. I'm not treating the people I work with on these bugs and enhancements with a shit attitude. Just giving recommendations, insights, and solutions. And often I make great relationships with those I work with.

Even when a reseller has top notch support, a bunk software is still bunk. Is Camworks Bunk? No, but it doesn't reflect the amount of money we've invested into it. And when all of our guys have the same issues, thoughts, and workflow bottlenecks due to bugs or whatever, it's probably time to make a change.

 

[Marvel]

Yup. When someone is looking for the 'Best', they are really looking for the best implementation of ModuleWorks. One thing I want to add to this, even though MW drives the backend calculations, you can still implement the technology poorly. There are a few companies that do their own toolpaths that I found when I did a CAM system evaluation recently and those are Esprit, Hypermill, and CamTool. I'm sure there are more, but I was only looking at Top Tier CAM systems. Esprit does license the MachineWorks kinematics simulation, and Hypermill licenses Volumill like Camworks does. But other than that, they do their own toolpaths AFIK. In a comparison of toolpath generation times on a seemingly simple part using dynamic roughing or volumill, Camworks took hours, Mastercam 45 mins, Hypermill 10 mins, CamTool 1 minute. All for the same or similar toolpath. If Camworks and Hypermill both use Volumill, why is Hypermill so much faster? Well, the licensed software is implemented and utilized better.

I think why Mastercam is held in such high regard is because it's implementation of Moduleworks is better if not the best. I've demo'd it over the course of a few weeks, but never became proficient. I saw a lot of really useful tools. But like you said, it's often more about what people prefer and are used to.

One thing I will say I have noticed with CAMWorks and generating toolpaths, your computer makes a huge difference. I've ran CAMWorks at multiple shops over the last 12 years and every shop had a Dell Workstation and generating Volumill toolpaths or even surfacing, it took forever! When I went on my own fully in 2018 and bought my own CAMWorks seat, I decided to build my own computer.

Intel i7-5820K
128GB RAM (Started with 32 and have added since)
Radeon RX 480 - 8GB

My graphics card isn't a "certified" card recommended by SW/CW

I've read a lot of people comment on generating tool paths in CAMWorks taking forever, I do quite a bit of large plate hog outs and use the 3 Axis Area Clearance with VoluMill where I "Select All Faces". I've never had a tool path take longer than 2 minutes to generate. The longest I've ever had a something take to generate was a part that I had multiple area clearance operations stepping down tool sizes with WIP selected to pick out the corners from a full rough out with a .750" endmill down to a .250" endmill and I added a sketch and for some reason it decided to regenerate every single toolpath and it took 8 minutes.

That's kind of what I meant by "best" for each individual, like you said, it can be implemented terribly and even hard to get the software to create the toolpath you want because what you see on the screen isn't user friendly or easily understandable what the options/switches are doing, that's what I found with MasterCam and SurfCam when I used them, but MasterCam did have some useful tools, I remember saying to myself "well that was cool" but all around I didn't like it, the layout of things didn't make sense to me.

 

[Marvel]

You're absolutely right.




I think when a company is making more changes than it can test for, it's digging itself into a hole. People shell out big bucks for all these CAM software packages and the software should reflect that price tag. Does it have to be perfect, of course not. But when a shop relies on this tool to make money and that tool gets in the way of of making money, people start to second guess the software as being a reliable tool for success.

Resellers unfortunately get caught in the middle and can only help with work arounds. Many praises to those folks. They work very hard and keep companies rolling.

Do I spend all my time looking for bugs? Hell no. I have parts to deliver.

Do I submit bug reports and enhancement requests often? Yep. It benefits my future self, everyone else who uses it including those in my group, and also the company who makes the software as well.

Am I an asshole for that? In my eyes, no. I'm not treating the people I work with on these bugs and enhancements with a shit attitude. Just giving recommendations, insights, and solutions. And often I make great relationships with those I work with.

Even when a reseller has top notch support, a bunk software is still bunk. Is Camworks Bunk? No, but it doesn't reflect the amount of money we've invested into it. And when all of our guys have the same issues, thoughts, and workflow bottlenecks due to bugs or whatever, it's probably time to make a change.

Every year when I get my renewal I feel like I'm overpaying, and I consider a change to NX, CAMWorks wasn't that far off of NX's pricing. When I was shopping around it was a toss up between NX and CAMWorks and the upfront I was able to negotiate NX to be within $500, the maintenance was about $1200 more, but it seems like SW/CW is just creeping up every year. I was quite irritated this past renewal when they added the $300 for this SolidProfessor training access. If a company needs training, let them select that as an included option, don't force it on every single license renewal. On top of it I'm 95% CAM, SolidWorks is really just the driver for the CAM I use, I'll design a part/fixture, do some sketching on a part if needed, but the support I pay for on the SW side of things is pointless, I have never reached out to my reseller for any sort of SolidWorks CAD support. I wish they would come up with more of a CAM based support, I couldn't even tell you a new feature SolidWorks has released in 12 years of using it.

I know they have CAMWorksSolids as a cost effective alternative but it lacks compared to SolidWorks OEM, there's a few features in the OEM that are useful that aren't included in CAMWorksSolids and to add them you pretty much end up at the same cost. I also had a lot of bugs when I used CAMWorksSolids that were directly related to that, support couldnt recreate the issues I had on SW OEM.

 

[Shawnrs]

You're absolutely right.




I think when a company is making more changes than it can test for, it's digging itself into a hole. People shell out big bucks for all these CAM software packages and the software should reflect that price tag. Does it have to be perfect, of course not. But when a shop relies on this tool to make money and that tool gets in the way of of making money, people start to second guess the software as being a reliable tool for success.

Resellers unfortunately get caught in the middle and can only help with work arounds. Many praises to those folks. They work very hard and keep companies rolling.

Do I spend all my time looking for bugs? Hell no. I have parts to deliver.

Do I submit bug reports and enhancement requests often? Yep. It benefits my future self, everyone else who uses it including those in my group, and also the company who makes the software as well.

Am I an asshole for that? In my eyes, no. I'm not treating the people I work with on these bugs and enhancements with a shit attitude. Just giving recommendations, insights, and solutions. And often I make great relationships with those I work with.

Even when a reseller has top notch support, a bunk software is still bunk. Is Camworks Bunk? No, but it doesn't reflect the amount of money we've invested into it. And when all of our guys have the same issues, thoughts, and workflow bottlenecks due to bugs or whatever, it's probably time to make a change.

The only time I have had a serious issue with CW was back when they changed Finish milling to Contour milling. I think that was CW2005/CW2006. The problem was when you reloaded a CW2005 program into CW2006 it truncated the linear lead ins and linear lead outs. For the life It took a while to figure out what was happening. If you created a new program there were no problems but revising older programs was the problem. The solution was to put CW2005 back on until the bug fix was implemented. I can say since that time I never had a problem where I could not make programs because of bugs, I was always able to find a work around if I did come across a bug.

 

[Marvel]

The only time I have had a serious issue with CW was back when they changed Finish milling to Contour milling. I think that was CW2005/CW2006. The problem was when you reloaded a CW2005 program into CW2006 it truncated the linear lead ins and linear lead outs. For the life It took a while to figure out what was happening. If you created a new program there were no problems but revising older programs was the problem. The solution was to put CW2005 back on until the bug fix was implemented. I can say since that time I never had a problem where I could not make programs because of bugs, I was always able to find a work around if I did come across a bug.

There's bugs in every CAM software, a good efficient programmer will easily find their own work around, but it seems to be an on going issue with CAMWorks, reported bugs aren't getting fixed and for the price we pay for CAMWorks annually these bugs should be fixed, but it seems as if the developers aren't users of their own software and are set on new features for next year's release and IMO a lot of the new features aren't that great.

 

[Shawnrs]

There's bugs in every CAM software, a good efficient programmer will easily find their own work around, but it seems to be an on going issue with CAMWorks, reported bugs aren't getting fixed and for the price we pay for CAMWorks annually these bugs should be fixed, but it seems as if the developers aren't users of their own software and are set on new features for next year's release and IMO a lot of the new features aren't that great.

I can't comment on the bug fixes not getting solved but I can comment on what I think software should do. I think software designed on a basic standard should be a must meaning if you follow specific rules you should have no problem making programs. I think software enhancements should be developed based on enough responses from people that are using it to make it more efficient. Here is where I see problems with developing software, too many people want enhancements that best fit their needs which makes it difficult creating the software without breaking something else. I think I am an advanced CW user where I use the software in ways that work outside the box. There are some enhancements I would like to see but there is probably not too many people programming like I do. As for designers using the software, I doubt any of them use the software like you and I do. Most designers get requests to make the software enhancements based on what others do with the software. I am a mill programmers so I really do not follow any enhancement changes towards the lathes. Most new enhancements really do not effect how I program but maybe something new will catch my eye and I change.

 

[Marvel]

I can't comment on the bug fixes not getting solved but I can comment on what I think software should do. I think software designed on a basic standard should be a must meaning if you follow specific rules you should have no problem making programs. I think software enhancements should be developed based on enough responses from people that are using it to make it more efficient. Here is where I see problems with developing software, too many people want enhancements that best fit their needs which makes it difficult creating the software without breaking something else. I think I am an advanced CW user where I use the software in ways that work outside the box. There are some enhancements I would like to see but there is probably not too many people programming like I do. As for designers using the software, I doubt any of them use the software like you and I do. Most designers get requests to make the software enhancements based on what others do with the software. I am a mill programmers so I really do not follow any enhancement changes towards the lathes. Most new enhancements really do not effect how I program but maybe something new will catch my eye and I change.

I said this earlier.........

As well as owning my machine shop I own a salon, we have some POS software, they have an awesome customer feedback forum set up. I can go on there and post an enhancement or change request and everyone that uses the software can see it and there's a vote/agree button, if it receives X amounts of votes, they automatically implement it. Be nice to see CAMWorks listen to their users feedback or implement some sort of better process we as users can get features implemented.

I've requested a handful of enhancements and most of them have been operations/features that I've came across in other CAM software and have thought "that was a pretty cool feature".

 

[Pete Deal]

I said this earlier.........

As well as owning my machine shop I own a salon……

Well to hell with this conversation. I want to know how a guy comes to be in the machine shop and the salon business?

 

[Marvel]

Well to hell with this conversation. I want to know how a guy comes to be in the machine shop and the salon business?

HAHA, I opened it for my wife about 10 years ago but still take care of the business side of things.