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Camworks Post Help..Mori ZT2500Y

JohnWLMT

Plastic
Joined
Dec 14, 2007
Location
Barrie,Ontario
I was able to take a generic MT4axis source and make a bunch of edits to get something that is almost there.

Just stuck on a few things.

For the lower turret (front turret) the G02 and G03 codes are inverted.
We have to reverse them for turning operations.

Also the rapid to position for cross drilling in the X Axis starts with a negative number.
It needs to be positive.

I am a licensed user. I just shelled out 20K for 4 seats of CamWorks including Lathe, Multi Axis Mill, Mill-Turn, Advanced Machine, Subpindle, Rotary Mill, Edm Pro, Volumill 3X and Sync Turrets. They are on current maintenance.
I did send a request to my dealer Access to help me with the edits to the post. I was told in an email that they would sell me a post for that machine for an additional 4K but would not be able to help me with these changes.

So here I am.

I know I should have maybe purchased a post at the time but money is a little tight right now.

John
[email protected]
 
I don’t know enough about tweaking their posts to help you but man their answer pisses me off. Why don’t you tell them you’re going to shop around for a better var. Also tell them you’ll plaster the news of their crappy service all over the internet. I’m on my third one. At least for solidworks you can change.
 
I don’t know enough about tweaking their posts to help you but man their answer pisses me off. Why don’t you tell them you’re going to shop around for a better var. Also tell them you’ll plaster the news of their crappy service all over the internet. I’m on my third one. At least for solidworks you can change.
Access has horrible support. I bought a standalone version of CW two years ago and could not even get it to install and run for months and we build our own computers so we are not not newbies. I was promised a few post and when requested I was asked to fill out a long form. Finally did and then the owner stepped in and shut the post writing down. Between the very clunky interface of CW and the very primitive and old posts and post generator editor for CW we basically dropped all use . Fusion 360 at 300 a year is better however we use Solidcam, Surfcam and an old version of Machining Strategist. Getting posts written for CW is expensive . Editing the post writer in CW is known to be very difficult whereas every other CAM that we have worked with is pretty easy. Since it is so difficult in CW you have to figure on that as a cost and then as a continued expense when the software upgrades. If you are a job shop with similar parts and can afford the costs of the posts Hawkridge did seem to offer better support with more experienced programmers . If your doing a lot of different parts with different machines and do not have deep pockets forget it.
 
I was able to take a generic MT4axis source and make a bunch of edits to get something that is almost there.

Just stuck on a few things.

For the lower turret (front turret) the G02 and G03 codes are inverted.
We have to reverse them for turning operations.

Also the rapid to position for cross drilling in the X Axis starts with a negative number.
It needs to be positive.

I am a licensed user. I just shelled out 20K for 4 seats of CamWorks including Lathe, Multi Axis Mill, Mill-Turn, Advanced Machine, Subpindle, Rotary Mill, Edm Pro, Volumill 3X and Sync Turrets. They are on current maintenance.
I did send a request to my dealer Access to help me with the edits to the post. I was told in an email that they would sell me a post for that machine for an additional 4K but would not be able to help me with these changes.

So here I am.

I know I should have maybe purchased a post at the time but money is a little tight right now.

John
[email protected]

Sorry to hear, one thing I have really emphasized to people looking to buy CAM software, doesn't matter which CAM software, get a post included and make sure all edits are there. I know every VAR is different but the post is very important. I've ran CAMWorks for almost 15 years through multiple employers that I personally brought CAMWorks on at each company and always negotiated a post to be included based on the machines the shop has. When I went on my own a few years back and bought my own seat, I negotiated 3 posts to be included. HawkRidge maintains and edits the post for me at no charge as long as I keep up my annual maintenance.

Access has horrible support. I bought a standalone version of CW two years ago and could not even get it to install and run for months and we build our own computers so we are not not newbies. I was promised a few post and when requested I was asked to fill out a long form. Finally did and then the owner stepped in and shut the post writing down. Between the very clunky interface of CW and the very primitive and old posts and post generator editor for CW we basically dropped all use . Fusion 360 at 300 a year is better however we use Solidcam, Surfcam and an old version of Machining Strategist. Getting posts written for CW is expensive . Editing the post writer in CW is known to be very difficult whereas every other CAM that we have worked with is pretty easy. Since it is so difficult in CW you have to figure on that as a cost and then as a continued expense when the software upgrades. If you are a job shop with similar parts and can afford the costs of the posts Hawkridge did seem to offer better support with more experienced programmers . If your doing a lot of different parts with different machines and do not have deep pockets forget it.
Posts get ridiculously expensive and the one thing that drives me nuts is, I talked to a post developer for another CAMWorks VAR that told me they have a library of posts, if you have machine X, they send you their "generic" post, which isn't even generic, it will have all the switches you could think of for that machine type, and you get a simple PDF manual, showing the options the post has. The post may have an air blast switch and your machine doesn't have air blast, you just don't use it, but its there for those that do need it and don't need to request it.

HawkRidge for me has been excellent, I negotiated in 3 posts and they maintain and edit it for me as much as I need. I will only hand edit a code once, if I program a part and my post doesn't have something I need it to do, I send it in and have it added. IMO that is almost the most important aspect of a VAR offering/CAM software.

There's no continued expense for posts when the software is upgraded, I've never had a post issue after a new release of CW or had to have it updated to reflect anything.
 
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I don’t know enough about tweaking their posts to help you but man their answer pisses me off. Why don’t you tell them you’re going to shop around for a better var. Also tell them you’ll plaster the news of their crappy service all over the internet. I’m on my third one. At least for solidworks you can change.
Out of curiosity, how exactly do you switch VAR? Are you buying a new seat or are you able to transfer your license to the new VAR?
 








 
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