HyperMill Multi User File Management

[BluishInventor]

I was curious to know how other Hypermill users out there who have multiple networked programmers organize and manage shared files. i.e. Posts, Templates, Part/CAM files, Tool Database, etc..

What do you share or don't share?
Do you store the hmc auxilary files(POF/STL/OMX) with the CAD?
Or do you have a networked project folder and put the hmc files somehwere else?

That sort of thing.

Thanks in advance.

 

[boosted]

Pretty straightforward really. We have a hypermill folder on the network that contains posts, templates, tool database, and macro database.

The part folder is a little more tricky, and laid out as follows:

Part Folder
- CAD Model
- Print (if available)
- traveler
- machining folder

Machining Folder
- 3DF
- joblistreport
- NC
- POF
- STOCK
- VNC
- Solidworks <-- contains CAD for machining/fixtures/etc...

In the past, working on everything locally made a huge difference in calculation times, but we now have a good server with everything hardwired. I can't detect any significant difference between storing files locally vs storing on the network. Sometimes if the part is a monster I'll put it on my SSD anyways (in futile hopes that it might speed things up), then push it all back to the server after it spends a day calculating.

 

[BluishInventor]

@boosted
Thanks for sharing. Do you have to manually specify the project path for each new Hypermill file?

We're somewhat similar, our network is pretty fast and I don't notice any difference in calc times whether the files are local or on the server.

One thing that is really odd, our main network drive that we use has storage deduplication that was implemented by IT and gives us trouble with Hypermill in general. If you look at any file's properties on that drive it shows 0 for size on disc with the file size above it showing that actual file's size. In essence, it's a shortcut for the computer to get to the data. The deduplication process runs every week and new files will show full size on disk until that weekly process runs. However, Hypermill can't open it. If you move the file to your desktop or a different network drive, or just even copy and paste it in the same folder, the file works and is 100% intact. Super lame. What's even more odd is the tool and macro databases are on the same server and experience no issues.

But we keep our CAD and hmc files in the PDM vault which doesn't use the dedupe process.