pikefisher
Plastic
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2020
Hi,
I'm an engineer who is just joining a small company in the food processing roll-form machine servicing business who just bought a Fadal 2040A VMC to start making our own aluminum tooling/forms/dies for these machines. The pieces we will be manufacturing are relatively simple in geometry...small inside and outside radii, a lot of hogging out, and some large and tiny holes. I've been tasked with getting this machine up and running and although I understand the basic process of CAD to CAM to Machine Control, I don't have an idea of the most appropriate software to acquire. So I'm looking for some help in zero-ing in on some smart software choices. I doubt I need something as capable as Pro-E(CREO), Solidworks, or Inventor, but I really don't know. I will want to be able to do tool routing visualization, and even using the Fadal Learn Mode to reverse engineer some parts we've been having to send out and no drawings exist for. Can you suggest the software tools I need? I also am struggling with the fact that this machine only uses RS-232 serial COM and none of our computers even have that anymore. I've been reading that USB to RS-232 is very unreliable. So looking for best solutions there. Thanks for your help. Kent
I'm an engineer who is just joining a small company in the food processing roll-form machine servicing business who just bought a Fadal 2040A VMC to start making our own aluminum tooling/forms/dies for these machines. The pieces we will be manufacturing are relatively simple in geometry...small inside and outside radii, a lot of hogging out, and some large and tiny holes. I've been tasked with getting this machine up and running and although I understand the basic process of CAD to CAM to Machine Control, I don't have an idea of the most appropriate software to acquire. So I'm looking for some help in zero-ing in on some smart software choices. I doubt I need something as capable as Pro-E(CREO), Solidworks, or Inventor, but I really don't know. I will want to be able to do tool routing visualization, and even using the Fadal Learn Mode to reverse engineer some parts we've been having to send out and no drawings exist for. Can you suggest the software tools I need? I also am struggling with the fact that this machine only uses RS-232 serial COM and none of our computers even have that anymore. I've been reading that USB to RS-232 is very unreliable. So looking for best solutions there. Thanks for your help. Kent