CAMWorks to HSM/Express?

martin_05 · May 8, 2020

Anyone switch from CAMWorks to HSMExpress (or full HSM for that matter). I run SolidWorks. Can't use Fusion 360 for various reasons.

I am seriously considering making the move as I am pretty tired of CAMWorks (I've been using it since 2008/9). When a vendor ships you a product that calls for something like 200 ipm for a 1/8 end mill, full slot cut at 1/8 in depth...and that's just one example of the nonsense...well, eventually that shit cost you money, sometimes lots of it. Back in the early days I had at least one Z crash (thankfully into machinable wax) attributable to CAMWorks.

I know there is no utopia when it comes to CAM. I'm just sick of throwing thousands of dollars at products to end-up with nonsense that should just not exist in this day and age. I mean, I use GWizard calculator and can pretty much trust the numbers it gives me without much concern, particularly if I don't run it in "Aggressive" mode. Why can't these massive companies not handle speeds, feeds and tool selection? My guess is that they just don't know what they are doing, they bought their CAM software from someone and nobody wants to spend a year cleaning-up and fixing the tool database. <end of rant>

The typical comeback is: Well, once you setup the database it does OK.

I did not setup the database in Gwizard calculator and it does OK.

The difference is I paid thousands of dollars for CAMWorks and paid them thousands of dollars per year for maintenance. I mean, c'mon.

Oh, yes, and they want thousands of dollars more for high speed machining as well as a boost in annual maintenance fees. Nuts.

Thanks,

-Martin

BugRobotics · May 9, 2020

I've tried almost all of the SolidWorks embedded CAM over the years and nothing touches HSMWorks for workflow efficiency and a seamless integration with SolidWorks. HSMXpress is the the best deal out there (free) when you are talking 2.5axis CAM for SolidWorks.

DanielG · May 9, 2020

Yes.

I have off-subscription CAMworks, but I use HSMexpress. It is much faster and easier.

martin_05 · May 9, 2020

DanielG said:
Yes.

I have off-subscription CAMworks, but I use HSMexpress. It is much faster and easier.

Yes, I have not paid them the maintenance fee since 2018. They haven't done anything worth my money in years. The amount of money I've paid them since 2008 vs. what I get from the software is, well, obscene.

I'm happy to pay $500 per year for the full Fusion360 suite, which includes HSMWorks (even though HSMexpress is free). I have a prototype to finish during the next week or so. After that I am going to devote a week to go through HSMExpress tutorials and get started switching away from CAMworks. Looking forward to disabling the extension forever.

Any good tutorial series on HSMExpress/HSMWorks on YouTube? It looks like the in-Solidworks tutorials HSMexpress comes with are a pretty good starting point.

How about Haas posts and post editors to customize them? That's another thing that's a minor nightmare with CAMworks. I spent more time than I care to admit with UPG and EC Edit.

Thanks.

martin_05 · May 9, 2020

BugRobotics said:
I've tried almost all of the SolidWorks embedded CAM over the years and nothing touches HSMWorks for workflow efficiency and a seamless integration with SolidWorks. HSMXpress is the the best deal out there (free) when you are talking 2.5axis CAM for SolidWorks.

That's good to know. I'll start my transition in a couple of week. Looking forward to abandoning CAMWorks...tens of thousands of dollars flushed down the toilet since 2008.

-Martin

nordlichtFanuc · May 10, 2020

I can confirm almost all said.

One reason I went back into subscription was the wish to use CAMworks.
Bad move..

After some half a year of fiddling arround with it, I discovered hsmworks..

Using hsmexpress now and I like it very much so far.. Good integration, fast, easy to learn and work, and quite powerfull..

Now Im gettibg more into surfacing and consider getting a Fusion subscription, as then you also get full hsmworks..

Wsurfer · May 10, 2020

I started using hsmworks/solidworks about 10 years ago. Migrated to Autodesk InventorHSM after Autodesk bought Hsmworks. There's been a lot of good/bad buggy stuff depending on the year and version. Crashes a lot on various platforms. They will fix one bug and screw up something else. They seem to let the end users do all the r&d testing, and chase down "bug reports". Word on the street is they are going to phase out InventorHSM and HSMworks and only offer cloud based Fusion. My reseller tried to convince me how much better it would be. But fusion can not handle large assemblies. So at some point I'll have to have separate CAD/Cam packages. So much for cad cam integration.

It is easy and quick to use when you figure out how to work around bugs/crashing. We started with "perpetual license at $ 10k each + maintenance, then they dropped that to offer 2k a year per seat , then they change the name, and now 2020 seems to have so many issues, I'm sticking with 2019 for as long as I can, because at least I know what I'm working with. The future of all software seems to be cloud based, so someone else will store your proprietary designs, and working off line won't be an option. Welcome to "Progress".

nordlichtFanuc · May 10, 2020

What issues do you have with hsmworks 2020?

Im thinking on upgrading...

Wsurfer · May 10, 2020

I haven't had any because i never upgraded after reading posts on the support forum. I know what I have now and don't have the time for a new "learning curve" for what works and doesn't work on the latest release.
You can checkout the Inventorcam support forum for more info.

Ianagos · May 11, 2020

I use hsm works and I think it’s great. I like it alot better than mastercam for 3 axis work. Only bug I found so far is that if you use hole wizard sometimes the cam will take forever recognizing the holes.

mountie · May 11, 2020

I use HSMXpress. Came free with Solidworks, haven't had many issues with it. Haven't really tried any other CAM offerings.

Posts are JavaScript-based, there's a manual for editing. Made some minor edits to my post (standard Haas pre-NGC from Autodesk), wasn't too difficult. Haven't taken the time to truly tweak the post to my preferred coding style though, or to make a good tooling library.

My use case is probably rare; most often use HSMXpress for the 2D adaptive strategies and for chamfering a tricky contour, then paste the result into my program file and code the rest by cutting and pasting from previous files and writing code by hand. Most parts are prismatic, relatively easy to do this way. Also make our own parts, so don't write new code all that often.

thunderskunk · Oct 26, 2020

So... I’m an HSM guy. I started with mastercam, and that was ridiculous. “Very powerful” as they say, but not what I needed for my purposes and was very unintuitive. And expensive. I used HSM with inventor, and loved it. Not saying it wasn’t frustrating at times and that it did everything I ever wanted, but it worked well, was generally easy to understand, and I could work around just about anything I had an issue with.

I was really hoping camworks would replace HSM, being free with solidworks. For me, HSM came complete with inventor, and camworks comes incomplete with Solidworks as 2.5 and 3 axis only. Strike 1.

Camworks looks like it just barely broke out from DOS. Strike 2.

I will say I made a program within 10 minutes of first use: recognized the features, even made tools for me. It was a little flaky on defining tools, but it did it’s thing and posted just fine. We’ll call it a foul ball.

Setup was OK. Simpler than HSM, just click for your WCS, but simpler isn’t better. I like having lots of options depending on where I need to pick up the part and what needs to shift later.

Material selection... so, it kinda worked, but not really. I changed materials from 6061 to 1018, and the spindle speed changed for a given tool about what I expected. Not what I would optimize for my machine, but I’m sure if I put more than an hour into it I could figure it out. Feed didn’t change though...

I haven’t given up, but so far it’s a no go for me. Is the paid version of camworks tons better? The free version I think was supposed to sway me to think I should switch, but it’s doing the opposite. I can’t even customize my machine defaults, though maybe I can and just don’t know how.

Mike1974 · Oct 26, 2020

No experience with either, but your comment about the database is wrong IMO. HSM advisor, and others that are only dedicated to speeds and feeds. They aren't spending money on developing better linking moves, and 3-4-5 axis simultaneous, etc etc...

Depending on the cam software, tools can be easy to set up or not... for example in MCX, I use "universal" as my material, which is straight surface footage and ipt. I then calculate feeds/speeds from that material, and enter sfm and chip load per tooth, save to library and it's there forever.

MCX does have *built in* speeds and feeds based on material, but I don't use them so can't say how accurate they are...

Also, it's possible (WAG as I don't know your software) you have a setting wrong for the cam to spit out 100ipm for an 1/8" endmill. For example, I can set my speeds and feeds from -

If I don't set it correctly, I will see some stupid feeds and rpm, like 500ipm and rpm 1000...

Shawnrs · Oct 27, 2020

thunderskunk said:
So... I’m an HSM guy. I started with mastercam, and that was ridiculous. “Very powerful” as they say, but not what I needed for my purposes and was very unintuitive. And expensive. I used HSM with inventor, and loved it. Not saying it wasn’t frustrating at times and that it did everything I ever wanted, but it worked well, was generally easy to understand, and I could work around just about anything I had an issue with.

I was really hoping camworks would replace HSM, being free with solidworks. For me, HSM came complete with inventor, and camworks comes incomplete with Solidworks as 2.5 and 3 axis only. Strike 1.

Camworks looks like it just barely broke out from DOS. Strike 2.

I will say I made a program within 10 minutes of first use: recognized the features, even made tools for me. It was a little flaky on defining tools, but it did it’s thing and posted just fine. We’ll call it a foul ball.

Setup was OK. Simpler than HSM, just click for your WCS, but simpler isn’t better. I like having lots of options depending on where I need to pick up the part and what needs to shift later.

Material selection... so, it kinda worked, but not really. I changed materials from 6061 to 1018, and the spindle speed changed for a given tool about what I expected. Not what I would optimize for my machine, but I’m sure if I put more than an hour into it I could figure it out. Feed didn’t change though...

I haven’t given up, but so far it’s a no go for me. Is the paid version of camworks tons better? The free version I think was supposed to sway me to think I should switch, but it’s doing the opposite. I can’t even customize my machine defaults, though maybe I can and just don’t know how.

If the free version did everything people wanted why would anybody pay for the complete package?

thunderskunk · Oct 29, 2020

Shawnrs said:
If the free version did everything people wanted why would anybody pay for the complete package?

If the free version locks basic features that everyone else has standard, and gives the user the impression that the software is outdated and hard to use, why would said user pay for any package at all?

Last I checked, you get the same version of HSM with fusion 360 as you do Inventor. I don’t pay for inventor, but my employer pays massive amounts for several subscriptions to Solidworks, PDM, the whole kit. Camworks is just tagged on with Solidworks now, and I was genuinely excited to try it out. We recently made the switch from 2018 to 2020 R4. I’m just not impressed enough to switch. I don’t look at something free that I’m disappointed with and say “If I throw more money at this, then I’ll like it better.”

So, I’m comparing what I have access to. If I were to buy one for my shop, it would be Inventor with HSM. If I had a customer requirement to use Solidworks, I’d still use HSM works paired with a Solidworks subscription. Not saying I couldn’t make camworks do what I need it to do, but thus far I’m just not “wow”ed enough. Maybe I’ll change my mind if I play with it more. We’ll see.

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