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Is Mastercam Lathe for an Okuma Lathe an advantage?


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55 minutes ago, Titanium said:

Hi,

I'm just wondering if anyone can tell me if it's worth getting Mastercam lathe for an Okuma LB3000 EXII MYW over using IGF?

Thanks.

Really going to come down to the work you do. Lathe by itself only offers C axis milling. If you want traditional milling then think you would have to get at least Mill, but what level of Mill you need I don't know anymore since they don't say on the website. Best to get a quote from your reseller which should be In-House and go from there.

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3 minutes ago, 5th Axis CGI said:

Really going to come down to the work you do. Lathe by itself only offers C axis milling. If you want traditional milling then think you would have to get at least Mill, but what level of Mill you need I don't know anymore since they don't say on the website. Best to get a quote from your reseller which should be In-House and go from there.

We already have 5 seats of level 3 mill, so that part wouldn't be a problem, I was just curious to see if anyone knew if it had a significant advantage over using conversational.

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9 minutes ago, Titanium said:

We already have 5 seats of level 3 mill, so that part wouldn't be a problem, I was just curious to see if anyone knew if it had a significant advantage over using conversational.

Again really going to come down to your parts. With having lathe you can program everyone in one file if the part requires turning and milling. If parts are simple then you might have a good method and process down. 

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One obvious advantage for Mastercam Lathe is you can program off line while your machine is running.

I believe you can do that with IGF too, but I suspect the machine is usually down while

you are building a new program with IGF

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To add to gcodes comments it also gives you a permanent source file which an be used for other machines and can be easily edited for similar parts.

I do aerospace job shop work and the company has had Mazaks for a number of years using Mazatrol. Despite adding a new one a couple of years ago they have finally decided to abandon ship especially as we are approaching post and go from the programming dept so we are exposing some of the short comings of the conversational machines.

But as JP says it really depends on your work, aerospace job shop is reasonably unique.

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I've got a friend who owns a shop that has several Okuma mill turns.

He does all his programming at the control.

I don't know if he uses IGF or just Okuma's excellent canned cycles.

He occasionally contacts me when he gets a geometry problem his controls can't solve

but that isn't very often.

His work is small chucking and bar turn stuff, mostly aircraft connectors and he makes a very nice living at it.

He had resisted all my efforts to try Mastercam, but he's doing just fine without it.

He's currently looking at buying an LT2000, a twin spindle multitasking lathe.

I can't imagine programming that with Pencil Cam though.

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One big thing to consider is the quality of tool paths and options available in CAM software versus IGF. Tool paths to take advantage of multi-function groove tools, Prime turning, etc. You also have a lot more control over finishing tool paths and blending in a CAM software. 

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On 3/12/2020 at 10:03 PM, gcode said:

One obvious advantage for Mastercam Lathe is you can program off line while your machine is running.

I believe you can do that with IGF too, but I suspect the machine is usually down while

you are building a new program with IGF

You're right, when using IGF, the machine is down. Apparently they have a PC version of IGF but I believe it was pricey.

On 3/13/2020 at 6:40 AM, nickbe10 said:

To add to gcodes comments it also gives you a permanent source file which an be used for other machines and can be easily edited for similar parts.

I do aerospace job shop work and the company has had Mazaks for a number of years using Mazatrol. Despite adding a new one a couple of years ago they have finally decided to abandon ship especially as we are approaching post and go from the programming dept so we are exposing some of the short comings of the conversational machines.

But as JP says it really depends on your work, aerospace job shop is reasonably unique.

A permanent source file would definitely be nice since we're running both Okuma and Mazak Lathes.

On 3/13/2020 at 7:09 AM, #Rekd™ said:

Our DMG C-Axis lathe has an Siemens 840 D controller with Shop Turn software on it. We use this for about 90% of the programs but we still have Mastercam and a working post to do some of the more complicated parts.

 

 

Right now I use Mastercam Mill to generate some code  for more difficult parts and then I just insert it into my IGF program. It would be better to have the lathe module and a post for it. The easy parts could still be done with IGF.

On 3/13/2020 at 7:12 AM, YoDoug® said:

One big thing to consider is the quality of tool paths and options available in CAM software versus IGF. Tool paths to take advantage of multi-function groove tools, Prime turning, etc. You also have a lot more control over finishing tool paths and blending in a CAM software. 

Good points to consider, especially the blending.

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