Taking the big leap

[danatoem]

I have been a mastercam user for 22 years now and have really appreciated how Mastercam is such a breeze to use all round! Now i'm taking the big leap into another job where they use delcam powermill. Am i in for a big shock? I already have asked if they consider switching and there is some movement towards Mastercam but i won't know for a while. Does anyone have experience with powermill? Why are all the online tutorials done by some east Indian dude? I can hardly understand because of his thick accent! Appreciate any feedback!

[cncappsjames]

PowerMill is good software. Very powerful.

There will be a learning curve associated with it. It does a lot of things differently. It tends to make what should be easy things hard like drilling... in Mastercam you pick points and you're done vs. PowerMill you have to create a Hole Feature Set that will then allow you to drill the holes.

I do like how it does Levels and Sets a little better than Mastercam does. You create your toolpaths then group them in NC Programs so you don't have to create them in any particular order, 

 

Don't expect to be proficient right away. There's more steps to create a program and the steps don't always correlate to something you would do in Mastercam. Think of it as learning a foreign language where not all the words have an English equivalent. If you can stop yourself from saying "Well in Mastercam..." all the time and just focus on the new steps and new process, you'll be much better off.

 

HTH

[danatoem]

Thanks so much for your response. Sounds like I’ll need patience! Perhaps a big hurdle will be finding English tutorials. I have such a hard time with the very thick East Indian accent. Power mill must originate from there perhaps?

[AHarrison1]

This guy sounds more german, maybe easier for you to understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5SctTmLeU8

 

This guy is north american i think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfeVHEfGHkg

[Colin Gilchrist]

Try searching also for "Autodesk Powermill". Delcam got bought years ago, so you'll likely find many more sources for tutorials if you don't put "delcam" in your search bar...

[danatoem]

So what I am finding with power mill is that it is definitely an engineers delight and would be helpful having that background. However for the average shop toolmaker machinist type person it’s really quite overwhelming unless heavy training in the works! It has an unbelievable amount of menus selection to accomplish very simple toolpathing. Trick is., which one of those hundreds of selections works when they need a program yesterday

I just had a dozen or so printed tutorials which leave you with dozens of questions. My assessment for the present is to acquire Mastercam to get stuff moving than continue with power mill when time for extensive training opens up! They have agreed. 

[PAnderson]

Powermill may not be around for much longer. AD is doing to PM what they did to Partmaker and other software programs they purchased. Just keep your eyes open. Here at DN Solutions, I had my choice of whatever software I wanted. I chose Mastercam simply because I had a LOT of time invested in it. Like since V6. Then, I also got Powermill. In addition to MX. The 5 axis stuff was awesome. Blows MX away in some areas. But, no real geometry creation inside of Powermill. You had to export to Powershape, create what you needed, then reimport back to Powermill. After about a year, I had enough. I quit using it. Lazy? Maybe. But I had work to get done and felt that I did not have the time or inclination to pursue Powermill since my contact at AD did not believe they were putting any more than was absolutely needed into the software. Is Mastercam perfect? No, but I could do everything I needed within the single piece of software.

[danatoem]

so after 3 weeks exposure to powermill  (company insisted on giving it a honest try  before going with mastercam) I found out that it is incredible powerful but also very tedious. The learning curve is going to be a mile long. However---- it has some amazing ability for tool control. For instance in mastercam when 3 d machining on near vertical walls the tool will not slide up and down on the z axis. it has from what I see far advanced surface finish capabilities. I'm really impressed with tool control on lead in and out ect.  I have used mastercam for about 23 years now so i'm rather stuck with that mind set and its been a torturous 3 weeks learning enough to just do basic tool pathing in Powermill. I will see how things go over the coming weeks. 

[cncappsjames]

You will be most successful if you don't compare the two. You look at PowerMill as a new tool that has specific needs. If you keep your mind in Mastercam, PowerMill will be harder and you will fight with it more.

 

JM2CFWIW