Mastercam Vs. Gibbs

[Mick]

I'm doing a demo today at a shop that has taken on a very pro-Gibbs programmer.

 

I'm curious to see if there is anyone here who is conversant with Gibbs and Mastercam, and who could highlight the strengths and weaknesses of Gibbs, and where Mastercam eats Gibbs.

 

This forum is already a big plus, but I know I have hard job ahead of me, as this guy has already but in some hard work promoting Gibbs there. They haven't had a CAM system before, so this is their first step into CAM.

 

I've heard things mentioned like "Pallet Management System" etc, but these just seem like buzzwords and hype to me. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Brad St.]

Mick, biggest thing I would be concerned about is what you need and how both softwares can benefit you. Not necessarily all the bells and whistles. We compared both systems not to long ago and Gibbs was trying to do a big sell on the user interface (mainly graphical). There was nothing honestly that Cam couldn't do that Gibbs could do. The main reason we were looking into gibbs was the fact it supposedly came with a post ready for our older swiss machine. With cam we would have had to customize one, well at demo day we found out that Gibbs did not have the post we needed and we would have to have one customized. I personally voiced an opinion to stick with what we had because we had it the best, Mastercam.

 

Good Luck

[Rekd™]

I ran Gibbs, Virtual Gibbs, and the original Mac based Gibbs CAD/CAM/NC.

 

Bottom line:

 

Gibbs is pretty.

Gibbs is easy to learn.

Gibbs is not powerful as MC, in MANY departments.

Gibbs has a nice translator.

Gibbs has a great geometry creation tool: Geometry Expert.

 

MC is more powerful

MC is not that hard to learn, in fact it's easy for easy parts.

MC has user-customizable posts, free.

MC has more options/customizability.

MC has a better support group.

MC has better toolpaths.

 

I've spent 1/2 my career on Gibbs and it's different flavors from Mac to Dos to Windows, and the other half on MC and others. I literally have more experience in Gibbs, and choose MC hands down, period.

[notso]

My old shop had Gibbs (although I was not the programmer). One feature that Gibbs had that MC does not that I wish MC had is the ability to instantly decide how many work pieces to post for after only doing tool paths for one part. When you are ready to post teh job Gibbs simply asked how many locations you wanted and it was a done deal. W/ MC you have to copy (or translate or something like that) all of your tool paths and then post it out. Then if you want less locations for a different machine, you need to undo that. Just seems like you have to jump through more hoops to do it in MC. One great feature in MC that I don't think that Gibbs has is "mask on arc". The programmer at my old shop has mentioned several times that this was a real pain in Gibbs.

[MACHINEMASTERG]

quote:

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the ability to instantly decide how many work pieces to post for after only doing tool paths for one part. When you are ready to post teh job Gibbs simply asked how many locations you wanted and it was a done

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you can do this with out translating anything if you use the mpsubrep .pst on the site you just fill out how many pieces and what offset number to start with in the 1 op in misc intergers thats it ill do 1 pc prove it out on the machine then go back to mcam edit if needed then fill in the blanks in the first op and wala it post it out for multi parts and offsets

[heeler]

We use the translate toolpath all the time. I would think that the info you need for Mcam you would need for gibbs. You can just to work offsets, or do it by offsetting values for xyz. We do it all the time and I don't see the drawback. 2 things I like about it, the ability to backplot/verify. and ability to do an operation on all parts before changing tools to do the next operation. At 45 seconds a tool change on our routers, this is a huge time saver.

 

m2c

 

Glenn

[Lumpnut]

quote:

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Gibbs is easy to learn.

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I have to respectfully disagree with Rekd on dis one.

 

About 4 years ago my company decided to buy a CNC and CAM package. Since nobody had any experience with CAM , I got a demo of Gibbs , Mcam , and Surfcam. I found Mastercam MUCH easier to learn. I spent a week tinkering on each demo without any training and was able to do much more with Mastercam. It just made more sense to me. It's almost conversational , create/line , create/arc , create/point , toolpath/pocket , toolpath/contour , etc.

Not to mention the support available is ,in my opinion far superior. There are many reasons that there are more Mcam seats around the world than any other system and I think the ease of learning is one of the biggest.

Just my opinion.

[Rekd™]

I sit corrected, nunu.

 

Gibbs was the first system I learned, and only one I used for a couple years, so I guess I was prepping myself for learning other software. But you're right. Getting a quick toolpath IS easier/faster in MC.

[thoskins]

I think one of the major plus's to mastercam is the interface. Specifically the right mouse click for filling the blank like "x coord. of a point" and so on. This makes it "no thinkin thursday" everyday. Quoting my instructor there. Gibbs doesn't have this feature to my knowledge. I believe this is a crucial benefit in mastercam. In makes setting up everything so much easier. I don't beleive Gibbs has tool a library either. Pretty nice to set up tools that you use all the time and to be able to call them up in the future with a couple mouse clicks.

It's been awhile since I've ran gibbs but I think setting up work coordinate systems is a lot easier in MC as well. Being able to copy your current graphics view into a usable WCS is super cool and simple. I've set my toolbar up to include almost all of the graphics views so flipping the part around to make to WCS is easy.

I'm could go on for little bit longer, but I'm biased.

 

GIBBS

[jeff]

quote:

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Being able to copy your current graphics view into a usable WCS is super cool and simple.

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I was not aware of that!!!!

Cool!

 

Jeff teh learn somthing new here everyday.

[Thad]

quote:

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Specifically the right mouse click for filling the blank like "x coord. of a point" and so on. This makes it "no thinkin thursday" everyday. Quoting my instructor there. Gibbs doesn't have this feature to my knowledge.

---

Gibbs has this feature. Back in version 4.16, or something like that, you could hold down Alt (I think) and you would get the "interrogation cursor." It worked the same as MC.

 

Back in those days, you couldn't add comments to the operation. This is a must with any file that contains 5 or more ops. Many people here at the forum use more than 50!

 

I haven't used Gibbs since V4.something. While I fondly remember a few neat features, to compare that version with even MC7 would be a joke. MC blows it away.

 

Thad

[thoskins]

quote:

 

Gibbs has this feature. Back in version 4.16, or something like that, you could hold down Alt (I think) and you would get the "interrogation cursor." It worked the same as MC.

 

 

I stand corrected.

[Rob Dusenbury CAD/CAM CONSULTING]

So Mick, How did the Demo Go?

[Mick]

Wow, while I was away, there was a lot of activity.

 

The demo went ok, however, I'm not holding much confidence in them running with MC.

The managing director is apparently making the decision, and he didn't even turn up at the demo (he wasn't at the Gibbs demo either).

They are apprently impressed with Gibbs TSM addon (Tombstone Management), which allows you to place parts on a tombstone. I did explain, that we dont need any addon in Mastercam to do this.

I certainly pushed the ease of use, and the excellent support, both local and on this forum. I also stressed that the local user base of Mastercam is more than twice its nearest competitor.

However, to be quite honest, I believe the managing director has made his mind up already.

Thanks to everyone for their replies, it certainly helped.

[Mike Mattera - TFM]

Gibbs has no Ops Mgr. Like Mastercam. You end up with a list of toolpaths marked T1, T2, T3 with NO descriptions. You have to backplot each one to see what it does. Mastercam's Ops Mgr is full of easy to understand "visual" information anyone can read and understand.

 

Also you cant rotate the part while it backploting (alt + Arrows). In Gibbs, as soon as you move the screen the backplot starts from the begining again.

 

I have not drawn with it but most ex-Gibbs users (new Mastercam users) will tell you it's hard to draw with compared to Mastercam.

 

Mike Mattera

[Müřlıń®]

quote:

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The managing director is apparently making the decision,

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Well there ya have it .....

 

The ones that are the least informed usually make all the critical decesions... amazing.....

 

Lets see 80k seats

 

Well you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.....or swim in this case.....

[ChuckM]

Yep, all the wrong people making the decisions.. doncha just love it?

 

1st CAM ackage I worked with was Gibbs. We went through maybe 10 demos and my personal choice was Mastercam (I was to be "Lead programmer") but I was vetoed by the head of our engineering department. A guy who'd never written a single line of NC code, lol.

 

Gibbs is not a bad CAM package. I like it alot better than some others that's for sure, but one thing that will irritate you real quick is it's rendering engine. Try a rotation and she starts all over just like Mike said. And forget about gauging surface finish from the render... doesn't matter if you have .00001 cusp height it still looks like hammered dog doodoo in tight.

 

No real options for lead-ins and lead-outs. Ok, what line length and radius do you want cause that's all you get unless you geometry it in. No "smoothing" at the ends of surface cuts. Little stupid stuff that will drive you crazy til you figure it out like..... say you rough a pocket with a 1" x .125R bullnose end mill, then you want that tool to "start" .050 above that floor surface for a finish cut. You'll get a big surprise when it cuts your vertical walls. It's now cutting into them .125!

No biggie if you know to start more than the radius above that finish floor. .126 or better yields a good toolpath, lol. Now that one had me scratching my head for a while 1st time 'round.

 

No tool library as mentioned above but you can save "processes" that you use all the time easily enough.

 

Overall it's a good CAM package. It's intuitive and easy to create parts with but at the same time it lacks options and for us control freak programmers that can be frustrating.

 

MC is by far the more powerful software, especially when it comes to surface cutting. I'd go with MC and be done with it... it's up to any task you can throw at it. Let your experience be a limiter (you can work that part out), not your software.

 

Good luck.

 

-Chuck

[Rekd™]

quote:

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I have not drawn with it but most ex-Gibbs users (new Mastercam users) will tell you it's hard to draw with compared to Mastercam.

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Those ex-Gibbs users that don't like the geometry creation are likely the ones, (which is also the majority of Gibbs users from what I've read), have not taken the couple hours necessary to learn the basics of the Geometry Expert.

 

Stop me if you've heard this:

 

The Geometry Expert is just that, an expert at creating quick geometry.

 

I've never seen anything like it, nor anything that lets you create shapes that fast and easy, as well as loading a previously created shape and making changes to it without having to re-chain everything. (Short of 'opened' chains)

 

In a word, it blows Mastercam's 2d geometry creation right out of the water. Period. End of story. (Luckily, like I said, most people don't know how to use it, so that's prolly a good thing.)

 

Also, the ability to create multiple processes for the same geometry is awsome. Drag your spot drill, drill, reamer, tap, c'sink and c'bore: set the param's, select the geometry, and everything is done at once.

 

Gibbs is great for beginners and for those that don't want control. The toolpaths are weak and there is little variety for pocketing options.

 

With the right programmer, it can do much of what you need, but not like MC.

 

More on the Geometry Expert later...

 

[ 12-15-2004, 10:44 PM: Message edited by: Rekd ]

[Harryman]

We tried Gibbs for the Integrex and ended up returning it and going with MC. At first look it seemed cheaper than MC, because we didn't get solids or surfacing with Gibbs. Mastercam, for the Integrex, required Mill level 3 and it was more $ than stripped Gibbs. When it became apparent that Gibbs' Integrex post proccessor was less developed than I had hoped and they started talking upcharging, I re-evaluated the whole package including solids and surfacing, and MC won on price as well as power. For multiaxis work (we design with Solidworks) solids is very well worth having.

 

MC support comprised of, Prototek Engineering, In-House (Dave Thomson post), and Forum, is way THE GREATEST.

[Thad]

quote:

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say you rough a pocket with a 1" x .125R bullnose end mill, then you want that tool to "start" .050 above that floor surface for a finish cut. You'll get a big surprise when it cuts your vertical walls. It's now cutting into them .125!

No biggie if you know to start more than the radius above that finish floor. .126 or better yields a good toolpath, lol

---

Chuck,

 

That's the "feature" that allows you to cut a pocket to the correct size when the pocket is shallower than your tool corner radius. Unfortunately, we found that out the hard way (as you described above).

 

 

Rekd,

 

I never got the hang of the Geometry Expert because I lost patience with it quickly. I had very little trouble using the "free form" geometry creation tools, so it wasn't a big deal. It was sweet to be able to edit an existing chain. I forgot about that!

 

Thad

[Rekd™]

Thad,

 

It took me a while to get fluent with it. I sort of gave up on it for a while too, but when I realized you could use fast, easy keystrokes to create lines (even at angles), arcs, chamfers, fillets etc, all connected and trimmed nicely, I was hooked.

 

I've been trying to comprehend what kind of logic would be needed to create something like that to run in MC. It's possible via access to the geometry database, but it might be out of meh league...

[Thad]

quote:

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It's possible via access to the geometry database, but it might be out of meh league...

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Well, when you get it figured out, let me know. I'll be available for beta testing.

 

Thad

[robk]

quote:

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Also, the ability to create multiple processes for the same geometry is awsome. Drag your spot drill, drill, reamer, tap, c'sink and c'bore: set the param's, select the geometry, and everything is done at once.

---

Mastercam used to have something very similar up to Version 6. That option was called Moldbase. It was very nice for simple drilling and pocketing. Not many people knew about it, so after selling about a dozen or so they stopped offering it. It had it's own operation library way back than and also a very limited WCS (Top & Bottom). You were also able to sort the operations a lot better.

[Mick]

Well, these replies have been very informative. Thanks to everyone for contributing. The biggest opponent to Mastercam down here is Gibbs, so its good to know what I'm up against.

As I said, I think the decision had been made already, prior to my demo, and I think they asked for me to demo out of courtesy.

Thanks again for everyones response, proving once again how good the support is for Mastercam!

BTW, Merry Xmas to all!

[ChuckM]

Good luck with your pursuit Mick. Choosing a CAM package can be a daunting task but you're right... if you ever got stumped, you couldn't hope to find a better answe than you'll get right here on this forum. Post your problem-file up, let everyone take a look-see and get a quick answer to your questions. What more could you ask for.

 

I understand that Gibbs finally got around to building a forum. It was a hot topic of discussion here a couple of years ago at the annual users meeting. Now if they could just fix the software for more than one "undo".

 

One other slick feature Gibbs had that I never really got around to setting up was its "hole wizard". You could set up multiple parameters and equations that would automatically create tools per given hole "type". Say you needed to make 20 5/16-24 tapped holes... it'd pull a center drill, letter "I" drill and a chamfer tool to create all the holes based on specifications you set up for that particular type of operation.

Pretty slick, but like I said... I just never got around to using it as it was a rather dedicated effort in setting all the parameters and I never devoted the time.

 

Have a good x-mas.

 

-Chuck