Cimco HSM

[Jimmy Wakeford from Barefoot CNC]

How many of you are currently using Cimco's High Speed Machining? I have always thought it to be a very valuable tool for shops that have to remove large volumes of material during roughing ops. I have also found that I can run higher feedrates on finish ops on the machine due to some sort of voodoo math thing HSM does with the toolpaths.

 

What experiences have you guys had with it? I am going to be doing more high speed seminars and looking for some real shop examples. My current pitch is "The only thing better than makin' chips is to make'em faster."

[Scott Sizemore]

We have two seats of it here. I honestly don't know how we got by with out it. It isn't only the roughing that make's it work so well, it's the way it enters the steel, the way it remachine's, the way it roll's thru corner's, etc. and most of these things happen automatically without having to define them. If you are cutting hardened steel with MC you have to have this. If you got the flyer on the last release then you have had a preview of the new roughing routine. That is like nothing I have ever seen before.

[PE @ IHS]

Jimmy, I really like CIMCO HSM. The following issues need to be resolved in it, but otherwise it is excellent.

 

(p.s.) I have not played with it in a couple of months, so these issues may have been fixed already

 

1.) there are no check surfaces that you can select

 

2.) no option for "plunge outside containment boundary"

 

3.) processing speed on scallop toolpath is slow

 

4.) Overly complicated "top of stock" definition. It is not easy to figure out how to enter the top of the material without taking a lot of air cuts first.

 

5.) some of the terms used are confusing in English (i.e. "overthickness"...perhaps a bit of time needs to be spent in using more recognizable words for the North American market)

 

With that said, CIMCO HSM provides some effective and efficient toolpaths (and nice brochures too!) I hope that it will continue into X and will use more graphics next to the parameters to help new users figure out the many available settings.

 

 

Peter

[ak762]

Sometimes I doubt what better for good result and save money.

Buy fresh Maintenance with FZT or Cimco HSM.

Anybody test Cimco HSM only with Mastercam without Maintenance?

[crazy^millman]

Well for the Money of HSM and us with 5 Seats think I will stick with Matainence. I relaize these guys put alot into developing this but that price has to come done a whole bunch.

[ak762]

Anybody can light at :

 

Is C-hook Cimco HSM mathematics kernel independent from Mcam?

I mean when I buy Maintenance I hope to enhancement and fix some bugs which was before in Mcam

But if I use Cimco HSM is it right that I will get good result independent from Mcam

Other words both Mcam and Cimco HSM have independent own bugs

and I don't need buy Maintenance for enhancement with Cimco HSM

[Scott Sizemore]

quote:

---

Well for the Money of HSM and us with 5 Seats think I will stick with Matainence

---

I don't want to seem out of line but, I find the price to be reasonable for what the product is. We save so much time in cruching numbers and remachining that I geuss that the cost didn't really seem that bad. I beleve a seat of mill level 3 with HSM is one of the most complete cam packages out there for a great price.

[Don S at Barefoot CNC South]

Jimmy,

I have just started playing with Cimco HSM. I will keep you posted.

[Jimmy Wakeford from Barefoot CNC]

Don

 

Sounds good.

[Christian Raebild]

I would like to answer Peter Eigler's points.

 

1. No check surfaces.

 

While check surfaces would of course be a nice thing to have, we are using a different approach, machining on a STL model. The same results as if using check surfaces can nearly always be obtained by using containment boundaries and/or slope range limits.

 

We are planning to implement check surfaces, but we have considered other things, such as the adaptive roughing, more important to implement.

 

2. No option for "plunge outside boundary".

 

The pocket strategy is optimized for machining cavitites, where plunging outside the boundary does not make sense. Because of the helix/ramp entry moves, and the very smooth entry and exit moves in all areas, most still consider the pocket strategy the strongest roughing strategy available.

 

The new adaptive roughing toolpath (soon to be released) is optimized for both cores and cavities, and it enters outside the stock whenever possible.

 

3. Processing speed on scallop.

 

It may be possible to reduce the processing time on scallop. Part of the reason why the processing time "seems" longer is the way the tolerance is defined in CIMCO HSM. By default, 50% of the tolerance value is used to define a STL model of the surfaces/solids, and the other 50% are then used to calculate the toolpath relative to that STL model.

 

The processing time for a scallop toolpath can often be improved by changing that ratio on the geometry tab (lowering the percentage used for the STL, thus increasing the tolerance for the toolpath relative to the STL). Working with the settings here should give you a noticeable improvement.

 

4. Overly complicated "Top of stock" definition.

 

We would disagree that our current method of defining the top of stock is complicated. The top of stock is the highest point on the selected surfaces/solids, or the minimum depth under cutting depths if that is used. By right clicking in the minimum depth field, a menu is given where the minimum depth can be selected from the geometry. While the method used to define the top of stock is slightly different in Mastercam and in CIMCO HSM for Mastercam, I do not see one method as superior to the other. However, there is always room for improvement with any process/feature.

 

5. Confusing terms.

 

While we have of course tried to use as recognizable words as possible (and use the same terms as in Mastercam when possible), some concepts are difficult to define in a single word (or a few words), and I agree that overthickness is one of them. We welcome any and all suggestions on how we could "re-term" some of these processes.

 

We take everyone's comments and suggestions seriously and it is our goal to keep CIMCO HSM for Mastercam and our other products a customer driven applications. So we welcome any ideas or suggestions on how we can improve the product. At this point we believe we have a very strong product that customers can immediately benefit significantly from. We believe Mastercam with CIMCO HSM for Mastercam is capable of matching and often outperforming any other surface machining product on the market.

[ak762]

here at last come person from Cimco.

Christian, could you clarify for me as for Peter Eigler

worth to buy new maintenance for Mcam with Cimco HSM or Cimco HSM math. independent from core Mastercam

Did you test it? and what results

[PE @ IHS]

Christian, thanks for the clarification. I am certainly no expert on Cimco HSM, so I appreciate your input. Let me know if I can be of assistance with the terminology used.

 

ak762, you probably won't get a straight answer on your question from anyone due to the fact that there are 2 different companies involved in trying to solicit your money.

 

You can get a trial version of both the Mastercam maintenance release (make sure to install it on a separate computer), and you can also get a trial version of CIMCO HSM. As far as I can see, they are independent of each other (different math). The tutorial files and documentation that comes with HSM will allow you to get a good understanding of the product. They are very clear, well illustrated and logical.

[John T.]

Cimco HSM has greatly improved the finishes in our aluminum molds. The only downsides I've encountered so far is that processing time takes a good bit longer, and that it can get trick drawing boundary lines sometimes (no check surfaces).

 

John

[ak762]

quote:

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the fact that there are 2 different companies involved in trying to solicit your money

---

I expect it situation when asked

With chance I'll repeat this question in private conversation

[Madhu]

We have used Cimco HSM for many jobs, and their is a 30% reduction in Machining time during rough machining, because of less retraction.

 

Madhu

[Scott Sizemore]

quote:

---

Cimco HSM has greatly improved the finishes in our aluminum molds. The only downsides I've encountered so far is that processing time takes a good bit longer, and that it can get trick drawing boundary lines sometimes (no check surfaces).

---

What kind of hardware are you using? Slower calculating should be the last thing you would see. I didn't see any body mention it but, HSM does support dual proscessing. Works really well with HyperThreading.

[John T.]

I really don't know offhand what our PC power is (we have several seats). Some are better than others, but most are over a year old, closer to 2 years. almost antiques. Yesterday, I was doing a parallell job with lots of 3D, took about 15 minutes to process that segment.

 

John

[t smith]

We have three seats and it is faster at the machine and much better finishes but we only mahine al. We don't see any slower calculating times it is almost always faster.

[Scott Sizemore]

John, you realy need to talk to your boss about getting you a nice intel proscessor with hyper-threading. You won't regret it.

[kccadcam]

*******Bump*******

 

Has anybody tried to play the demo videos

from Cimco's site??

 

http://www.cimco-hsm.com/download/Adaptive...ing_demo_hq.wmv

 

I've tried different versions of Media player,

and about 5 other players and nothing will play....

[Chris Rizzo]

Sorry Kevin, it crashes my browser entirely. I don't see any video's at the cimco home site either.

 

http://www.cimco-software.com/index.php

[Anthony CIMCO]

Update on the HSM Video(s).

 

At the risk of drawing fire from my own camp... the videos are not showing up properly on my browser(s) either. It initially thought the problem was just with my PC but after reading the most recent posts I jumped on another PC but no luck there either. Three PCs later I figured it was definitely the file/formatting.

 

To view the file I had to right-click/save to desktop and then launch the file. I'll get up with our guys and try to get this sorted out.

[Christian Raebild]

We have looked at the matter, and the conclusion we have reached is, that the problem appears to be with Windows XP.

 

On a PC with Windows XP, the files look bad, both when viewed streaming in IE and when downloaded to harddisk and played from there.

 

On a PC with Windows 2000, the files look OK, both when viewed streaming in IE and when downloaded to harddisk and played from there.

 

We will of course investiate the problem further, and try to come up with a solution.

[Christian Raebild]

We have investigated the problem further, and we have found the cause of the problem.

 

The two videos about the Adaptive strategy are recorded using the Microsoft Windows Media Video 9 codec. That codec is supported by Windows Media Player 9 for Windows 2000, so we did not realize that that could cause problems.

 

However, as can be seen here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291948 that codec is not supported by Windows Media Player for Windows XP.

 

We will of course convert the videos to a supported codec as soon as possible.

[kccadcam]

Here's the main HSM site CMR.....

http://www.cimco-hsm.com/

 

Thanks for looking into this Christian.

Let us know when they have been converted.

(ever played with DivX??)