download software

[Skir]

We are currently using Griffo Bros. software to download programs to our Mazaks. Does anyone use Cimco? How does it work? We need something easier to use and cheap!

[Dan Kintzel]

We use Cimco entirely here at our facility without any glitches thus far. I'm pretty happy with it.

[Brad St.]

Inside of the your current version of cam should be cimco edit lite. (C:Mcam9CommonEditorsCeditcimcoedit.exe)It's free (with your Mastercam purchase) and it allows you to run two machines from one pc at a time. You can also get it off the internet I believe from their site if you don't have cam. We are currently using it to run two of our older machines, a Mitsubishi mill and a Mori.

 

Works great!

 

HTH

[kkominiarek]

We use Cimco DNCmax5 w/NCbase...it's a full DNC system.

 

We just had it installed about a month ago. We have 16 machines and 4 dataservers we send/rec programs to.

 

Very easy to use, lots of features for program storage, editing, creating and viewing.

 

hth

[Skir]

I have two programmers, they send programs to a remote computer in the shop. I only have two seats of MasterCam. I can't open Cimco editor without a Hasp on our remote computer. How can I get around this?

[bpa123]

your reseller can give you a cimco disk(if you dont have one)load it on the computer on the floorand try the 30 days for free and see how you like it.

[mcpgmr]

Skir, Are you talking Mazatrol or EIA. I bought the Griffo Bros software for saving the Mazatrol files in their native format from the machine to a Greco box but used a laptop with a shareware comm program to go into the machine with EIA programs. Yoe can even use windows Hyper Terminal to communicate with rs-232 if you want.

[Skir]

Yes, we use BOTH EIA and Mazatrol programs. I am thinking of upgrading to griffo. Bros. latest and greatest. a bit pricey, but it allows me to edit both programs and even write programs in mazatrol.

[mcpgmr]

I just remembered what I used. It was Procom Plus on a laptop to put the EIA programs in to the Mazaks. At my current job I'm using a Palm Pilot and it works great. No DNC here. I thought Griffo Bros was pricey too. I din't have the ability to program Mazatrol with it just View and manage the files. Most of the Mazaks at that place were lathes and the guys programmed them at the machine. Only problem was nothing got saved. That's why I bought the Greco Box and Camlink by Griffo. I met with a lot of resistance the first time I went out to the shop to pull programs out of the machines. After a while the guys started depending on me so they didn't have to rewrite programs and make mistakes on the parts they were making for years.

[Psychomill]

Skir, any communication software can download Mazatrol and EIA. Griffo has the advantage in that you can download and program 'as it appears' in the control.

 

You should also check out Geopath (Solutionware) called Mazacam. I haven't checked it out, but by the looks of it and from talking to some people who use it, they prefer it over Griffo Bros. The cool thing about Mazacam is that it also has G-code output. So you could save a program in Mazatrol, then have it convert it to G-code so you can could run the program in a Haas, Makino, Okuma or whatever you have. You don't have to reprogram it!

 

You can also program Mazatrol in 'G-code'. It's a little tricky but can be done. If you have a programming manual, look in the back section (10 I think) and it describes the 3-digit G code and its functions. I never programmed one top to bottom, but I did alot of editing this way. Like anything else, you get used to it.