Future Master Cam Capabilities

[dos conejo]

When we began investigating Mastercam, we were assured that M/C would soon have the ability to accurately simulate our ZL200SMC Mori-Seiki mill/turn machine.

 

This machine has a front and rear chuck and a lower and upper turret with the ability to machine on both ends with either turret. The machine also allows for simultaneous operations (sometimes called pinch turning), where you can rough and finish at the same time on the OD, or turn and bore at the same time. Obviously, this opens the possibility for some huge crashes. I have used Virtual Gibbs for many years and they already have this capability. V/G displays the tools, turrets, chucks, etc. and allows you to graphically demonstrate that no collisions are going to occur. Because of some other reasons, we decided not to upgrade V/G to program our lathe and purchase Mastercam X instead. We are still trying to institute Mastercam, so I am a rookie at the software. The reseller tells me that none of this is supported by Mastercam (he says they thought it would be in X, but now is postponed until some future date).

 

We are currently looking at a Star or Citizen swiss machine, and both vendors are pushing other programming software, both claiming that Mastercam will not program these machines effectively.

 

Question 1 - Anybody know when Mastercam intends to upgrade their multi axes mill/turn capabilities? Is this the lights out manufacturing that was 2 years away from happening in 1975 and is still two years from happening, or something that will actually happen in the foreseeable future?

 

Question 2 - Anyone have an opinion on the captive programming software for the Star or Citizen machines versus Mastercam (other than the salesman trying to pinch an extra 10 grand out of me)? Is anyone using Mastercam to program their cnc swiss machines?

[Watcher]

I would highly recommend you for millturn aplications Esprit CAM Software. In Esprit, Swiss and Millturn machines up to 22 axes are programmable, including machine simulation and all the stuffs. I saw Esprit at EMO Hannover, in 2005, and I was impressed. Is great for MillTurn market. For Mill, is good as well, depending of the type of work you do. During the quoting processes of a CAM system here, we took a look on Esprit to programming ours DMU70Evo, and IMO, is not so good for 5 axis Milling. Mastercam is a better choice from 2 up to 5 axis in milling.

But CATIA has won. (Political choice )

CNC software is developing a program called MATSS, that will give to MC these abilities. But (almost ) no one here knows where is supposed to be ready.

 

Link 1

 

Link 2 - Interesting

 

Link 3

 

 

HTH

 

[ 04-11-2006, 01:47 PM: Message edited by: Watcher ]

[Henk]

Do a search for 'Matts', and you wil find a lot of threads (information and frustration)

[Watcher]

Antother Interesting link to discuss about Esprit.

[mcpgmr]

I hear Part Maker software is the shiznit when it comes to this type of programming.

[Watcher]

And for sure, Partmaker it´s less expensive than Esprit.

[Nick_AFRL]

I hope in the future mastercam will be able to make me coffee, and change the channel on my tv! that would be awesome

 

Thanks

[Watcher]

quote:

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That would be awesome

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Caputino and cookies would be a good add-on, wouldn´t?

 

[ 04-11-2006, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: Watcher ]

[Storkman]

I think Pete and all the others are out to rule the world. Mastercam is gradually taking away our ability to think for ourselves. By the time X3 gets here we will be nothing more than drooling idiots. Mayday is already there, so I can see the effect it has.

[mayday]

quote:

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Mayday is already there, so I can see the effect it has.

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[Müřlıń®]

quote:

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Mayday is already there

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ROFL!!!

 

 

Nice come back Mayday

[Charlie Pierson]

dos conejos,

We have used Mastercam since V4.?? (Now X)

 

We program ( or have programmed ):

Citizen & Nomura Swiss Lathes

Hardinge, Wasino, W/S lathes

Okuma twin turret 4 axis ,

Cincinnati twin turret 4 axis w/ tailstock and powered tooling lathes

Tsugami HMC's

Kitamura, Drillmate, Mazak, Traub, Monarch VMC's

Mazak & Trumpf Lasers

Creep Feed grinders

Bostomatic Verticals,

 

etc, etc

 

All it took was post processor modifications, which IMHO is the real beauty of Mastercam.

We just recently had to modify a post to output hpgl for a marking laser.

 

As far as verification graphics go, I hear Vericut is a good graphical verification program.

So perhaps both would suit you.

 

Mcam is heading in the direction of first-class verification as witnessed by the inclusion of machine & control defs etc. I'm quite confident that we'll see some of the exellent graphical verification tools in Mcam soon.

 

Ask other programming systems if their posts are user - customizable. Chances are that they are not or at best , severely limited. I personally don't like the idea of having 'THEM' write posts that spit out code not to my liking at 500-2k a pop.

 

IMHO, Mcam is more than worth the money when compared to any programming system out there.

Ease of use, reliability, and flexibility, flexibility, flexibility.

 

my $.02

 

cp

[ToolMan184]

Just wait until you try to get support from ESPIRIT.

[MCFELIX]

i saw a part maker demo, alot people used for swiss machine

 

 

nice sotfware this will reduce u manual editing and doing automate process synchronization

 

 

here is the link www.partmaker.com

[Guest]

Hello everyone

 

CNC software is working on a product named "Mastercam Mutli tasking". It is for the programming of Multi task machine tools as well as swiss type. It will have simulation, Synchronization and collision detection capabilties that work in conjunction with the current Machine and Control definition functionality in Mastercam X. It is not named matss as was coined in the past. It is real, it does exists, and it will be delivered in the not so distant future. A goal for this product is to show it in a Beta form at IMTS...yes 2006

 

Thanks for using Mastercam

 

Matt

[dos conejo]

Thanks for all your input. I will investigate the two recommended softwares. Unfortunately, my need is fairly immediate (I can't/don't want to wait until 2007 for a solution). Programming our Mori manually is killing our response and program prove out/setup time. If we add a swiss turn machine I'll have to clone myself and the operators. After seeing the Simpson's episode last night where thousands of Homers are created, that's a last ditch kind of plan.