Switching to Pro E

[tsewyek]

It's a sad day here in Tampa, our company is moving full speed ahead into Pro E, as a matter of fact I'm about half way thru a 40 hr. course on learning how to use the modeler. 40 hrs? Don't get me wrong, I'm always looking to learn something new, but I also feel that if it isn't broke don't fix it, Mastercam had been serving us very well for quite a while! Oh well, at least it looks good on the resume. Have a Great Day All!!

[edmBosto]

Are you going to use proE for creating toolpaths?

[Guest]

Walt,

 

Companies do not always think through these decisions. Some salesman comes in does a wham bam presentation and now everyone is gung-ho to do the same. Then reality slaps them right back in the face and they realize they put the horse waaaay before the cart.

 

Where I work, they did this with NX. Full speed ahead, the cost of the software was one thing, they didn't anticipate the cost of maintenance, training, learning curve and downtime.

 

It took 2 years but they reversed course.

 

So just because a company makes a change, does not always mean thats the final word.

[Chad 73]

Been there walt. Pro-e didnt work out that well for us, we also tried Cimatron for a while which I thought was pretty complex but had alot of potential for doing some very complicated work. Then a new manager came in that only new mastercam so the sim somehow disapeared. Now i'm back to mastercam.

[camgeneration]

I was at the imts in Chicago 4 years ago and had some extra time, so I sat around the software booths just to see a little about the other programs (was not looking to switch, just curious). Over half of the people sitting around were just purchasing agents for the companies-no experience with programming. a good salesmen could make them think they would double production just by switching to their program. Corporate stupidity shoots itself in the foot.

[Jedi Lone Star X]

Pro-Manufacture is a powerful tool, but it can be overaccessive at times, and depending on your companies applications. i agree with what John Paris had stated. we were in the same situation about 5 months ago. this company i am at is a new shop, therefore we had demos from the big cam companies, Gibbs, edgecam, Unix, Surfcam, etc. we didnt need the MX demo for the fact i have been using it for years. so in turn, Edgecam gave a BAD xxxx demo. it even "WOWED" myself. so needless to say, we went with the new release of edgecam.

 

working with our mastercam reseller for quite some time here in Texas, one thing came evident after a month of having edgecam. their tech support was nothing compared to MX. so in turn, that was their downfall. we wound up canceling our PO and went with MX. needless to say, all is fine and dandy on the home front here.

 

i like your optimism about the Pro-E experinece looking good on your resume. give it a chance. but dont expect the same results. at the end of the day, all that matters is that they "SELL U & CONFIGURE FOR U THE SOFTWARE THEY DEMOED" for u. make sense? good luck!

 

-R.

[Leif Johnson from MICO Inc]

I think Pro/E is an excellent modelingtool. I only use it for modeling, but our model shop also uses Pro/NC. 40 hours is about right for training in my opinion. We have guys for for 1 or 2 day training and barely know the basics. I would spend as much time training as possible so long as it is being productive.

[edmBosto]

PRo E! powerful tool!

In my opinion for everyone on the floor to use it I say your company will loose money as production will go down. In our shop we have some bright guys altering dies to what they need in pro e and all the files change with updates.

Mastercam is the way to go with toolpaths though.

[tsewyek]

Seems pretty powerful, but I Love using MC, only have tomorrow left in training, and yes we are going to use it for toolpaths.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Seems like all the high end modelers are good and their Mfg. Pkg. was more or less an afterthought. Mfg. support for the high end stuff is nonexistant at best.

 

JM2C

[Müřlıń®]

Lucky for you they sent you for training....

 

 

My boss just dumped me on a seat of Wildfire and said hurry up and get this job done and use Proe....

 

At first I hated it(kinda like X)but then I got used to the parametric modeler and the way it worked. Then started using surfacing techs that I used in Mastercam all those years and blew past all the guys that were already using it for 10 years.

 

I do most of the 3-d engineering and modeling for everyone now in Proe.

 

But when it comes to toolpaths, it is a mistake to use Proe Manufacturing.

 

I can run circles around these guys using Mastercam.

 

Mastercam will model anything there is to model, but Proe, once you get use to it, is slightly better, but not by much.

 

Alot of times I will do stuff in Mastercam and translate it out to Proe because it is faster and easier.

 

What sells everyone on Proe is that when you update a file it automaticly updates all the files, prints ect.

 

 

But in the real world, regeneration of edited files doen not work with one click of the mouse like it did for the salesman and his presentation....

[crazy^millman]

Well as a person who just went down this route all I can say is I hope your company has deep pockets and lot and lots of time. People bitch about Mastecam's Maintainence cost and then what a complex post cost. Well all I can say is peanuts compared to what PTC wants for posts for simple machines. I spent 6 weeks of training and after opening this and that can of dead and smelly worms I thought to myself wow a $12 billion a year company and why do they make it so damn hard. I could have done in 4 to 5 days what I spent that time doing with Pro-E to make parts. I was quoted $40,000 to set up some standard tool libaries and productive tools as well as gets some 4 axis hort posts going. Grated this is all free from Mastercam, but would cost that for this from PTC.

 

It is a kick arse modeling software, great for assmeblies, sections views, parts lists and the assorted but as a manufacturing software it falls very short in WF2 now it was my understanding alot of things were being worked out in WF3. I also had to learn G-post software and refresh my APT source to get good posted code. Again nice thing there in just like I-CAM for those that know it.

 

It is not really in my opinion a matter of don't fix it if it is not borken it is a mtter of some dumbass making a decision that grealty effect the companies P/L without knowing why or what they have done and what will happen as the cause of that action.

 

Good luck but 140 hours will be tyour best bet since I am problay sure noone bought posts to use on your equipment.

 

out

[gavetta]

Pro-e is powerful stuff. I've been using it off and on since ver 16. The Pro-NC has come a long way from where it use to be but me....well, I'm still using Mastercam...and my bosses have no problem with that. I've used Pro-NC here and I've found (given the nature of what we do) I can get it done quicker with Mastercam. Granted, there are situations where Pro would do just as well but then again there are situations where it won't. If your doing family type, parametric parts, where all you do is change a few dimensions and regen and re-post, it's great. Just my .02

I'll stick with MC as long as I can.

[Carl Anderson]

I was first introduced to Pro-Mfg with ver 10 and have been using it steadily since ver 18. Very steep learning curve compared to MC, especially since wildfire was released. PTC says you're proficient when you have 10k hours experience.

[Keith Graydon]

i like Pro/E, a lot.

I like MasterCam a lot.

 

just another tool in the box.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

10k Hours of Experience = 5 years @ 40 hours/wk w/ 2 wks vac ea. year.

 

OMG!!!!

 

And people find that acceptable???

 

Thank you sir may I have another!

Thank you sir may I have another!

Thank you sir may I have another!

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

CATIA's CAD learning curve is acceptable. Probably about the same as Mastercam, maybe a bit more to get a handle on the constraints process/rules, but I found it easy enough to learn and not overly cumbersome. Just don;t get me started on the CAM...