'Wants' for Version 10

[kathy]

James - I agree with you answer about the solution of the problem, and I have always felt that I am contributing to the solution. Do you really feel that you need to say " Would you like a little cheese to go with that whinnnnneee??"

 

I will be the first to state that I am pushing Mastercam to well outside of the scope of what it was designed for. IMHO, (and this is more than welcome to mature, healthy debate) Mastercam is designed for onesies, twosies - a one part at a time system. There just isn't the forethought in the software mechanics to integrating design process to manufacturing, or streamlining the integration process.

 

Yes - Mastercam is a great machining package. Import or create A part, and machine it, period. Yes, you can model parts as well as Autocad - so what... What becomes cumbersome is capturing the knowledge that is embedded in the design package. I have to redo all that information again into Mastercam, doubling my time. To re-import the latest design change, I have to spend a lot of time and effort to 'prep' the merging file. I'm sorry James, but ask any Designer / Engineer who has considerable seat time on a sophisticated CAD system (UG, Ideas, Catia) - the software interface mechanics of Mastercam is very awkward and limited.

 

The things that I have suggested are meant to improve Mastercam. If the developers are not interested in improving Mastercam in that direction, so be it. However, if our powers to be were to bless me with UG (or Catia) to do my job, why should I design in UG and machine in Mastercam? I want to keep the integrity of the design to manufacturing.

 

I guess it’s all in where you need to go.

 

Kathy

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

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I will be the first to state that I am pushing Mastercam to well outside of the scope of what it was designed for. IMHO, (and this is more than welcome to mature, healthy debate) Mastercam is designed for onesies, twosies - a one part at a time system. There just isn't the forethought in the software mechanics to integrating design process to manufacturing, or streamlining the integration process.

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I am doing the same. I use Mastercam for assembly modeling among other things. It's so fun though.

 

quote:

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I'm sorry James, but ask any Designer / Engineer who has considerable seat time on a sophisticated CAD system (UG, Ideas, Catia) - the software interface mechanics of Mastercam is very awkward and limited.

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Agreed. Design and manufacture are two completely different disciplines and not being a designer I can't fully appreciate what those packeges have to offer in that arena.

 

quote:

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However, if our powers to be were to bless me with UG (or Catia) to do my job, why should I design in UG and machine in Mastercam? I want to keep the integrity of the design to manufacturing.

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... because you want to be productive and you don't have years to become proficient (which is what UG and CATIA take).

 

I don't see MC going the CAE/PLM/PDM route. It's costly, it takes away from their core mission and they have pretty healthy relationships with CAD companies which is good for us as a whole.

 

You have totally valid points, but then again I'm sure you don't need any of our input to determine that for yourself.

 

JM2C

[kathy]

James,

 

I guess it's just the frustration of once again having to merge in the new design (10 plus layers) into the existing Mastercam file, and getting everything set just right with everyone breathing down my neck. And than on another job, converting a series of Mastercam files back into Autocad so the ME can use the data for his documentation.

 

All in a day's work - it's Friday night after 4:00 so it's weekend time. Have a good one yourself!

 

Would you share with me some of your tactics and strategies for working with Mastercam assemblies?? That is ambitious!! (I always like to learn new things!!)

 

Kathy

 

PS: I have over 5 years seat time designing in UG. I know that makes me prejudiced.

[Michael Reynolds]

I have to ring in here. I agree with both of you that you have to be productive, BUT integration of systems would be NICE. As I've stated before, I use both Mcam and UG, and all arguments to date regarding both are valid. I'd much rather design in UG, but program in Mcam.

 

Having said that, we have UG V19 (NX) now, but I haven't played with it at all. But since SDRC was gobbled up by EDS, I'm very curious to see what the cam side of UG is now.

 

But still, MasterCam is WAY easier to learn and use on the design side as well as the cam side.

 

JMHO,

 

Mike R.

[Charles Davis]

Verify should make the Windows "crashing" sound when it detects a collision.

[Jack Mitchell]

Kathy, Kathy, Kath.

 

Wow, 128 posts for the wants for version ten (Surely this is the record for post activity within our forum).

 

I realize that in our demands for Cnc Software must be almost insurmountable – we truly are a hungry breed.

 

I also know and appreciate that your initial thread can sometimes wander off topic, so to speak.

 

Let’s give Cnc software some hardcore feedback, for they are watching and listening in, on all of our wants and needs; no offense but UG, Catia, & ProE have little to do with the next version of Mastercam.

 

Could it be that were all being a little selfish with our requests?

 

If this is the case then I’m going to be selfish as well.- Cnc Software will hopefully change the default of Mastercam to inched per rev (G95) instead of inches per minute (G94) or at least give the option at the software install.

 

I really don’t want to tell my amazing Fish Story, but alas, I might not really have a choice in the matter.

 

Regards, Jack

[Michael Reynolds]

Hi Jack!

 

Just curious here. Outside of a few circumstances, why would you use IPR instead of IPM if you're programming for a mill?

 

Thanks!

 

Mike R.

[Jack Mitchell]

Michael,

 

I cannot recall the thread, but I do recall one of our Australian friends that said something like Crickey-Jack you are not Multax or something to that nature.

 

Here it is.

 

I need to better educate myself with feeds, speeds, and depth of cuts (I use G95 inches per rev), I can also override my spindle speed and the feed rate will always travel with it and maintain optimum cutting conditions.

 

I need to better educate myself with feeds, speeds, and depth of cuts (I use G94 inches per minute), I must override BOTH potentiometers since the feed & speed are independent, I must also multiply my chipload per tooth (or total chipload) by the actual programmed rpm – this in itself is an added, undesirable feature (can’t recall but somebody came back at me with the fact that they had three or four calculators around just to overcome the multiplication thing.) If you wish to restart a programmed G84 threading cycle – this will also synchronize as well, - not the case with G94 using an “ATCH” automatic tension & compression holder) tap holder when running in inches per minute – if there is a synch then count yourself lucky OR the compression simply resists until the path of least resistance and cuts in - stick the tap in the drill chuck with G95, for it matters not.

 

G94 is an arcachic method of programming dating back waterwheels in a stream – this was used when power takeoffs were first conceived yet limited to one constant motor rpm and gear trains to arrive at feedrate control – my guess is the 1940s, but who knows?

 

Oddly enough, you are now faced with a Mazatrol M2 control – if you attack learning the conversational end of things, you of all people will be begging for the same - such as I.

We conversational junkies can function in any of the 14 recognized Mazatrol programming languages without skipping a beat - this is truly within our nature and abilities, this is not diredted at the 20~30 programmining experts, but rather the 10K~20K guys that have been around for a little longer.

 

One other note: The M2 came with four different manuals (all pre-punched in separate dark blue binders), this would lead to an easy solution to copy the manuals - please buy them, for they are necessary, especially for the parameter & error listings, $1000.00 is scatch when you consider the gain.

The M2 verB was the alleged refinement for a more affordable control (monochrome as opposed to a color crt –Wow); I have sort of been banging around Mazatrol “1981” long before Mastercam became the industry standard – I really don’t recall if the M2 could even take an Eia/Iso program, perhaps the “B” version does – M32 does, it’s in my garage, happy & content with either programming solution.

 

The inherant problems with broken tool grippers comes from inserting the tool backwards; the dead key (dimpled key) must face the magazine otherwise the pressurer causes the casting to break. I have three broken now, I have seen 12 of 16 also broken through operator incompetance.

If Makak is charging $400.00 US for these, I will charge $250.00US and punch them out in a weekend - of course, the will be made or "A2" annealed - just to take the beating, and not of cast iron as from Mazak.

 

Sorry for the rant – but you did ask and I 've sort of been around as long as most regarding both Mastercam & Mazatrol.

 

No smartimouth here, just me, Regards, Jack

[Michael Reynolds]

Thanks for the reply Jack!

 

No smart mouth here, either!

 

I haven't used the mazatrol yet, so I'm only used to programming fanuc or fanuc clones. But I see your point!

 

Thanks again,

 

Mike R.

[STEELTHOM62]

Jack,

 

It's nice to know there is someone else that sees the logic in IPR.Mazaks got one right there.Our 2 VQC's have about 3 broken holders each.

 

By the way great post!

[olib]

user defined stock is a must!

i'd like to point to a solid with all my tools and associated specs, and mastercam creates all multiple tool paths from rough, finish, chamfer, drill, ect etc in one operation.

a new tool called polishing head, eliminate all hand polishing haha.

 

keep working on full implementation of NURBS, perhaps ready in time for MC ver 11?

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Olib,

 

quote:

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...keep working on full implementation of NURBS...

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Can you explain this further please?

[Jack Mitchell]

James & Olib,

 

I cannot tell who, in this argument is throwing the bait?

 

Olib is new to the forum, yet, he can serve up an interesting statement – caution stares me down with such statements.

 

James is merely toying with Olib looking for the fast strike or perhaps an easy kill.

 

Olib knows what’s coming – James knows what’s coming back, almost predictably.

 

Please tolerate my analogy for but a moment; for I personally believe an argument as a very positive thing – I don’t believe the bashing & slashing to be hardly worth the effort here.

 

No intent to incite a riot here. No intent to insult or to put anybody down as well.

 

Just a simple analogy after punching out another 10hr Saturday – don’t you just love the dedication of being paid to have the time of your life?

 

Regards, Jack

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

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James is merely toying with Olib looking for the fast strike or perhaps an easy kill.

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No, no, no. It was not until I read one of olib's other posts did I catch on to exactly what he was meaning.

 

To the best of my knowledge and I could be wrong in this, based on conversations I've had with some software engineers over the last year NOBODY is taking the NURBS data DIRECTLY from the surface and translating into NURBS code (for reading on a CNC. It's currently done the same way that arc filtering is done.

 

That's my take.

[questech]

GCODE,

Thank you for the reasonable reply. It seems as if you may be one of the people that may have spent your own 14 thousand dollars for a seat of mastercam. If not I still appreciate an honest opinion.

I also run mastercam in Win 2K with NVIDIA chipset

video cards the video side seems to be pretty stable Thank you.

 

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Quote

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"PS. There are some extremely intelligent and

helpful people on this board. An arrogant and hostile attitude will not get you very far here.

This is not AOL."

Kind of like James had mentioned. The thing that did not surprises me is the fact that a few people think they know my character. With only one response to James I had the return of approximately ten negative replies. Wow! They do seem to be rather intelligent and helpful.

 

You seem to have the only problem solving response.

I was merely trying to weed out some REAL answers from James. Not just sales hype. I am still not sure whether he paid his own money or not.

Besides I feel Mastercam does have quite a bit to offer. I am responsible for the sale of now 8 seats of Mastercam and counting. I have a few friends with mold shops and job shops and we share info on a daily basis. The feeling around here is that there does not seem to be a lot of (advanced user) support after the bill is paid. I will go on to say it is quite different when you personally have to cut the check for 14k. So far the people around me have raised over 100k for the company. (your welcome)!

Well, the least one could do is be honest about some of the problems (there are problems you know) James. I am just asking Mastercam to fix them before they go on. They have a very powerful software and most people would agree that they do not even know how to use what is there now.

 

James,

Thank you for the reply of your history. It does help a little. Still I have to say. Unlike myself you do have quite a bit of time on the forum and make it quite easy to judge. I must say you are a touch on the snobby side for me. Always getting out of the truth somehow. Can you just answer the questions and leave it at that? Its not your job to make people look like fools. I see there are a lot of people with the same view. Well, here goes lets see what you will pick and choose to comment on (rather than all of it). I most likely pick you out because you seem to have a bit of rank amongst the rest of the group.

 

Care for a fish?

[gcode]

questech,

 

One of the major irrititants on this board are

new members who sign up and start whining

that their brand new copy of V9K (crack)

isn't running right. My aplogies for an incorrect

assumption and an overly curt rely

 

As someone who paid for their personal copy of Mastercam I've got a very low tolerance for thieves. Try going home and telling your wife the kitchen project is on hold cause you've got

to buy the solids module or pay the V9 upgrade fees.

 

V9 has had some stability issues, particularly

when modifying flowline parameters. I'm a beta sight and I can tell you that there will be a

marked improvement in V9.1

 

[ 10-20-2002, 02:49 PM: Message edited by: gcode ]

[olib]

I've only been into cad-cam for about 4 weeks,

using demo's to get me up to speed so the shop I work for can figure out if its worth their while laying out for MC or a different software solution. Something just didn't make sense to me. You have these very precise computer controled robotic mills capable of less than one micron tolerance, very fast very efficient, computers everywhere, but everything (without going too high end) seems to be straight lines or arcs, NURBS is not a new technology and then Tri-Tech complainig that MC 9 couldn't cut as well as MC 3 or 4 using a lofted spline or something like that. My inexperience in the industry shows but I am very curious as the what exactly the bottleneck in development is. NURBS must be a complete and utter wild animal! The shop here would love and thrive on a full NURBS workflow from development through to production.

Good luck to all software engineers!!

[olib]

And i hope nobody is annoyed with me like that other new user.

I say to him less time typing rubish and more time using MC productively.

N-Vidia realy are not the best vid card chipsets anyway. detonator drivers are like random alpha driver releases, much like lucky dip.

maybe thats a bit harsh.

Thousands for MC and a few dollars for a vid card?

come on!

Get a wildcat.

[questech]

Like I said, the video is not the problem. Take a look at the patches for version 9. Study all the changes that were made and then tell me why this was released to the public for machining.Most likely because people like me are always pushing for the next hottest feature I suppose. At least agree that there are a lot of changes. Simple things like posts problems. NO?

 

1. Nurbs are great. I would even live with a filter that converts standard code.

 

2. Kbm would be my second choice for new features.

 

3. 3-D boundaries for roughing would be nice.

 

4. Surface footage and feed per tooth would be a long past due feature that would be nice added to the same location as the current rpm and feed rate location.

 

5. Change to windows base to eliminate conflicts and add more user configurations.

 

6. G-code verification

 

7. Memory management for large programs

 

8. Change the nci to actually calculate to the fourth decimal place like it says in the screen, config box.

 

 

 

Well I guess you can do without my unpopular points of view. Let me go back to work so I can pay for another seat of Mastercam for our growing company.

 

To all,

My appology for the disturbance of the forum.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

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I am still not sure whether he paid his own money or not.

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Does the fact that I traded Commissions I was not yet paid when I left the reseller count for paying my own money?

 

As for getting an honest answer out of me, what is that about? Do I paint Mastercam as the perfect product? I don't think so. Though I take my frustration out on [email protected] not here because nothing can be done about it in here anyway, besides I try not to air my dirty laundry in public, I have in a few instances drawn the ire of the VP at CNC for some of my staunch views I've chosen to air in here.

 

For me, in here it's about "Ask a question, We'll try to give you an answer." I don't feel the need to speak publicly about some of Mastercam's shortcomings because last time I checked, there was not a perfect in all instances, 100% perfect piece of code in software. When you begin to write software I'll give some leeway about criticism. Software engineers try to take as much as they can into consideration, then they unleash it to the Beta Testers, after a period if time with the Beta Tester, then it goes to the masses. Do some things (translated "bugs" by the purists) get out prematurely? Of course they do. What software development company sends out even a 95% perfect product? I can't think of any. It's just a reality due to a number of factors beyond a software engineers control. CPU, OS, MoBo, RAM, HDD, Video, BIOS, Drivers, over 1,000,000 possible combinations. See it's real easy to point the finger at CNC and talk smack, real easy. Why not drop them an e-mail and tell them what you think? Why not send them an e-mail about a problem rather than coming in here and talking smack? Because that would take effort.

 

JM2C

[questech]

James,

Thanks for the insight. I suppose I owe you an appology. Here it is.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

I was not looking for an apology, but I appreciate it all the same. Thank you and apology accepted.

 

Part of what I do in here is to try to educate people, not just in how a particular feature works or how a group of features wor but for how the software/hardware as a whole works sometimes. Due to the fact that CAD/CAM/CAE/PDM/PLM/FEA etc... software is extremely complex by their very nature and generally are considered to be "Mission Critical Applications" because often nothing can be done without them so when bugs show up (and they inevitably will because the eingineers can't posssibly take into account every possible hardware/software scenario) the siutation itself becomes critical and users/customers become upset (understandibly so). When this happens I try to educate people to the possible causes if I know and to point them to [email protected] because this is what will ultimately make things better.

 

Sorry for the rant.

 

JM2C

[TheePres]

::::Wonderin:::::

Would it be possible to pull up Wish-List thread for version 9, around time version 8 came out??

Im curious as to the bugs and problems that occured at that time.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

This forum was not around then.

 

If you ahve a question about a specific bug, you can e-mail [email protected] with the bug number and get the status on it. Of course, that only works if you report the bugs instead of just complain about them.

 

LOL!!!

[Ekke]

I would like to see a way like this:(WorkNC)

The parallel pencil trace toolpath takes the result of the 3D contouring toolpath and creates a series of parallel passes at a user defined width.

 

Ekke