Cimco HSM vs Volumill

[peon]

Some questions about Cimco and Volumill.

 

Rest Roughing - Occasionally, I rest rough with the HST Rest Rough toolpath while referencing an .stl. The big issue I have is retracting with a cutting feed move. (see this thread http://www.emastercam.com/cgi-bin/ultimate...136;p=1#000015). Can I rest rough in Cimco and Volumill while referencing an .stl file and is it efficient?

 

Surface Finishing - In Pro/man (Pro/e), I am allowed to state a scallop height in the surface finishing toolpaths. This feature automatically calculates the stepover/stepdown according to the surface angles. Therefore, stepping down less on shallow surfaces and stepping down more on steep surfaces rather than X4's Min/Max stepover/stepdown on the Waterline toolpath which can waste a lot of machining time. Does Cimco and Volumill have a scallop setting as Pro/e's? If I remember correctly, Powermill also had a feature like this.

 

Toolholder - Can Cimco and Volumill calculate toolpaths while checking a holder similar to X4? And if it does, can it also check against the tool's shank?

 

I'm seriously considering the Cimco or Volumill package from all the good rep they have had on this forum. For those of you that have test both packages, which would you consider better?

[Tony35]

peon you got mail

[gcode]

Volumill is strictly an adaptive clear style roughing add-on ... and a very good one..

 

Cimco Hispeed has 2 modules..

an adaptive clearing type roughing module

and a finishing module...

 

I suggest you get a trial license of each

and give them a workout.

[peon]

I will certainly do that gcode. Thanks!

[MotorCityMinion]

IMO.

 

Never tried the Volumill. Cimco created most of the surfacing tool paths in MC. Their sample parts are identical. I have not messed with their adaptive clearing yet.

 

Their standard tool paths for pocket, contour, radial, parallel, scallop and spiral are much smoother and require less dxxkin' around than MC's.

 

The latest version now supports check surfaces.

 

The retracts can be set to rapid or high feed. There are no gap settings but there is an option to remove spikes in some of TP's.

 

STLs are supported as is rest milling using previous ops.

 

*All the tool paths utilize multi-core processing.*

 

The verify and backplot are decent as well.

 

If you have Solidworks, Cimco offers a similar package called HSM Works that runs inside of SW.

 

30 day free trial.

 

The bad: This could just be me. I never could figure out how to set specific start points for the tool paths.

 

No forums for help from real users. In here, a worthy question will get answered quickly, by multiple experienced users, with several ways to solve the task at hand.

 

Selling it to the boss. Kind of hard to do when your company just paid maintenance or full price for the latest version of MC and you have to explain why you need the performance pack.

[peon]

Selling it to the boss. Kind of hard to do when your company just paid maintenance or full price for the latest version of MC and you have to explain why you need the performance pack.

 

If it's more than $1k, it will prolly be impossible to do. LOL

[3R!< W3NG3R]

quote:

---

If it's more than $1k

---

LOL !!

[gcode]

The price of Cimco HiSpeed has come down since

Mastercam released its own hispeed module..

but its still over $1K..

I've thought about this myself, but I think I'll give Mastercam Dynamic mill and hispeed another

rease or two to mature.. and re-evaluate

[MotorCityMinion]

Don't get the trial then. You'll commit some serious seat time asap in order to make a good evaluation. Once you get a taste, you'll only get bummed out when the trial is over. If the shop owner has MC experience, and gets to play with it, he'd be hooked.

 

Almost forgot, it's not bug free either, but it is more stable in general.

[peon]

We'll see what's in MU1. If it behaves much better than the initial X4 release, I'll prolly not bother testing the Cimco.

[Guest]

"If you have Solidworks, Cimco offers a similar package called HSM Works that runs inside of SW."

 

Even if you don't have SolidWorks you can buy a stripped down version of SolidWorks very cheaply from a CAM company that makes a CAM product that runs inside of SolidWorks. Not sure why this would be a choice as most posters here seem to feel integrated CAM isn't they way to go. I happen to feel it is but not inside of SolidWorks. In any case I do agree with some of the points made in this presentation.

 

http://www.ngms.us/integratedcam/files/integration.html

[3R!< W3NG3R]

did someone say something?

[Colin Gilchrist]

Come on Eric, don't feed the Troll.

[peon]

JB. LMFAO!!

[MotorCityMinion]

"Not sure why this would be a choice as most posters here seem to feel integrated CAM isn't they way to go"

 

I wouldn't say that. Most of the veterans in here love Solidworks. Other than the learning curve, those with experience in NX or Catia even say that they are superior packages with regards to the 3D tool paths, albeit at 3 times the cost. IMO, SW has bugs like any other software package, there just seems to be fewer of them relative to the amount of features and functionality over all. They also have the resources to address those bugs quicker. Take the HSM Pack, already admirable by itself, put it in SW and you have a 3d MILLING package for less than 15k that rocks. The ROI in this case is a no brain-er, less prog time, faster, better parts, longer tool and machine life.

 

Besides, doesn't SW use HOOPS?

[Guest]

MotorCityMinion,

 

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

 

I would like your opinion of what you see in this video and if you think what is shown in this video would greatly benefit Mastercam. Do you like the way it works with solids? Do you like the fact that a second monitor isn't needed with this product and would offer no benefit for Levels (they call them Layers) because of how the user interface has been designed?

 

Peon I would also like to hear from you if you can make the time to view what I think is well worth your time to view.

 

http://www2.spaceclaim.com/stream/video.aspx?v=mfg_up.flv

 

"Besides, doesn't SW use HOOPS?"

 

Yes, SolidWorks uses HOOPS and this is why all the integrated CAM systems that run inside of SolidWorks have vivid, clear and bright chaining.

 

In any case, I've said what I have to say about HOOPS for now and wish to move on to other areas that concern me about stand alone Mastercam compared to integrated CAM. Please note the package shown in the video doesn't use HOOPS and in my opinion the graphics are horrible. There is so much that I like about the rest of the package that I deal with the horrible graphics it has.

 

[ 09-25-2009, 07:05 AM: Message edited by: Rickster ]

[cajahawa]

Peon, Mastercam has a constant scallop toolpath similar to pro-man. It works pretty good.

[peon]

caja. If you're talking about the scallop toolpath, that's not really what I'm looking for. Waterline (z-cutting) provides much better finishes than the scallop toolpath. I do use scallop often, but usually as a semi finisher. Once in awhile I'll also use the blend toolpath, but I can't collision check the holder as easily as the HST's and occasionally that toolpath will fail. I need to experiment more with the blend toolpath. I use the HST's so often, that I often forget that I have that tool in my box.

[peon]

bowman. I watched that video. I was IMPRESSED!! I'm not a designer here, but I'm slowly getting familiar with Pro/e and starting out by pulling trodes. (much easier than pulling trodes in MCAM). I forwarded that link to both designers in our shop. I'm sure our Autocad guy will love that video!!

[Guest]

"bowman. I watched that video. I was IMPRESSED!!"

 

Thank you for taking the time to watch it. I'm impressed you did and I very much appreciate it. I hope others will take the time like you did and comment.

[fistafury17]

I've been using HSMWorks in Solidworks 2 years. Stopped using MC within the trial of HSMWorks because I got tired of switching between programs and having to reimport model as changes are made. Especially the case when designing electrodes. Now I design, cut, and create all necessary documentation within Solidworks. You can also get a student version of Solidworks for free that has a 90 day license that you just register again when it expires.

[YoDoug®]

The only problem with integrated CAM in CAD that I see happening regularly is the cost of your design software is doubled to your company. If you have 1 Designer and 1 programmer and the designer needs to be designing while the programmer needs to program you have to pay for an additional license of design software for your designer.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

The problem I see is this debate is like the digital camera market debate. Do you want fantastic pictures or do you want fantastic video? You're going to trade something off somewhere because that while the two are related, they are dissimilar in their missions.

 

JM2C

[Guest]

"The only problem with integrated CAM in CAD that I see happening regularly is the cost of your design software is doubled to your company. If you have 1 Designer and 1 programmer and the designer needs to be designing while the programmer needs to program you have to pay for an additional license of design software for your designer."

 

Not if you buy the stripped down version of the CAD software from the CAM vendor. Many CAM vendors sell the stripped down version of SolidWorks. It still has all the part and assembly functionality of SolidWorks. I forget what it doesn't include... probably something like PDMWorks which many people have no interest in anyway. I know I don't.

 

Having said that I'd prefer to deal with one company. What I'd like to know is the reason the source code for say SpaceClaim can't be licensed by the CAM vendor (in this case CNC Software)? I'd call this private label CAD. This is basically what Open Mind does with HyperCAD which is really Think3's ThinkDesign. The caveat is that HyperCAD is always one version behind ThinkDesign. I can easily live with this.

 

The idea of Mastercam running inside of SpaceClaim appeals to me. I think it would be very hard for most CAM companies to compete with this combination because it would be so strong.

 

[ 09-29-2009, 06:41 PM: Message edited by: thebowman ]

[Colin Gilchrist]

Wait.

 

How did a discussion of Volumill and Cimco get turned into this junk?

 

You are on thin ice John.

 

If you want to start a thread about your buzzword of the day, they created a special place for you to do it. Hijacking other peoples threads isn't the place.

 

Keep going and I'll lock this one too.