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CNC dropping partnership with Volumill?


neurosis
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From the standpoint of a shop owner who has had 3rd party software and used in nearly every program for 10 years, if that software was suddenly not supported, then it means every time we run a repeat part with a change in it, that 3rd party toolpath will not regen, and will have to be re-programmed with whatever is "supposed" to replace it....unless you maintain the last supported version of Mcam with the add-on in it. This equates to a lot of time and money wasted in the future. I don't think I would be happy, either, if this happens with Cimco next.

 

Just my point of view....

 

I respectfully disagree.

 

The toolpath might not regen from a parametric POV, but import the generic reengineered file, repick stock, drive surfs, boundaries (which takes just a few min)and the toolpath WILL regen with the changes.

 

VoluMill Universal is a full-featured 2- and 3-axis toolpath engine for any geometric configuration, including open shapes and islands. Part geometry is received from any CAM system in popular neutral formats, such as DXF, IGES, and STEP, and an integrated post processor outputs popular G-code and CL data formats. A simple but powerful user interface ensures that you will be up and running within minutes.
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Murlin, thats what I'm saying- if you have to re-pick and generate a new toolpath for every op, that could take hours in a complex part- and I'm talking about paths that may not be affected by a rev change- you have to regen everything in a toolpath group to get a new NCI to post. So, if I have a part that ran a year ago, customer adds one hole, I may have to regen 50 ops to get a new NCI. If the ops are from a software pack that is no longer supported, they all have to be re-programmed with whatever takes its place. This adds up to money, no matter how you look at it.

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On the other hand - could you not partition hard drives, and have a dual boot in windows... or use another computer, and have X5 with Volumill running on that system, and on the other continue with regularly scheduled updates?

 

 

That would certainly be doable but what a nightmare that would be

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On the other hand - could you not partition hard drives, and have a dual boot in windows... or use another computer, and have X5 with Volumill running on that system, and on the other continue with regularly scheduled updates?

 

 

I would have to play around with this to find out, but I would be willing to bet that with a little effort I could set up a Volumill only install of X5 by changing all of the default paths but whether or not this is a practical decision or not is questionable.

 

We work on constant improvements for our jobs. Some jobs see quite a few changes in tools, speeds and feeds, material removal strategies, etc throughout their life span in our shop. Trying to keep track of separate installs of Mastercam would end up becoming a organization nightmare I would assume.

 

For now we are going to ride this out and hope for the best. I should have kept my mouth shut and just waited to see if the MU releases before the deadline. IF that happens all of this complaining will have been for not.

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Murlin, thats what I'm saying- if you have to re-pick and generate a new tool path for every op, that could take hours in a complex part-

 

I see your point and realized that I misspoke.....sorry.

I was trying to give an example of a part that was made with solids in a newer release of Mastercam, one that X5 would not be able to read. On those new parts you would have to convert to generic file format in order to use Volumill's dynamic algorithm with X5. You know, the system you have on the dual boot or the other computer :) I was also referring to utilizing Volumills adaptive clearing algorythm and not recrunching every op. You would not need to recrunch all the toolpaths already in X6+...unless of course there was an EO and those would regen at the press of a button. The NCI from Volumill would be imported and you would crunch an NC file...

 

I have to keep my reverse engineering setup on a different computer because I don't want to pay them a maintenance fee every time CNC changes everything up....those goobers :) And BTW no one asked me if it was OK for them to force me to be out of pocket every time I upgrade MC either....but hey no worries....I still have what I paid for and I got no complaints :)

 

 

So, if I have a part that ran a year ago, customer adds one hole, I may have to regen 50 ops to get a new NCI. If the ops are from a software pack that is no longer supported, they all have to be re-programmed with whatever takes its place. This adds up to money, no matter how you look at it.

 

Any preexisting files would just be reworked in X5. You would still get what you paid for.

Call me crazy(everyone else does) but that's just the way I see it ....

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Some people LIVE to see Mastercam die.

 

 

Quite the contrary. My attitude towards Mastercam as a software has done a 180 since X2. I love using this sofware and once I started learning how to make a majority of my own post edits, realized just how versatile the post is, and with the addition of the dynamic tool paths, I enjoy using the software. I am programming all of our spindle probing routines inside of mastercam thanks to help from Ron with understanding that area of the post, and have been able to add all of the high speed code, load monitoring, etc for our machines. All of our NC code is post and go. No matter how much I liked Cimatron I cant say the same for its versatility in this area.

 

That doesnt mean that I am happy about having to deal with bugs in the software and I probably complain about that way too much but it becomes frustrating. Issues like this one are frustrating as well.

 

None of this means that I would like to see Mastercam DIE.

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Guest CNC Apps Guy 1

I seriously doubt there is THAT much interest in this. It's controversial so people are drawn to it like files to ... well... you know.

 

It's just that there's prolly 500 links to this out there, and something is spraying it everywhere it can.

 

LOL... no life... and lives to see something die. LOL!!! Can;t ever drill a friggin hole and lives to see MC die... WHat a maroon he is.

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I seriously doubt there is THAT much interest in this. It's controversial so people are drawn to it like files to ... well... you know.

 

It's just that there's prolly 500 links to this out there, and something is spraying it everywhere it can.

 

LOL... no life... and lives to see something die. LOL!!! Can;t ever drill a friggin hole and lives to see MC die... WHat a maroon he is.

 

I disagree. 10,000 views in 7 days tells me otherwise links or not. When I see a link or thread to something that doesnt interest me I dont bother to view or respond to it. One way or the other, it is definitely controversial.

 

What Ive come to realize wading through all of this xxxx, is that that this doesnt appear to have affected very many people. That or nobody that uses this product reads this forum or care to respond.

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"What is his gripe with Mastercam anyways? I need a history lesson on this because it seems to come up regularly."

 

In short, he was banned for being a dxxxhead. His negative contributions outweighed the positive by a wide margin.

 

IMO, the guy had some valid points about CAD/CAM in general but just could not STFU after he made a statement or inquiry. He tried to use the forum for his own agenda and spent too much time creating controversy.

This forum exist to educate, share ideas and concepts, and find solutions for Mastercam users. If someone feels the need to discuss in greater detail how other software works that can not be used in conjunction with MC, it needs to be done in a forum specific to that topic.

 

You may ask yourself, how does all this relate to this thread? This thread has sprouted a nasty wart that is attacking other forum members on a personal level at another location, and just solidifies my POV.

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  • 2 weeks later...

As a user of both Mastercam and Volumill this saddens me deeply. Especially considering we purchased volumill last year after IMTS. Like others have said the mastercam toolpaths and the volumill toolpaths are much more compliments to each other than competitive. Personally I will keep an installation of x4mu3 with volumill running alongside x5 if volumill stops working after the next maintenance release.

 

Sorry if I am late to the conversation but I just learned of this as I was checking the volumill site to see if there was a new release of volumill available.

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As a user of both Mastercam and Volumill this saddens me deeply. Especially considering we purchased volumill last year after IMTS. Like others have said the mastercam toolpaths and the volumill toolpaths are much more compliments to each other than competitive. Personally I will keep an installation of x4mu3 with volumill running alongside x5 if volumill stops working after the next maintenance release.

 

Sorry if I am late to the conversation but I just learned of this as I was checking the volumill site to see if there was a new release of volumill available.

 

 

Based of what I know about the current MU1 beta,

that should not be an issue.

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