X5 Port Expert

[Rob Dusenbury CAD/CAM CONSULTING]

To shed some light on "Port Expert" I have tested this for the past 12 months. I can say If all you do is head porting than this is something you are going to want. Ports that have taken me days to create a good smooth cutter path, is now taking me minutes to create. Anyone that is doing head porting knows how much work goes into creating the curves and smooth surfaces to flow on. Port Expert takes all of that geometry work out of it. Think about trying to do muti-surface toolpaths with a level one. It could be done, but think about all the slices and geometry that you would have to create to get it to work, thats why you have moved to up a level 3 for that.

 

Advantages to Port expert. You can have multiple surfaces that do not have to form a row, and you can cut straight from a stl mesh. Most guys doing Ports reverse the port with some sort of point data. Then they either build surfaces or a stl mesh from those points. Anybody that has tried flowline on these knows, it's not that easy. You have to build nice smooth surfaces to flow on. Then you still have to work the path to get a nice motion at the machine. Port expert tries to use 3axis motion as much as possible until it needs to kick the 4th and 5th. The gouge checking is amazing with this tool. Every port I have cut with this has given me nice smooth motion at the machine, with 1/3 the size of code I would get with flowline.

 

Also, when Port Expert releases you DO NOT need to have the Muli Axis add-on. It will be available with just a level 3. Anybody doing head porting should take a serious look at it.

[Joe788]

 

Personally, I'd rather see the specialized high end experts be stand alone addons.

They aren't cheap.. and if they were included in a standard multiaxis license, we'd all be paying a lot

more.

Not one user in a thousand needs a high end port expert. Let that one user pay for it.. not the 999 users who don't need or use it.

 

 

This.

[Bob W.]

Did any of the functionality that was in X4 advanced multiaxis get rolled into the X5 porting add-on?

[Steve Hattori]

Rod- thanks for the info- that is what I wanted to know....so, it works a lot better on mesh or uneven surfaces...

 

gcode- I guess I can agree with you that most people don't need these "experts" and don't want to pay for them. BUT, I paid for multi-axis, and would like it to be much better than it is- the two "experts"- port and blade, tell me that CNC knows they are lagging, and it makes me feel like I have to pay extra to get a good tool. Kind of like I paid for a wrench, but it needs to be filed-to-fit, and the guy next door paid for a wrench that works without filing, and he is done with his job, while I am still filing.... With Mastercam, I keep paying, and I get jobs done with it, but it takes an awful lot of "filing" that other shops aren't having to do.

[gcode]

"experts"- port and blade, tell me that CNC knows they are lagging

 

The port and blade experts are developed and marketed by Moduleworks.

Mastercam is making them available to their customers as are many of Mastercam's

competitors.

Rob has given us a review of the Port Expert

I've been told the Blade Expert is designed to take on Hypermill and some customers

are seeing 70 -90% reductions in impeller programming times.

 

These are specialized tools and they are not cheap.

If they were included in the regular multi axis package people would be howling bloody murder

at the increased costs.... and I suspect the lion's share of the added costs would

wind up in Germany not Tolland, Connecticut

 

99% of users don't need these tools and I'm perfectly happy not paying for something I don't need.

 

I totally disagree that Mastercam is lagging in 5 axis tool paths.

The advanced 5X suite in Mastercam is world class. Learning how to use it is a little

tough because they don't work anything like the old legacy 5X paths we're used to, but once

you figure them out you can make some very sweet tool paths.

 

I have series of impellers I program at my day job.

Using legacy 5X tool paths in X2 and X3 I used to take 50 to 60 hours and 40 to 50 operations

to make a part.

In X5 using the advanced suite of tool paths I'm down to 15-20 hours and 15 to 20 operations

with MUCH higher quality parts.

The scary part is I only understand how to use about 10% of what's available in the advanced suite.

I spend a little time every week trying to figure them out. and I'd kill for a week of classes

[Aaron Eberhard]

I'll echo what G and Rod have said, I've been using PortExpert since it's been available, and I love it! One of the main parts of our business is selling turn key packages to do 5 axis head porting for racing customers, and all of my customers are getting it without question, it takes SOOOOOoooo much effort out of getting a great & smooth cut it's unbelievable.

 

I also agree that 99.9% of Mastercam customers don't need it, and there's no reason to make everyone pay extra to subsidize the .1% of customers that CAN make use of it.

 

I'm absolutely certain that applications like this (port & blade experts) are being designed to compete with Hypermill, Delcam and friends, who are happy to completely customize an application for one use (like porting or turbines). Mastercam is going to stay one step ahead if they go a route like this, as their customers are still going to have basic machining capabilities, which is stripped out of a lot of their competitors customized apps.

[surge]

Rod, Thanks, I do reverse engineering ports all day, Im glad to here this will streamline not only the toolpaths, but also the surface creation!! this is great news, Im going to schedule a demo ASAP..

[McLaren]

In light of recent events I am surprised that anyone would even consider a 3rd party addon for Mastercam.

 

[gcode]

Mastercam quit supporting Volumill at X5MU1 and people who purchased the Volumill addon are understandably unhappy about it.

There is a big difference between Volumill and a ModuleWorks add-on though.

Volumill is a 3rd party add-on, sold and supported by a 3rd party dealer.

All Mastercam did was allow them access to the neccessary dll and exe files.

The ModuleWorks stuff is licensed from ModuleWorks by CNC Software.

CNC Software sells it and supports it.

The only way they'd ever drop it, is if they were replacing it with something better

[McLaren]

Aha, thanks!