Solidworks~Mcam

[Toolfab]

My reseller just emailed me a Sworks direct.exe it is for the Solidworks to Mcam conversion. Does anyone know if this goes in the Mcam91 folder or into the Solidworks folder?

 

Slightly O/T, how many of you are using Solidworks in you engineering depts? How is it going on your end with the programming of the cartoons? I am looking forward to learning something new with Solidworks, and was wondering if you, the Throbbing Brain, have any imput on the idea.

[MACHINEMASTERG]

we use solidworks here and we love it but now the big wigs are looking at a program called cam works that runs inside solidworks for machining I HOPE WE DONT GET THIS i love mcam too much to have to switch ... oh yea i would put that exe file in the mcam folder

[Harryman]

Solid Works 'toons are A OK.

 

Do tell about this .exe

[Toolfab]

Thanks Greg, its in the Mcam folder!

 

So Solidworks has its own workin cam software, that is weird. I was at a Solidworks seminar not more than 4 months ago, and my reseller, for Mcam, was there telling us about the "seamless intergration" between the two. hmmmmmm this puzzles me.

[MichaelJ]

Will that exe. work on the SLDDRW files yet.

thank you

[gcode]

I use SolidWorks and Mastercam together and they make a very powerful team. I prefer to use

SolidWorks parasolids to export to Mastercam

because you can export a WCS with the parasolid.

 

I just finished a 90 day evalutaion of CamWorks.

If you do the same kind of parts all the time,

CamWorks could be a very useful tool. After you teach it how to cut a particular part, you can use that method on future parts automatically.

 

It was pretty simple to run and came with a good tutorial, but I wouldn't trade my Mastercam for it.

[Toolfab]

Yes I got it to work. By putting it in my Mcam folder, when I boot up Solidworks, it actually puts a Mastercam folder in the top of my Solidworks. I select Mastercam/mill and it automaticaly converts my solid into Mcam. Cool stuff. Only draw back, is that I had to have a extra seat of Solidworks purchased just for programming to make this happen.

[Müřlıń®]

For my application, I have not found anything that Mastercam's modeler won't do.

 

Apart from assembly, what will solid works do that Mastercam will not?

 

 

Murlin

[MACHINEMASTERG]

it will auto detail your prints for you and not to whip on mcam cause i love and use it over our solidworks but... solidworks kicks arse on solid modeling but thats what its supposed to do..also for family of parts the configurations work great....

 

[ 07-22-2003, 10:43 AM: Message edited by: MACHINEMASTERG ]

[dgriffiths]

have been using Solidworks since 97 for tool design and love it. MasterCAM is top of the food chain however for toolpath. The two together make a very powerful package.

[gcode]

Simply put, where Mastercam has associative

toolpaths, SolidWorks has associative dimensions.

Say you designing a fixture that is centered on a 8 by 12 plate. You discover that the plate is too small. When you change the size of the plate, every feature on the plate will update

to reflect the changes. If the plate is part of an assembly, the whole assembly updates as well.

In Mastercam you'd have to go through the whole desgin, moving things by hand.

For 2d drawings, Soldworks rocks. Once a part or fixture is modeled, you can create shop drawings

almost instantly. Just drop your part on a blank

drawing page and you've got a 3 view dimensioned drawing.

[MACHINEMASTERG]

+1 to g-code.. fixture design is where it reigns supreem down here in the shop.. but mcam for all the rest....mcam and solidworks perfect together

[gcode]

My dream CAD/CAM system would be Mastercam

running inside SolidWorks !!

[Roger Peterson]

CAMWorks...

We have a new customer that switched to Mastercam from CAMWorks. His affectionate nick name for it was GougeWorks...

 

 

Good Luck...

[Charles Davis]

You can give the SW Direct to the engineer and have them use the Save As feature with the Solidworks direct to save the model as a .mc9 file. That way you don't have to have Solidworks on your computer.

 

I have Solidworks 2003, and it completely rocks. I know a few people who have Camworks, and have heard all the jokes (CamNoWorks, etc). Most are pretty ho-hum on the package after using (or trying to use it) in the real world.

 

The appeal of having everything in one package is strong (especially to the engineers and managment). The question is, what are you willing to give up? The ability to do many parts? The ability to program something the way you want? The ability to get minimal run times?

 

Associatitity is great, but just keep in mind it breaks down pretty quickly depending on how the model changes. When that happens (often) then you're back to programming conventionally, with a pretty limited suite of functions.

 

Mastercam running inside Solidworks? That would simply make selling too easy and kill all our competitors. Now that wouldn't be fair, would it?

[Toolfab]

quote:

---

Solidworks direct to save the model as a .mc9 file. That way you don't have to have Solidworks on your computer.

---

I am about to blow the #(*$ up. I spent an extra $....,.. to have a seat for myself in programming because I was told I HAD to have it in order for the it to work. I assume that is because I can now input the history tree from SW into Mcam.

 

Charles, our cartoonists do not have seats of Mcam, I am the only one in the company that does. So how would the Sworksdirect.exe be used in there machines.

 

The problem I am getting now is that when I load up my seat of SW and use the "Mastercam" tap to open Mcam, I dont get anything. It opens the read from box, and the only file types I get are mcx.

 

Gcode, if you have a seat of SW and Mcam on your comp, they are supposed to be fully integrated, with a seamless transision between the to. That is why I was told to purchase a seat for myself. I am just trying to get over the hump of figuring out how to accomplish this.

 

you guys rock!

[Müřlıń®]

gcode....ahhh....parametrics......I C.

 

Since I work alone I have had no need to draw prints. I just work directly off the monitor since my station is right there by my CNC.

 

As far as the modeling goes, I build some fairly complicates geometry. Some of the guys using SolidWorks, Pro-E, and others cannot do what I can do with Mastercam.

 

With the stitch surfaces function, Mastercam allows me to build solids that the others can't.

 

Since all of my Geometry has various draft angles, multi-impression dies get difficult to fillet in some areas.

 

This is where Mastercam shines for me.

 

Where my competition has to "hand work"

the fillets on, I just machine them:)

 

But I see the power of parametrics in a large shop.

 

 

Murlin

[Harryman]

The "cartoonists" here create models and save them to the network. Without a seat of Solid Works, but with MC lathe mill3 + solids, I reach out to the network and import the 'toon via Files/converters/parasolid/read file.

 

The Solid Works 'toon comes in as a solid body outlined in arcs/lines/splines, whatever. Once in MC the SW tree does not exist; there is just one solid body. You can do things such as make holes and add bosses, but you cannot make a parametric change to the previous SW tree.

 

If you are not doing the design work in SW, or do not or can not make parametric changes to engineering's models, you do not need a seat of SW to use the .sldprt (SW model) files.

[Charles Davis]

Toolfab.

 

I'm not sure how much I can say..... other than that your purchase of Solidworks won't be wasted.

 

The reason the software asks for a file is so you can specify a previous version of the part, so it will import the operations from that part.

 

Then all you need to do is reselect the geometry, regen, and the part is done.

 

I'm using a newer Beta version of the Solidworks Direct. In your version, Mastercam does not bring in the Solidworks feature tree with the names as assigned in Solidworks.

 

You can use the Find Features function in Mastercam to detect holes and fillets; quite useful in many cases.

[gcode]

Charles,

Can the new beta version export SolidWorks

Coordinate Systems? I've been bugging them for 2 years to add that to SWDirect.

[Toolfab]

Charles, the way it was demoed to me was by bringing in the history tree. That was one of the main reasons I purchased it. We do not do assemblys here, we make cutting tools, 95% of the work I do on a daily basis is first time thru, and only time thru. I dont need to compare it to other geo. How do I bring SW in to Mcam using Solidworks?

[L Hanft]

...............................................

we use solidworks here and we love it but now the big wigs are looking at a program called cam works that runs inside solidworks for machining I HOPE WE DONT GET THIS..

.................................................

 

That is a scary idea. We have CamWorks here along with MasterCam. To put it simply, CamWorks doesn't! I haven't seen anything meaningful being done with this software and all the code generated has had to be hand edited to avoid the big crash. Thas sales pitch is mostly BS, but is flashy...... run don't walk for your life.... CamWorks is just an upgrade from TechSoft both products are near the bottom in sales for a reason. Ask them to engrave some text and watch the process... compare that to MasterCam. I see 300 plus students a years, many have already been exposed to CamWorks due to class scheduling..... they all say "MasterCam is a much more powerful, easy to learn program. Why are we even using CamWorks in the other class?" (Someone doesn't want to learn... so they continue to use the techsoft/camworks stuff)

[Charles Davis]

Gcode,

 

Not exporting the coordinate system, but that sure is a key to making the two work together.

 

Maybe PDG is watching.

[gcode]

That's why I don't use SWDirect.

Parasolids with coordinate system output

is more useful to me.

[MACHINEMASTERG]

thanks for the info larry haft ill pass this along to the BIG WIGS and hopefully the will see things diferntly i dont want to lose my mcam