How many different softwares in your workplace?

[rickcact]

Here is what we have:

 

Engineering- UG and Solidworks

Hard turning- Gibbs

Hardmilling(me)- Mastercam

EDM (electrode production)- Tebis

 

Are there any other shops that do this? I think this is a big waste of money, having that many different softwares.

It seems when people get hired here, they buy the software that the new guy likes. I dont understand thier reason behind this.

[YoDoug®]

We have a different situation because we are a Machine distributor, so we have partnerships with a lot of software people. I use a mix of all of them depending on the project. We have,

 

Okuma AOT PC and 3DVM.

Mastercam Beta site

Esprit

HsmWorks

Solidworks

UG NX - (hopefully soon, turned in our paperwork for their partnership program)

 

We also have old licenses of Gibbs and surfcam.

[Mr. M]

Who needs CAM? Manual machining is the wave of the future!!! CNC requires zero skill (sorry for the hijack )

I use the same as YoDoug

[rgollar]

Autodesk Suite and the latest Mastercam

[Newbeeee™]

Autodesk Inventor

Autocad

Mastercam Lathe and Mill

[taperlength]

It's probably easier to hire a good programmer and then buy the software he/she likes, than to try to find a good programmer that knows the software already there. If the company has several CAD/CAM systems, they have a bigger pool of potential employees to hire from.

[Craig-B]

Here we have the following,

PTC Creo (For Product, Fixture, and Tool Design)

PTC Creo Manufacturing (For Tool Room and Model shop programming)

SolidWorks (For Revisions on outsourced Tooling/Fixtures)

AutoCad Light (For Production Drawings)

Peps Wire(For Wire EDM Tool Room)

Mastercam (For Production)

[mkd]

at least 50.

jeeze nobody is answering the question.

[Guest]

Are there any other shops that do this? I think this is a big waste of money, having that many different softwares.

It seems when people get hired here, they buy the software that the new guy likes. I dont understand thier reason behind this.

 

The reasons I have seen are typically several.

 

There may be a change in software for several reasons, going from 1 to now 2

There is, as you mentioned, let's hire someone and then that want to program in the software they know.

 

There is your customer that says you "need" to be using the same software we use

 

I am sure there are several other reasons as well

[rickcact]

The reasons I have seen are typically several.

 

There may be a change in software for several reasons, going from 1 to now 2

There is, as you mentioned, let's hire someone and then that want to program in the software they know.

 

There is your customer that says you "need" to be using the same software we use

 

I am sure there are several other reasons as well

 

 

 

It must be because the new hires wanted the software.

 

They kind of shoot themselves in the foot by doing this though. A good example, they get UG for the new engineer, but wont get the UG translator for Mastercam, so the engineer has to save the solid as a parasolid, then I bring it into Mastercam. now the model now has been converted twice which causes problems with the model.

 

The owner is very reluctant for different departments to learn the other softwares also. After seeing some of the features Tebis has, I asked to get another seat of it for hardmilling department, but he wont get another seat of it. Its not that I dont like Mastercam, I would just like to learn another software.

 

That was kind of a rant. Sorry

[Oppiz]

Mastercam _ Mill, wire, lathe.

 

and Inventor.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

We're a full service Machine Tool Dealer as well and we've got several engineers all with differing tastes and we're about to bring another one on board.

 

So I'll go down the list;

Mastercam

SurfCAM

PowerMill

PartMaker

CATIA

FeatureCAM

Esprit

CAMplete (TurnMill and TruePath - not really CAD/CAM but certainly related)

and I'm sure we have a couple others that escape me at the moment. Those right there probably comprise 98% of our userbase. Gibbs has been leaning on one of my NorCal guys pretty hard which is fine. I won't be using it. It's too effed up for me. Most of us are only proficient at 2 or 3 systems anyway. It's seriously hard to master more than a couple systems.

[Greg Williams]

Solidworks

Mastercam

 

Here

[taperlength]

My first job was using a calculator and a pencil.

[JAMMAN]

Uhhhh.... Mastercam.

 

I was the guy they hired that liked Mastercam so they bought it for me Previously there were NO cnc machines, and prints were drawn on the back of lined pieces of paper, put in plastic covers in 3 ring binders. My favorite saying the first 6 months there was "You have to be kidding". Most of the staff would reply "this is the way we have been doing it for 20 years".

[Bucky Cornstarch]

....."this is the way we have been doing it for 20 years".....

 

I once left a job because that was a favorite saying of the engineers/programmers. They are no longer in business. I wonder why?

[gcode]

Mastercam X6

Mastercam for SolidWorks

SolidWorks 2012

Vericut 7.1.6

Catia V5 R20

NX5

Cimco Edit ( full version)

and we just bought a aseat of SpaceClaim

[RaiderX]

Here is what we have:

 

Engineering- UG and Solidworks

Hard turning- Gibbs

Hardmilling(me)- Mastercam

EDM (electrode production)- Tebis

 

Are there any other shops that do this? I think this is a big waste of money, having that many different softwares.

It seems when people get hired here, they buy the software that the new guy likes. I dont understand thier reason behind this.

 

your list looks to cover some bases. but there is something to be said about standardization so understand your concern. we use mastercam cross the board for programming but have several (3) cad packages to meet data and customer requirements.

[CADCAM3D5AXIS]

Gcode have you used Spaceclaim yet or are you using it and what do you think of it ??

Mastercam X6

Mastercam for SolidWorks

SolidWorks 2012

Vericut 7.1.6

Catia V5 R20

NX5

Cimco Edit ( full version)

and we just bought a aseat of SpaceClaim

[Brian B 74]

CAD Design - UG NX8.0, SW2012, Pro-E

 

Electrode Design - UG and Mastercam

 

Manufacturing - UG and Mastercam

 

Vericut 7.1.6

[robk]

Here is a few that we use for engineering/programming/verification/inspection

 

Siemens NX

Catia

Solidworks

KeyCreator

NREC

Mastercam

Surfcam

Third Wave Systems

Vericut

Inplot

Cimco

Quindos

PC-DMIS

[YoDoug®]

Here is a few that we use for engineering/programming/verification/inspection

 

Siemens NX

Catia

Solidworks

KeyCreator

NREC

Mastercam

Surfcam

Third Wave Systems

Vericut

Inplot

Cimco

Quindos

PC-DMIS

 

Rob, How do like Third Wave Systems. Do you find it useful. It looks like it could be a great tool to have, especially for super alloys and difficult materials.

[robk]

Doug, we have been using Third Wave Systems now for about 1.5 years. We use the production module and the results are very good. We use it in both milling (multi axis) as well as and turning applications. The software is very primitive when it comes to the graphics, but that is not what it's all about. It's definitely not very user friendly. By far it is one of the more difficult systems I had to learn. Things could get very confusing on programs with many tools and operations. It is pretty simple for small projects though. The TWS support is top notch. Those guys listen to their customers and constantly make improvements.

[pengxiangxu]

UG MC Pro/E