Pro-E Converter

[tsewyek]

Good Morning,

 

Who all uses MasterCam in conjunction with Pro-E files? Are there any known problems with the converter or inherent problems with Pro-E files in general? Our company is leaning towards Pro-E because of some of our larger customers pushing us in that direction. We are not sure whether or not we want to use Pro-E's Manufacturing Software, or go with MasterCam. I have recently changed jobs and am no longer using MasterCam, we are presently using Esprit along with it's headaches (mostly Post Processor) and we are obviuosly looking to change. I personally prefer MasterCam, but am looking for input from any who care to respond.

 

Thanks to all in advance!

 

Former MC user.

[Jammer™]

Well we have just gone down this road. We currently use Pro-e for design only. (the toolpaths suck) We use Mastercam for all our toolpaths. They work great together. We use the standard iges file converter that comes with Mastercam. We haven't had any trouble. Good luck. BTW.....Sorry you have to use that other cam system right now.

[tsewyek]

Hi Jammer,

 

Thanks for the response. Did you're company try the Manufacturing side of Pro-E? What was wrong with the toolpaths? I do not want to screw-up as we've only had Esprit for a little over two years and we're ready to dump it!

 

Thanks Again

 

Former MasterCam user

[Jean-Simon]

quote:

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Esprit for a little over two years

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Men you deserve a medal, I couldn't work with it more then 2 months. It's frustrating when you take 1 hour to do something that actually takes 5 minutes in MC. MC all the way!!!

 

Simon

[tsewyek]

Jean,

 

I could not agree with you more. Fortunately I've only been using for the past two weeks, as I just started here, Although I did use Esprit for about a year and a half a couple of years ago. Hopefully I will be able to go back to MC soon, the guy I share an office with is really not looking forward to yet another Cam software, as he has not fully learned Esprit and has been using Genesis for the past 18 years.

 

Regards,

[crazy^millman]

Well if all you have have done is Level one you got a whole new thing in Mastercma to learn. I have people who use PRO-E and like it benfits I have people that dont like it. I guess it is all relative to what you want yo spend on the product. I think Mastercam is about 1/5 the cost of everything needed in the PRO-E world. I use PRO-E in to mastercam all the but I do the STEP through solidworks frist bit then to parasolids works great never any real problems.

 

good Luck in your choice you can get the Demo software from PTC for the PRO-E Machining Moduules but think depending on your work are going to need about 5 to 7 modules.

 

Crazy Millman

[5 AX]

I frequently program parts from pro-e files, and have never had a problem. There is a pro-e converter in mastercam, so there is not a need for iges.

[tsewyek]

MillMan,

 

My last job, the company only had Mill Level 1 and Lathe, but prior to that I had been using Mill level 3 and Lathe but no solids. I've gotten a quote on both MasterCam Mill Level 3 and Lathe, and Pro-E Design & Complete Machining package. The Pro-E Package as you might expect was slightly higher than was the MC Package. The Company desperately needs a change, we simply cannot continue with Esprit.

 

Thanks For Your Input

 

Regards

[Jammer™]

tsewyek,

I guess I can't really say personally what the toolpaths in Pro-E are like. I only program on Mastercam. I know that I have run them on machines and they do some really weird stuff. Could be programmer, could be Pro-e. I don't know. We use Pro-E mainly for design. One of our designers used to run Mastercam years ago, and he always makes a comment about how he wishes he could use Mastercam when he has to write toolpaths. So I just go off what he says. He's pretty sharp on Pro-E, and used to be sharp on Mastercam, so I trust his judgement. Anyway, we were thinking about converting over to one system for cad and cam. Well after some R&D, we decided that the Pro-E for design, and Mastercam for Programming was our best combination. We design and build molds. Hope this helps ya a little.

[Elad]

I use Pro-e converter every day.

It works great!

the only little problem i found is that the full arcs on the solid becomes 2 arcs.(after coverting it breaks the arc to 2 pieces).but this is a minor bug.I just delete all entities accept the solid and create curves on all edges again.

And one more thing, i tried opening asm file from pro-e and it opened only one of the solids in the assembly so i belive it can't open asm files with all the tree.

 

Good luck!

[Müřlıń®]

quote:

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We are not sure whether or not we want to use Pro-E's Manufacturing Software

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Mastercam toolpath rulz!!

 

 

Murlin teh Word!

[Saultspics]

We use pro e for design mastercam for all of the tool paths. We use the pro e converter every day, it has some problems,sp2 will not convert fillets so we are using sp1 to convert with. But we have been able to convert all of our pro e files with it. I think it has something to do with the accuracy setting in pro e.

We were using pro e for both but it was too slow hard to use and the tool paths were not as good with pro e, we get a better finish with MC and faster.

 

Elad, I think that is the way Pro e does arcs instead of complete circles.

Thanks, Stephen

[tsewyek]

Good Morning All,

 

Thanks again to all that have replied, It is much as I expected, MasterCam is the way to go. We are have arranged with PTC for a demo of their product, and I already know of MC's capabilities. I will let everyone know the outcome. Thanks again.

 

Regards,

[McRae]

Keep in mind that what you will see in the demonstration is a polished and out of the box presentation that has lured many successful sales into their software. I actually enjoy ProE more than Mastercam and find I can control more of the basic tool motions and have more control over the final outcome.

 

Mastercam is easier and faster to program the simple little stuff and so this is why I have both in my department. Use the tools that will get the results that you need.

[ProductDevelopmentGuy]

A minor diversion....

 

Elad - I emailed you a C-hook you can try which will attempt to join selected entities. So you can read in the Pro/E file and then invoke the C-hook and voila - all your 180 arcs are joined to make full circles where possible.

Put it on the FTP site if you like it.

 

PDG

[Elad]

Thanks PDG,

 

I uploaded the joisel.zip file to the c-hooks directory in the ftp.

 

Thanks again.

 

[ 10-30-2003, 08:54 AM: Message edited by: elad ]