Other cam you used and why the upgrade to MC?

[George_Gerhard]

I started with a pencil and a calculator, I had intro to nc in college, I wrote programs in the tool and die shop I worked in through college, doing all the math myself. I learned APT.

I wrote a program in basic in a radio shack trs80 pocket computer, that would give you the coordinates of tangent points if you knew the intersection coordinates of three points and the corner radius.

I have digitized parts then manually cleaned it up.

I learned NC polaris in the late 80's

I learned smartcam in 89 or 90

I learned mc in 95 but I dont remember the version number

re-learned newer version of nc polaris in 95

virtual gibbs in 96

Bridgeport ez cam in 97

surfcam in 99

alpha cam in 01

mc version 8 in 02

 

My company sells mastercam these days by choice.

[iowajim62]

Started with pencilcam in '83.

No software till '85, ran on Apple IIe with orange(yuk) monochrome monitor, cannot remember the name. Then stuff from the good folks at NCCS. Don't miss any of it. Finally got real PC in '94 and used G-Zero. Next was Geopath in '97. And finally got to MC in 2000. Don't want nuthin else !!!

[steve f]

quote:

---

One of the reasons is that they actually have people there working, writing & designing the software that (along with us) have hot chip scars.

---

LOL

 

I remember having blue hot chip fly inside my neck collar, rolling down and lodging in my navel...thought I was going to pass out, it hurt so bad.

 

Back on topic though, I've used (in chronological order):

 

Mazatrol (if it counts)

Virtual Gibbs

dabbled in Surfcam

Mastercam

 

steve

[Jimmy Wakeford from Barefoot CNC]

The question I get asked when doing a demo to a company with another cam is "Why should I switch?"

 

One of my first replies I mention the forum then support...

 

My problem is that I have seen the other softwares and know MC is better, but have not used the other software personally.

 

I have some reference accounts that could not get support or posts for the other brands that I use.

 

Would be nice though to be able to get these guys to see the light.

 

Thanks for all your input

Jimmy

[chopsley]

Howdy to all of you nice folks. After reading all the posts on this topic, I'm sure I must be the oldest machinist/programmer here. I started out learning nc programming in 1979. It was calculater and pencil. I believe I heard "Pencilcam". Trust me. for a poor math student I got really good at trig. The company I worked for then had Compact II on timeshare. (This was before pc's). Back in that day it was taught in Community colleges. We used hard bed HP plotters to check tool paths etc. Next job I had to learn interactive APT. Both of these are text based languages. As time passed MDSI (compact II) was bought out by Slumberge ( forgive the spelling), and later by Applicon. Applicon was very late putting their software on PC's and I believe that's when they lost huge market share to Smartcam. They finally did come out with grapics on PC's. Then Applicon was bought out by Unigraphics, and later bought out by EDS. The Compact II (now called "Bravo"), will have no more new versions, and will only be supported "as long as it makes business sense". according to EDS. I've been with my present employer for eight years now. The decision was made to get new programming software. Our engineering dept. is moving from Autocad to Inventor and much pressure was put on us (me and the other programmer)to embrace EdgeCam as it was in bed with Autodesk at the corporate level. (change the Inventor model and Edgecam will automatically update the cnc program). We found out that there are only 2 users in the state of Oregon. We visited one and they were using it for a server and file editor. That's it! Besides, I was not comfortable with a system that refers to a two flute end mill as a "slot drill". We also looked at Esprit. We visited a local compay that makes dental equipment. Very modern shop. Lots of state of the art machines, very clean etc. After talking to the programmers a while I asked them, "Are you satisfied with the support from Esprit?" Instead of answering me right away his eyes locked with his supervisor's eyes. There was a pause and finally he replied, "Well, once they get to know you they are usually fairly fast to answer a question." That was enough for me. Interesting thing though. They also have a mold shop there and they use Mastercam. Must be a story there.

 

We now have Mastercam at our shop and I'm still in the learning curve, but it's getting better everyday. I love this forum. I already feel like I know some of you folks. As I learn more I'm sure I'll have questions. It's really unlike any system I've used before. So have mercy on an old newbie who has made a lot of chips over the years.

[gcode]

chopsley,

You don't have me beat by much. My first NC

programming was paper and pencil. Then I bought

a programmable HP calculator (RPN 12C I think)

I programmed it to claculate bolt circles and tangencies for angled endmill cuts.

My first comupter system was Anicam 1.0 running on

an NEC box. No mouse or hardrive. Just 2 8in floppy drives, 64k of memory and a 12in 4 color screen. I've been told that Anicam 1.0 was the very first Mastercam, but I don't know if its true.

Move commands were typed in ( feed l1 c2 l2 l2

rapid{z.25} etc.

Pockets were done with DO loops and basic logic.

Very primitive.

Anicam 2.0 ran on an IBM AT and had a mouse.

The progress thats been made in the last 20 years in CAD/CAM is really amazing. 20 years from now

the kids will be laughing at us old guys with

our creaky old p4's and MC V10.

[Charles Davis]

Great Thread. Keep it going and focused.

 

EZCAM & some autcad embedded thing out of Richardson TX (NC Autocode?) about 1985

 

Smartcam about 1987-1994

(Lots of people got their start there. The business story of this company would make a great book and business school study.)

 

Mastercam 1994 (ver 4.11)

Took me about a day to fully convert from Smartcam to Mastercam. I had seen it in 1989, and the thought that came was, "Now that's what I've been wanting!"

 

Trained in Virtual Gibbs & Solution 3000.

 

Solution 3000 totally rocked as a surface modeler.... until it was bought out and cannibalized by Autodesk.

[crazy^millman]

I use it becuase it kicks xxxx plain ans simple on if ands or buts about it. If you look at Teksoft which something I used learing back on Version 9.0 in 1994 it was clumsy, had more bokc than master just for 2d thing had menus out you ear and they read like your typical stero instructions. Then I used Vitural Gibbs bakc in 1995 good program did good thing but was to much about doing to much you were kind of stuck with operation that have time juast wasted time. I then used conversational machines again in 1996 like the Mazak and since I was doing alot of Job shop stuff was able to rock and rol since i only had one Mill and Lathe. I also used the Okuma Lathe Conversational and it was good too but seem wierd to have a conversational program make a G-code for the machien to run from and of course it was cool that it worked using alot of the Dos command you cool get the machine to do soem really cool stuff you were not suppose to if you player around enough. I was doing the complex part that were 3d surfacing and stuff up until about 2 years ago long form. I would sit down make a 3d model of the part and do all the point ot point for my tools using centerline for ball tools and Comp edge moves for other tool when possible. I had this one job I did in which I had about 120 hour of programming of and then relized on my 50th page of hand typed code that I forgot to model the rauis transtion right on the orfice of the nozzel and would have to just about start over. I then got on the phone called my dealer and he cam up there and in about 30 minutes modled the part and had toolpats for the same part. I brought the owner in there and showed him. I had about $7000 worth of time on his $1500 job and he still couldn't see why we needed to spend the money. I went as far as to get a damn lease soemthing like $356 a month and I was willing to pay that myself if he would just get it and to my suprise he did. Oh but that was what I thought 30 days later he cancelled the lease and I had to send it back. Was not much longer i went to go work and my last place doing 5 axis work. I wnet into that company with no real 5 axis experience but doen alot of 4th axis and soem really off the wall stuff so told I can do it just give me a chance I went on my own time and in one day got a alot of work done. In less than 1 week I was kicking but in Mastercam 8.1.1 doing so pretty cool stuff. I then was able ot sit down and fix my post and get it the way I liked it cuase the MP langugae is os much like Basic that I juts plugged away and got a good understand of it well before finding this great place. That company lost a big contract and came to all upper people in the company and started cutting pay hit me with a $24,000 pay cut and said well you can work 4 days here and go work 1 day a week somewhere else to keep a roof over your head and your family feed. I had only been using mastercam little over a year and was able ot get the job I got know granted I got other expericence that helped me but I feel I have done good so far and this place is the key that has helped me get even better you go look at the other people and see what they offer nothing but more probelm and headaches.

 

Sorry guys ro rant on like that about 45 hours in 3 days. My wife is still feeling contractions and we got 2 weeks left so kind of on pins and needless at this point.

 

Crazy Millman need to go home and get some sleep. I keep home the knoms will come in and get that 1200 hours worth of work promised in 10 days done but they never show up. I keep wondering why cant be dont just dont sink in.

[Peccator]

Not only is MC rock solid software but I have gotten nothing but good tech support from my good freinds in Atlanta at CADCAM Solutions.

Thank you chris, Steve and Allen. You guys do a jam up job.

[Jimmy Wakeford from Barefoot CNC]

Chopsley,

 

Great first post. With your experience you ought to chime in more. There are alot of lurkers reading this that are "holdin back". I think its a programmer thing. There was athread awhile back called lurkers that got alot of these guys to do their first post (and now you cant type a word in edgewise) .

The newbies have probably just switched recently and I think would have some good info, so you guys let it out. Your among friends here.

 

"Hi, my name is Jimmy. I've been programming for 12yrs. I dont sleep, I write posts when I should be surfing the net..."

 

Jimmy teh 1 post at a time.

 

Jimmy

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

I first learned MC at the local JC - in 1991-1992. In the next few years, I learned SmartCAM (Freeform), Pathtrace, and SurfCAM. Those first couple of years calculators ruled my life in the shop - "No CAM for you - two years..." I wanted to use CAM, they wanted me to crunch numbers by hand.

 

The third shop I worked in had Mastercam v3.x and SmartCAM. I usually used the SmartCAM for toolpath(I liked the limited associativity - it was a real timesaver in many instances) and Mastercam for drawing. The next couple of shops I worked in I used SurfCAM. Then I worked in a shop using SmartCAM again for a half year or so. Also I worked in a shop where Edgecam/Pathtrace was the rage. Yeah, rage was what I felt as I was using it. Then it was back to Mastercam - now I'm at Version 6.13. Then I went to work at Mori Seiki where I used Mastercam exclusively. Since then it's been strictly Mastercam.

 

So in a nutshell, I've used Mastercam, SmartCAM, SurfCAM, and finally Pathtrace. Obviously Mastercam is my choice.

 

I'm James and I'm a Mastercam-a-holic, it's been 8.25 hours since I used Mastercam Last.

 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Philcott]

James,

 

quote:

---

I'm James and I'm a Mastercam-a-holic, it's been 8.25 hours since I used Mastercam Last

---

I feel your pain. It's more than a job.

 

I started with a pencilcam (I like that phrase)in '76 and did manual pgrms for many years. First cam was Smartcam in '88 and used it till smartcam changed their direction. I loved smartcam, knew it well and was terribly dissapointed to see it go. I am over that now and don't ever look back. We got mastercam around '97/98.

The hardest thing was unlearning what I already did and wanting to do toolpaths the same way as before. Once I broke out of that mentality it has been ever onward.

The only down side was not having posts dialed in at the start so I still had to edit code to get the formats I wanted.

 

Phil

[Midwest]

calculators crunching numbers by hand.

 

When I think back and look at some of the parts. I'm glad I don't have to work that way anymore.

 

EZCAM

 

Auracam- Auramill

 

Wanted to get into surfaces, looked at several packages, looks like we pick the right one.

 

Mastercam since ver6

[Trevor Bailey]

* lots and lots of pencilcam.

* little geopath.

* a few conversational machines.

* did enjoy the Gibbs world for a while. still wish we would "borrow" a few of their features.

* took one look at Ideas and that was enough.

* took a two day course with the master teacher, Charles Davis, and never looked back. I have not seen or heard of anything that is current in the market that has the function and flexibility of MC. Even if there is one thing that you do not like, there will be 10 things you do like concerning MC.

* not to "toot" Barefoots own horn , but you simply can not beat the support. What good is any product with out the right backing of a SUPERIOR customer oriented company like Barefoot CNC.

 

Happy Holidays

[mayday]

quote:

---

calculators crunching numbers by hand.

---

my first? TI 80 with led display and battery charger 80$

 

First CNC if you can call it that was a cinci arcramatic 200 2 axis with cam drum for Z that ran on hydralics. no cuttercomp so lotsa trig hope this endmill holds up or I gotta reprogram the hole thing over. with a teletype paper tape punch. I can remember spending 2 days triging toolpaths and another day with the teletype

 

get this..I still know some guys working at that place and they still use that machine

anyway thats why I switched to MC V4

[ScottyB]

I learned MC v5 on May 13 1996.(Looking at certificate)

I thank the instructors at Stiles Machinery for teaching hand writen G-Code first. It was and still is very valuable.

Since we're in the wood business, v5.5 had everything I needed 'til a few months ago. I'm just getting to know the perks in v9.

I recently took a second job helping a guy get into CNC's. He bought BOBCAD. That has been the cause of many headaches. My appreciation of MC grows with every minute of working with that! I actually gave up and wrote a program by hand the other day because I couldn't handle it!

After we get over the hump I will strongly suggest MC.

Then my life will be better.

Oh, I also use Woodwop on a daily basis. It is basic but does well with our Weeke PTP.

 

ScottyB.

[socklessjimmyjoe]

Learned MC in school.

 

Use it at job for 10yrs.

 

managers want us to check out other software from time to time.

 

Looked gibbs - ok for powerfully simple parts, but cant draw and machine simple curve! Did not like take it or leave it toolpaths.

 

Looked at espirit at show,(its slick on the PC and they said MC not windows compliant.) Turns out espirit not very cnc control compliant and didn't have 3 months to wait on post for okuma's(you know what rare machines they are.) Also no LAP/NAT cycles. No Subs from single post.

 

Still MC now. Dont know about the windows compliant thing, but rocks in compliancy with okumas.

 

sjj

 

[ 11-23-2003, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: socklessjimmyjoe ]

[adi]

PencilCAM what a great systems that was! Does anyone know what a Flex Writer is? Coupled with PencilCAM I made mountains of chips. A flex writer was a modified typewriter with which you created a paper tape for the NC (not CNC) machine.

From there there was COMPACT II, APT, a no-name system writen for the TRASH 80, VCN-2000 voice recognition CAM system similar to compact II introduced in 1980 ( way cool at the time ), died fast however way ahead of its time , Bridgeport's EZ-CAM, Autocad, Solution 3000, Calma, Strim100, WorkNC, MasterCAM, CGS, PDGS, Lemoine, CATIA, UG, SmirtDieNC.

I think thats all of them. Just changed jobs and am getting re-introduced to MC. It has been awhile since I've used it and my has it grown up! I am looking forward to my continuing education and learning what it can do for me today!

[JG]

Pencil Cam

MDSI Compact II(8.25" floppies !)

SmartCam V4.51, V6., V11.5

Surfcam V6. V7.

Cadkey's attempt at Cam (forgot name)

Esprit Ver(forgot)

MasterCam V3.21 (I think) thru V9.1sp2MR0304withMaint

[gcode]

Pencil Cam

Anicam 1.0

Anicam 2.0

TekSoft ver?? morphed into ProCad 99

Mastercam 5.0 (school only)

Mastercam 7 thru current--

Learning Catia v5r13

[wtsylvester]

Pencil Cam

Apt

Lisping out from Acad

Smart and Surfcam

Geopath

Pro-Man

TekSoft

Gibbs or GagCam on a mac no less

Solutions 3000 that went to Autodesk something or another-- you MI. guys should remember that

Leonard systems -- forgot name

BobCad

BridgePort-EZ Cam

Various Vb progs. I wrote for parametric paths

 

And of course MasterCam

 

Not in any particular order, just trying to remember them all.

 

It's really been a determined by who the heck you are working for thing than anything else.

[Jack Mitchell]

quote:

---

Cadkey's attempt at Cam (forgot name)

---

Cutting Edge - Ha, I bought that complete waste of time many years ago as well.

 

quote:

---

MDSI Compact II(8.25" floppies !)

---

Careful JG - Your age is beginning to show as bad as mine.

 

 

Regards, Jack

[SLJ]

I also started with PencilCam and a teletype. Showing my age I guess. Went from there to ConceptII on timeshare, Big Time at last! Eventually got to SmartCAm V11, but no FreeForm. When it was dropped, we changed to the new PC version of Esprit, big mistake! Now work with the best! If I had to lose MC and return to any of those, I'd retire and make the wife support me! Well maybe not

[JG]

not at all Jack, I started at 11

[Oppiz]

Smartcam-quit using because of lack of support and file coversion wasn't keeping up.

 

NC polaris- Started using because it ran in Autocad which is what our designers used. Quit using it because it wasn't very user friendly. Seemed like a step backwards from Smartcam.

 

Has anyone here ever used NC Polaris?