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Verify comparison: Mastercam X6 vs Mastercam 2017


Titanium
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I'm wondering how many people have found that verify, since X7 to 2017 just doesn't perform as fast or as accurately as X6. I have included a link to a Mastercam MCX-6 file, that will show anyone that's interested in comparing, what we have been experiencing on many files. I have also included a link to the completed verify in both X6 and 2017. Our settings in STL compare can be seen in the part verified links. As far as time to verify this part goes, X6 verified in 12 seconds and compared in 1 second whereas 2017 verified in 2 minutes and 16 seconds and compared in 16 seconds with inferior results. We have been in contact with our re-seller many times but they have not been able to give us a satisfying answer to this point. Our re-seller tells us that CNC software is working on it. It's been 4 years already, so I hope that they're nearly done.
 
(MCX-6 file)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/h2poftm3n0v1pnh/TEST.MCX-6?dl=0

(Screen Shot of part verified in X6)

(Screen Shot of part verified in 2017)

 
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I find it can be slower.....I have yet to have an issue with accuracy....

 

Frankly, I hope it keeps improving, there were parts I couldn't even load into the old verify.

 

JM2C YMMV

Thanks for the input. Check the links to the files that I included. There are a couple of screen shots that show the inaccuracy of 2017. If you have any tips on how to fix that, I'd sure like to know how. It would also be good to set up the tolerances in the compare color map, the way we have shown so that the same results are obtained. If you use the 2017 defaults for compare, you will not get the same result.

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Thanks for the input. Check the links to the files that I included. There are a couple of screen shots that show the inaccuracy of 2017. If you have any tips on how to fix that, I'd sure like to know how. It would also be good to set up the tolerances in the compare color map, the way we have shown so that the same results are obtained. If you use the 2017 defaults for compare, you will not get the same result.

 

Nope, my tolerance check defaults are customized

 

 

You can change them, then on the Home tab click save to defaults...that will change them permanent

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Nope, my tolerance check defaults are customized

 

 

You can change them, then on the Home tab click save to defaults...that will change them permanent

Without changing to our defaults, you can't truly see the inaccuracy of 2017. If you have a large tolerance, it'll look fine. If you set it up for a tighter tolerance, like we have, it doesn't give you an accurate result. What tolerance settings are you using?

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Try doing this in the old verify

 

FULLTOMBSTONE_zpss5a2ank3.jpg

 

That's 32 pieces of OP1 raw stock and 32 stl's of the in-process pc for OP2

 

More than a few ops of 3D machining too rough & finish..

and gouge check against the fixtures

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Yes.

But the quality still isn't as good.

 

I disagree, I can use accurate zoom and see everything I need to see.....

 

and even still,  I would take this over that ANY day......collision check alone just saved me.....had to change out a holder

Previous versions, this wouldn't even had loaded...never mind checking against the fixture.

 

Can it be improved, sure, there's room for improvement. It is however light years ahead of the older version

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I disagree, I can use accurate zoom and see everything I need to see.....

 

and even still,  I would take this over that ANY day......collision check alone just saved me.....had to change out a holder

Previous versions, this wouldn't even had loaded...never mind checking against the fixture.

 

Can it be improved, sure, there's room for improvement. It is however light years ahead of the older version

John - the new verify is by far more capable. However, the rendering is not as good.

That said, I would not want to go back to the old one.

Wasn't there a recent post by you or Gcode admitting that the rendering quality wasn't as good on the new for small parts???

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John - the new verify is by far more capable. However, the rendering is not as good.

That said, I would not want to go back to the old one.

Wasn't there a recent post by you or Gcode admitting that the rendering quality wasn't as good on the new for small parts???

 

End of the day the verify only gets me part of the way there. What happens on the machine and what the end results are is my verify. I have parts that would have never even loaded in the old verify, but I have gotten to point where I don't even verify most files. I back plot and see what I need. I then run it through verification software to make sure I got what I expected and then let's go run the program. MT is an exception, but that is a different conversation. 

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End of the day the verify only gets me part of the way there. What happens on the machine and what the end results are is my verify. I have parts that would have never even loaded in the old verify, but I have gotten to point where I don't even verify most files. I back plot and see what I need. I then run it through verification software to make sure I got what I expected and then let's go run the program. MT is an exception, but that is a different conversation. 

 

Yup, MT is it's own thing and I used that for what it is.....

 

Verify is all I have at this point.....thankfully I do have a very well dialed in post. That leaves me mostly checking clearances on tools and holders for the most part.

 

There are 5 axis Variaxis rumblings happening here and I have already said plan on a seat of Vericut if you're going to to go there

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Try doing this in the old verify

 

FULLTOMBSTONE_zpss5a2ank3.jpg

 

That's 32 pieces of OP1 raw stock and 32 stl's of the in-process pc for OP2

 

More than a few ops of 3D machining too rough & finish..

and gouge check against the fixtures

So what made you do 32 stls models instead of using a stock models from the solids you had. do you use most STL's still?

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So what made you do 32 stls models instead of using a stock models from the solids you had. do you use most STL's still?

 

For stuff like this, yes

 

Stock model in this case, is not going to be very useful for verifying all positions with multiple operations

 

And frankly, while I do use Stock Model on many things, I still have way too many issues where the stock model is a problem.

 

A more complex manifold job would not render properly. It caused my restmill ops to miss stock that was in reality still there because the stock model lost a chunk of the stock

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Thanks John, just wondering about some of your thought process on some of the tools. I know we all do not do things exactly the same.

hope all is well.

 

Doing well Jay thanks, hope all is well on your end...

 

If I had my way, I'd simply subprogram this out but here, because of their file naming, filing tracking and ISO process, there is no method of dealing with subprograms.....as such, everything is output as a complete program. As  my position here is to make good code and not rock the boat, I follow their process.

 

As such, I employ the tools and tactics I need to be confident in what I have.......

 

But, 9 of the current 15 HMC spindles are currently running my programs  ;)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Try doing this in the old verify

 

FULLTOMBSTONE_zpss5a2ank3.jpg

 

That's 32 pieces of OP1 raw stock and 32 stl's of the in-process pc for OP2

 

More than a few ops of 3D machining too rough & finish..

and gouge check against the fixtures

 

It appears that your shop runs differently than ours. We have a large inventory of parts that we run and the runs are generally short.

A typical run would be around 40 parts and would take a half day to 3 days to complete. We are machining new prototypes much of the time.

We are constantly programming and setting up new parts, so we usually don't have time to get very fancy with the modeling for the fixture. We have interchangeable, standard vise plates in each machine and custom soft jaws which are adequate for most parts on these vises. All verify needs to be concerned with is the part and the soft jaws. For about half the shop we have a programmer at each machine and we try to program the next part while the current part runs, so it is ready to go when the machine finishes the current half day to 3 day run. We also have to make sure that we have new programs ready for the other half of the machines in the shop that don't have programmers. The X6 verify was able to verify almost everything we asked it to with decent results. Most of our parts are under 6 inches long and we are finding 2017 to be faster on a few parts but much slower on most parts. It is so much slower that we have stayed with X6. We are hoping there is a solution to this.

Our setup is:

2017 curve tolerance=.0005, stl tol=.0005, workpiece tol=.0005.

X6 tool tol=.001, stl tol=.001,

2017 seems to need smaller tolerances to achieve good results. If we leave the 2017 tolerances at .001 it is still way slower than X6 and has very poor results.

The X6 color map is set up to be green for -.001 to .001 and then goes .001 to .005 and then .005 to .010 and the same on the negative side. Similar for 2017.

 

Some example times from some of our parts:

 

2017 initialize=0:07, play=2:22, compare=0:13 with good results.

X6 no initialize time, play=0:05, compare=0:01 with good results.

2017 total=2:42 compared to X6 total=0:06 with similar results.

X6 is finished the verify and compare before 2017 verify even gets initialized.

 

2017 play=0:49, compare=0:22 with good results

X6 play=0:05, compare=0:01 with good results

2017 total=1:11, compared to X6 total=0:06 with similar results.

 

2017 play=6:32, compare=0:42 with good results

X6 play=2:06, compare=0:02 with good results.

2017 total=7:14, compared to X6 total=2:04 with similar results.

X6 needed to have tolerances adjusted to tool tol=.0005, to get good results on this one.

 

2017 play=0:39, compare=0:19 with good results

X6 play=0:02, compare=0:01 with good results

2017 total=0:58, compared to X6 total=0:03 with similar results.

 

2017 play=0:29, compare=1:03 with good results

X6 play=0:10, compare=0:01 with good results

2017 total=1:32, compared to X6 total=0:11 with similar results.

 

2017 play=2:29, compare=0:20 with good results

X6 play=0:03, compare=0:01 with good results

2017 total=2:49, compared to X6 total=0:04 with similar results.

 

2017 play=0:32, compare=0:41 with good results

X6 play=0:04, compare=0:01 with good results

2017 total=1:13, compared to X6 total=0:05 with similar results.

 

These are significant differences and really slow down the programming process for the type of work that we do.

Am I missing a setting somewhere?

Does anyone have any ideas on things I should check to improve it?

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In my case, that's just some of the production work we do 5 Palletech lines

 

We have 6 VMC's downstairs that do do short and prototype runs...ALL of our programming is offline.....the people at the machines worry about the machines, we worry about the programming...

 

So for us, an extra minute means very little as we are not holding anything up..they are running while we are programming...as such, while I will note that yes, there is some differences, for us it amounts to more of a nuisance, if even that...

 

I certainly wouldn't go back to a previous version over, the overall improvements FAR exceed the drawbacks.  at least in my opinion.

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I

Some example times from some of our parts:

 

2017 initialize=0:07, play=2:22, compare=0:13 with good results.

X6 no initialize time, play=0:05, compare=0:01 with good results.

2017 total=2:42 compared to X6 total=0:06 with similar results.

X6 is finished the verify and compare before 2017 verify even gets initialized.

 

 

Are those minutes and seconds, or hours and minutes?

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I might have missed something, but why are your tolerances so close on the verify settings? Similar to what Ron said, verify is just one tool in the box so to speak. I have never used it as my... end result? Not sure how to put that, just saying the part is the part, not what verify shows.... And yes, I understand about job shop work and prototyping where you don't necessarily get a full day or week to program and tweak. For that same reason I have always just used verify as "close enough" and then prove out the part on the machine.

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The way we have our tolerances set in X6, allows us to see even the smallest detail (even as small as .001"). For the type of work we do, this ability is imperative to our work. For many shops, these tight settings just wouldn't matter, but that's not my concern. My only reason for this post is to reach out to the people that have their settings like we do and to find out if any of them have found a solution to this problem.  If X6 verify can do it, we expect 2017 verify to do it. It's as simple as that.

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