1st .......... X5 rocks, should have opted with solids but hopefully in an upgrade. Anyhow we had a project last year that I we outsourced to a company with a router, that was using Mcam and I was actually able to go there and program our parts to save costs, keep the files proprietary and basically just rent machine time, the company has NO 3D experience. Welp they are gone and we have a similar project and I have a local shop with a router that will work awesomely for my project, it is a KOMO with a fanuc i controller and code is virtually mill code. What I want to do, is of course use our X5 mill seat to program the part, it works I know I do not need router to do this. What I dont know is the tool output looks goofy to me it has like t1002 and is weird, can I edit the generic fanuc post to output tool changes same way fairly easily. This company uses some software that came with router. And for you router guys them machines fly ...... Thanks in advance .........

Now to see if I can get back into Beta program ..... haven't done it since 9 to X .....

So my reseller is unaware that Mastercam will open the solidworks part WITH the toolpath. This is only one of 2 reasons we did not go this route. The second clearly I am a huge legacy toolpath fan and do not want to program using Mcam without them. If they are added this would be no different for me than having Solidworks and a seat of Mcam (which is the route we went), except a single package like G said without the NX or Catia cha ching. The DOWNSIDE I guess for me would be that since I do all designing and gramming and machining is that if I hired a programmer operator I would either have to buy a seat of Solidworks and transfer hasp or a Standalone seat of Mcam because they can not be split.

After taking a close look at the product today, we decided to go with stand alone X5 mill level 3 seat. The pros for it were never leave solid works and live association. The cons however 1st were the legacy paths. No Parallel, contour, shallow, pencil, surf rough pocket are not in this product.2nd the inability to read or write an MCX file. It is saved as a Solidworks file and not as an MCAM file. Mastercam standalone seats can not open a MC for SW file with operations, and the same for reverse. These 2 options justified the stand alone seat. If these options could be integrated right into the SW seat it would be an absolute no brainer.

Thanks G ..... I have they are looking at some of my part files. The legacy stuff is actually most important to me I guess, nothing for the most part can beat a good .. surf fin cont, surf fin shallow , left over for fast gramming of electrodes.

Good Day, I been off for awhile ...... New Company and we are buying Mastercam. Up until a year ago I used Mcam from V6 through X2, so I am very familiar with it. I have SolidWorks office now on 2011, and we are going to graduate into a CAM system now as well. I will be only programmer for the time being. So my thought is (WE are 95% mold shop) to see the integration of Mcam into Solidworks. I seen the few demos online I could find and cannot see what 3D toolpathing options there are. Can I still use boundries like stand alone seat. Does it have all the 3D surface machining toolpaths. Thats huge for me. Thanks in advance .....

Now if it was that easy between multiple open windows , as well as toolpath operations... It works in Surfcam pretty neat feature.I Think it should be in Mcam.

Tip and Cut +1 ......

M-2, or M-4 FROM CARPENTER......... ?

Travis ..... After you do it a couple times yes it is just that simple. Pro-e can make your iges into a solid, you create a quick sketch of fixture size you want to use, extrude it, place your part where you want it then do a cavity cut ..... you can then easily pattern it for multiple positions, do a extrude cuts to clear away sharp corners. In Mcam you can cut to negative stock as well.

do you guys have any CAD package such as SolidWorks? Same thing as Travis said ...... If not basically you have to copy your part on a differ level, hide the good one go to town deleting outside surfs on opposite side you want to nest then you machine the inside of your part..........Electrodes before Solids.......Do not miss them days.

Space Pilot ...... It rocks left hand mouse with right ..... it auto configures to what ever is on your screen , I usually have Sworks open on 2 screens and if ones part and ones drawing it auto knows, if you have cam on one screen and cad on other it will switch configurations as you go from screen to screen.

Thanks to ur advice in previous thread a while ago I bought a spacepilot off ebay ..... 108.00 with shipping .. came 2 weeks ago, 3.8.2 was the release then ..... they dont update to often. I have like new spaceball serial 5000 I cant hardly give away .... I boutght it new with a deal and paid the full 499.00 retail for it then ..... SUCKER

G yep ....... one back to you.

G it was version 11.2 freeform i think ...... ugh that sucked I was one of them ...... theyre back n because of that I wouldnt even ask for a quote from them.

G no mail man ........ HSM machining in the assembly looks pretty good ..... Mayday they have to adapt outside our realm ..... specially round here VX and Cimitron on the rise and well Cimitron honestly for our market is outstanding . but still CHA CHING solidworks is extremely affordable, and to add a seat of sworks and a seat of mill lvl 3 with solids to an investment means learning 2 softwares technically for about same cost and if an integrated package works similar for less money then why go for both . Now i do believe pound for pound Mcam is by far best cam system, biased yep sure am and I love solidworks, best of both worlds for me ...........

G ... Thats just it, I would be greatly happy getting into a seat of mill level 3 X4 but to buy a new seat is double what the MC add in is for solidworks. I just switched employers and in need of Mcam but the cost and mait isa lil out there at the moment .... things keep going and we will be able to justify it hopefully one step at a time, I was just able to update my Sworks after not paying mait for 2 years. Are you using HSM works? [ 11-30-2009, 07:51 AM: Message edited by: mold100 ]

So G ...... Picture this .... Strictly 3 Axis VMC, Job / Mold Shop with inadequate outdated Cam system but has 2010 Solidworks, and a pile of libraries and posts collected over the years from V8 through X2...... A good thing? 32 bit XP ... 2D and alot of 3D electrode Manufacturing.

My question I guess would be can you use existing Mcam posts and tool libs?

the mastercam for solidworks is completly seperate entity as I am told, the software requirement is Solidworks not Mastercam.

I actually would love to give it a try ..... if i never have to leave solidworks, could suppress holes and such for cavity machining and keep going in the same enviroment I could def benefit from it ....... I see it being good for mold shop type work I think. my .02

on the x2 mr2 systems uninstall AVG ..... I talked to programmer at old employer, 3 seats of X2Mr2, only seat to have issues was seat with AVG, uninstalled it and I guess it seems to be working with no crashes ....... HMMMMMMMMM

I did all the time at previous employer it was X2Mr2 ........ only surfacing paths, Would crash all the time, I started creating tpath and not selecting geometry the regen one by one between crashes and save when it would do it without crash. I tried creating new temp folder and saving regen and temp files to it, I tried changing writing permissions, nothing worked. Not positive but did not notice it until XP SP3 though ........ ?

Also could include subcontacting for programmin, design help, and operators.

We ordered from Jamestown dist. used the 105 epoxy and the 205 hardner. Dont be afriad to cut negative at least .01, a .01 shell of epoxy is nice, heres another trick I mix the 1st batch just epoxy cause it wicks in so much, when it just starts getting tacky I mix a batch up with thickiner like West System 406 Colloidal Silica and use throw away chip brushes. make sure you keep pulling it up vertical walls cause it will drape to the bottom. If you have to add more do it before it cures, when it is tacky so it makes a solid thick layer and not thin seperate layers. Also run a semi path it will be really thick in bottoms. Then finish to zero, nice hard low budget prototype.