15 hours ago, cncappsjames said:

Support, support, support. Even large nationwide/worldwide companies have dealers that are weak and others that are strong.

I have a customer with operations in multiple states(same dealer, different territories) , for one of their machines (EDM) the support in one state is superb, and the support in the other is nearly non-existent, bordering on dreadful.

Agree 1000%... That goes for anything, Machine tools, software, cutting tools, workholding blah blah blah.

Having experienced absolute !@#$% support, I make the effort to go the distance because I know what it is like as an end user needing to get something sorted quickly. And machine tool support is paramount.

I even provided support to a company the other day, new to the CNC game. They were using Fusion, and couldn't get the right code. Turned up on site, put together a couple of test programmes, found the root cause of the issue (actually two, one was the Fusion post, and the other was the machine tool/setup), gave him the information to give to both of his suppliers, so they could fix the issue. Now he is happy.

Yep, do your research on support. Some of us are lucky that we can call on esteemed colleagues in the USA of course *cough* James *cough* LOL

Yes, there are definitely more options available on the MU series. Pricier, but you have to pay to play when it comes to machine tools (as you know )

Look at the MU series of Okumas if you want the other options. If you can,

The Genos are on the next rung down. You're right about local support for Okuma here. Unlike Mastercam *cough*

I managed a DNC system that had 28 CNC machines over a large factory. We had four Moxa Nport servers in opposite corners of the factory plugged into the network. All the NC machines had RS232 -> Cat5 adapters and they worked flawlessly with Cimco DNCMax. Barcode requests for NC files were triggered through the same Moxa servers.

The only issue we had with the Moxa servers, was their weak power supplies. We ensured we had external surge protection, as we had a power cut over one weekend and jolt on power up killed the power supplies in three of the four servers.

On 4/8/2022 at 8:25 AM, nickbe10 said:

I recently bought two HP z books.

One off the shelf i9 with 64G RAM and an Quadro A2000.

It performs better than I expected.

I also got a custom build which I specified I wanted balanced DIMs to help control the heat from the 128G of RAM.

I ended up with the latest Gen i7 (it had the configuration for the balanced DIMs) and with the 128G ram and A4000 card it totally smokes the "backup".

The ZBooks are nice notebooks. I am running an i9 with 128Gb ram, and 2x 2Tb SSD's, and a loaded Quadro. It chomps through TopSolid and Vericut nicely.

On 4/9/2022 at 11:23 PM, Corey Hampshire said:

I have played with it a little bit myself. I have zero Solidworks experience so to say it was a struggle is an understatement. This, of course, was due to my total lack of training in Solidworks. It made me appreciate all the little tools in the stand alone Mastercam version!

I was looking at using it for the parametric side of it. We make very similar parts and I wanted to use it to just import a model, update the equation tables, and regen the tool paths. I was able to get this accomplished somewhat. I ended up putting the project on the shelf due to work load. Just when I was getting around to it again, I read on the official forum they are dropping it (rumor). Boss man said drop the idea then, no sense in going forward with it. 

Easily achieved in other CAD/CAM that supports parameters, thats for sure. The whole process makes a lot of sense.

I get five weeks holiday a year (excluding statutory holidays), and ten days sick leave.

If you take more than two days sick leave in a row, you have to provide a doctors letter.

Our holidays and sick days roll over each year, up to a certain number (can't remember the number).

24 minutes ago, Matthew Hajicek - Conventus said:

My alternate reseller was in a completely different part of the country.

Yeah, but still within the same country. When you have one reseller, and history is on his side, well...

On 1/6/2022 at 7:43 AM, Matthew Hajicek - Conventus said:

If you have special circumstances, you can appeal to CNC Software directly.  As I worked for a reseller in the past, I was able to purchase through an alternate reseller.

Depends on your geographical location.

Not getting into details, but in reality, appealing does little to nothing, even when there are a number of customers appealing, and "hypothetically", the reseller was incapable of supporting the product himself, If you're lucky enough to have more than one reseller in your location, then at least you have an option.

'nuff said... (bites tongue)

On 3/17/2021 at 2:51 AM, Corey Hampshire said:

Bo,

I reached out to both Nc Simul and Vericut. Vericut came to the shop last Friday and gave us a demo. It's a modular design, similar to Mastercam. Buy what you need and can expand later. Cost depends on what options and how many machines you need it for. I am waiting to get an official quote from them.

Vericut seems to have lots of nice features and options that would be handy to have. I was impressed with it.

NC Simul called me, I gave them the info they wanted and I have yet to see a quote. It is what it is, I know people get busy and Covid is a monkey wrench in everything. I honestly couldn't tell you much more about NC Simul than that.

In the mean time I am making some chips and playing with the machine and Mastercam. One hand on Feed hold and just being careful. It can be done, but things can get hairy in short time.

The support from CGTech is second to none. I've worked with a lot of different software companies, and I would rate CGTech right up there with the best in terms of support.

What model Mori Seiki? Being a 2500 is a NTX?

Re: Subscription.

Vericut started offering this a while back, though like all subscription products, that still offer perpetual licensing, the cheaper option is perpetual. But it gives customers options.

37 minutes ago, Matthew Hajicek - Conventus said:

I'd love to have those to play around with, but being a small-batch prototyper I can't justify it.

You could always get a "certification license". Effectively a demo license. CGTech are always happy to provide those. They'd maybe even provided an extended demo license, so you could have a decent trial.

6 minutes ago, robk said:

We only kept 1 seat of OptiPath here and I don't think anyone is using it. We're using Third Wave Systems on most projects. I really got to love it once we purchased the Third Wave XChange. So much less complicated than stand alone.

Honestly, I've never heard of the Third Wave production software. I just took a look at it. It certainly looks comprehensive. How does XChange work? Is it a module within the NX application?

5 hours ago, gcode said:

The press release said CGtech did 470 million Krona last year which works out to

$53.48 million

This is some serious money

This year will be considerably different. A lot of companies are hurting, and cutting expenditure, which means software, and software maintenance.

I know of two companies that were all set to purchase Vericut, and have now pulled the pin.

1 minute ago, robk said:

I truly believe you are correct with your statements. 

Cool little side story... We do not use "Force" by CGTech but were involved in beta testing it prior to CGTech purchasing it. That was back in 2010 when the software was still being developed.

We have not gone the route of "Force" because of time constraints. We have been using Third Wave Systems since around that time instead.

Force and Optipath are great. And very capable. Their only drawback is cost. They are very expensive options. I've seen some great results though.

6 minutes ago, cncappsjames said:

Should be an interesting ride...

I wonder if Vericut will decide to jump into the Post Processing pool now?

I would be surprised if they did. It isn't their area of interest. It sure was a surprise, this news.

I hope it doesn't affect the team in Irvine much. Among the best tech support people I have ever dealt with. Not sure where it leaves me though.

On 9/8/2020 at 9:08 AM, Bob W. said:

Time will tell.  Esprit is currently posting programs that run on the machine flawlessly but Mastercam has yet to do that without edits.  We got a mill program to run and we posted a program with both milling on the upper turret and turning on the lower turret and it didn't post the M-code to put the main spindle into turning mode.  This isn't the NTX prototype...  This stuff should have been dialed years ago...  My overwhelming preference is to program the machine in Mastercam but not if we need to hand edit every program.  That really goes against how we operate as a shop.  I'm also not too keen on spending a crapload of time and back and forth trying to get the post working.  Making parts pays the bills, not screwing around with posts..

That is kind of interesting, and if I can offer my 2c worth. Don't be put off using another application to program a machine. More often than not, it is the best tool for the job that needs to be used. I've got no experience with Esprit, but I know of a couple users who use it solely for their Mill-Turns, and they've had nothing but success with it, right out of the box.

I know this is a MC board, (with some of the best support minded people out there helping), but at the end of the day, while the machine is sitting idle, it isn't making money, and as Gecko779 mentioned, MC is playing catchup to Esprit and the other Mill-Turn heavies

I'm late to the party too, but my 5c worth... I'm currently running some drilling of 316, 6.5mm diameter. I'm using Sandvik Coromant 861.1 drills. Well, I'm still on the first drill it has currently drilled a total of 9 metres

3 hours ago, JParis said:

Not ashamed at all, I taught it while working for a reseller and I teach it now to anyone in-house that needs to use it..

For people who sat through my training classes, they'll tell you, I didn't put lipstick on the pig....I'd let them know things to watch out for based on the class they were taking.

 

Ain't nothing perfect in this life

Hah, I can vouch for jparis. He sat behind me in a 2009 resellers training course at the mist shrouded mountain top fortress headquarters in Tolland, CT, back in the day when things were rosy. I remember him bringing up the non existent M/T module, and how late it was. His timing was perfect because the MT guy was sitting in on the same course.

There were a few red faces LOL

57 minutes ago, gcode said:

I bought Mastercam in 1998 and they issued me a white parallel port hasp

At some point I had to exchange it for a purple USB hasp

I never had any trouble with either of them.

I have heard that a hasp will self terminate if you change the date/time on a PC with a hasp installed

Obviously, I've never tried that

Pfft, young'un. My first Mastercam license was a green Activator/M parallel port Hasp, running on DOS 6.0

Hasps, USB Dongles... I've run a ton of different CAD/CAM applications over the past few years, and the only one that uses a dongle is MC. Some applications I use have been running license files/servers for over twenty years, Dongles are old technology, especially with the license borrowing functionality available.

Plus, not having a USB dongle frees up a port so you can plug in your USB cup warmer, desk fan, or foam rocket launcher

I've tested Y axis parting on an Okuma U3000 (not using Mastercam though).

This method of parting works really well, but unfortunately, there is no CSS on the Y axis, without an Okuma software hack.

16 hours ago, jlw™ said:

Show me.

I don't believe it is appropriate, as this is a Mastercam forum, and not a forum

On 6/27/2020 at 2:02 PM, Colin Gilchrist said:

I must say this is something that is directly controlled in , and is amazing to see. Every Toolpath has two pairs of angle solutions, only if both are valid. If one is outside the travel limits, it won't even be presented. 

Not to mention, you can just choose analyse angle and click on the plane and it will tell you. *cough*

On 1/30/2020 at 11:42 PM, JParis said:

I'd love to employ Vericut...I feel it's a necessary tool......to date, I cannot get the company to bite on it...though I'm not done trying

I can understand that. As you know, I use software that has full kinematic simulation, that works very very well. But, it isn't full gcode simulation, and Vericut has a bunch of extra functions, that are great as well. I use the reporting regularly, and that some of my customers use it to determine areas for look for productivity improvements.

14 hours ago, Greg Williams said:

Standard MAZAK stuff mate, does it have the usual G68.2 and G43,3?

That's what I'm trying to find out Greg I'm sure it does have both.

Hi All,

Does anyone out there have one of these machines?

I am after a programming manual, so I can see the format for things such as drill cycles, DWO/Planes for 3+2 and TCPC for 5 axis machining, along with general programme formats.

Even sample code would be handy. I need this to do some post processor customisation, and the machine tool company is dragging their feet supplying the necessary information.

Cheers,

Mike