Are you ready to CAM inside Solidworks?

THIS BLOG IS MOVING PERMANENTLY TO www.cadcamstuff.com SOON!

Did you hit the ground running when you jumped from the couch into 2009?, in the attempt to speed up your process and expand there marketed, CNC Software is officially on schedule to release "Mastercam inside Solidworks" in January/February what works pretty well along with Solidworks World in Orlando February 8th (You got a extra ticket?). I posted about this back in September 2008 in FBM Milling and Drilling (Part2)



It is a cool idea, and I am sure there is going to be happy costumers out there, but it do sound like it is going to have its limitations, and I am still curious to see how Mastercam requests for support from Solidworks is going to be handle, I know there have been some complications in the past, and how can you blame Solidworks if they are more focused on there own product than add-ons.
This is could turn out to be something positive, Solidworks and Mastercam are in the same league in regards to there powers in CAD and CAM.

2 Mastercam Users and 1 Computer revisited

THIS BLOG IS MOVING PERMANENTLY TO www.cadcamstuff.com SOON!

MastercamX3 added the feature to create customized icons in MU1, this relates to a previous blog post I did back in November "2 Mastercam Users and 1 Computer".

The new feature is activated through Start=>All Programs->MastercamX3=>Mastercam Launcher

The Mastercam Launcher is intended for resellers and Network administrators and gives you the option to make icons with different platforms, so if you have a WEDM guy he can only access Mastercam Wire, sadly Mastercam still write a lot of things directly to the registry that makes it unable to really customize things such as background color in the operator manager.

The thing that makes me stick with my previous blog post "2 Mastercam Users and 1 Computer" is the warning popping up every time you launch Mastercam.

It gets annoying.

It is often that people share computers on the shop floor, and I am a huge fan of people getting the freedom to add there own colors, shorthand-keys and menus , people look disappointed when you tell them they just have to find a color they both can live with.

This blog is on the move

2009 is going to be a year of a new beginning, moving in a better and happier direction so this blog is also going to move from this address to www.cadcamstuff.com I will be copy posting on this blog for the 1st week or tw0 of the new year, but if you like what you read, please go to the new site and sign up for feed reader og email subsribtion.

Will James Bond call Solidworks next time?

Sony Ericsson who has supplied James Bond with cell phones in his last couple of adventures announced in the beginning of this month that they have purchased 20 seats of Solidworks Professional in a attempt to shorten product development time.

So maybe next time James Bond is in the situation where a hot girl need to reach him, or he just need to call mom, Q himself could have been using Solidworks.
And with Solidworks I off course would expect a cooler looking phone, especially if it is almost $300.

Software e-newsletter you actually want to read

It seems like every software company just have a lot of joy spamming your inbox with newsletters and such these days, so it was with a smile that I saw Mastercam had stuffed there newest version in my inbox. Just another advertising, flashy big lettered pdf, right?.............nope.

The topics in this "Mastercam Shop Talk" is actually useful tech tips, work around and advice. Here is a example that is in regards to Mastercam and Solidworks.

PDMWorks® and Mastercam PDMWorks—an application for SolidWorks® that is now called SolidWorks Enterprise
PDM—is a security vault that controls access to SolidWorks files. This vault lets you select
a file and open it with a program. If you try to open a file from within the vault with Mastercam, Mastercam crashes while opening the file. You must first check the file out of the vault, and then it can be opened with Mastercam. (TT0408)

Some of the other topics are:

Windows Updates and Google Earth interfere with Mastercam.

Resizing Full-screen Window.

Verifying with multiple stock options.

It is for maintenance customers only from next issue and forward, what should according CNC Software be send out quarterly (looking at there track record in regards to maintenance releases, we might see the next one in June 2009).

This is a great idea, how come you get your latest maintenance upgrade from your Cad/Cam provider and then its like they crawl back in there cave, resellers are struggling finding the answers and forums are crowded with questions and frustrations. This kind of newsletter actually makes you think that someone is alive in the other end, and this is cheap costumer support/service for the Cad/Cam provider to produce.

Link to the whole pdf

A quick look outside the Mastercam world

We all know it can be hard finding the time to do much between shoveling snow and trying to pay the mortgage. That's why it is nice when someone else will do the leg work for you, just sit back and spend a quick 5 minutes exploring what else is going on a couple of places outside the Mastercam world with a cup of coffee.
1st. thing should be reading Al Deans article in the Develop3D Magazine, Mr.Dean have spend a day at Delcam Headquarters and reports back with a good read, check it out.

For some reason when I start thinking of other Cad/Cam packages beside Mastercam, Siemens always comes to mind. Here is a couple of short videos for you to check out.

CAD Express 6 Feature Based Modeling

CAD Express 6 Model Edit

CAD Express 6 Roughing

Coffee is gone, time to get back to work, but 5 minute break......arhh don't we all feel better now?

Solidworks Hole Alignment needs Re-Alignment

Enhancement request is made, and now the sound of crickets.
I do not want to trash, smack or smash Solidworks.
See this as a warning if you will, if I myself had come across a post similar to this one I would not have 26 assemblies with 518+ components in each, that I now need to revise.
Solidworks makes it clear in there help file in regards to the limitations of the Hole Alignment tool, but in a software geared torch speed and ease by using tools as Copy, Pattern and Mirroring, it is essential that the tools provided to help you check your design is up for the task.



My example of this is 2 blocks on top of each other where the left holes has been pattern in the X+ direction with 1/8 difference, and the Hole Alignment tool do not recognize it.

I hope this post will help raise a flag so new users do not make the same mistake I did, and if you agree with me, do me a favor and make a enhancement request for this tool to be at Solidworks 2009 standards on the Costumer Portal.
Thank you and Sincerely
Lars Christensen