Official Luthiers Forum!

Hehe.....I'm hoping everyone will weigh in with their best recommendation for value in a beginning cam package.

I have a friend here in town that I'm helping to get started cadding, camming, and cncing.

He bought Solidowrks...and I upgraded so we're both on the same page...but I'm not certain what to recommend for a cam package. We need surfacing capability, of course, along with all the basic 2.5 D stuff. I have Mastercam X5 but that's way out of his league in price. I checked out GibbsCAm, Solidcam, and Camworks but they too are pretty expensive.

Anything out there that approximates the capability of these other programs without breaking the bank?

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I'm using visual mill for Solidworks pro which is kinda pricy but, the basic version is only $1k. The basic version has a pretty comprihensive 2.5d toolbox and your basic 3d toolpathing.

For even more bang for your buck, you can go bobcam for Solidworks. It's got a lot of features and apparently, once you make contact with th they will keep dropping price to about $400 or less for the complete package. Toolpaths can be somewhat quirky tho.

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

Yeah...it's about $5000 for Pro and $1250 for Standard. Thing is: Pro has Projected Toolpaths and 3D Profile cuts which Standard doesn't have.....among other things...but I use those two quite a bit with Mastercam. All told, however, I haven't found anything in this price range better than Visualmill...yet. I downloaded the demo today. This is after doing the same with Solidcam...which is less than impressive. Visualmill Standard is pretty good in this price range.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Keep your eyes peeled for someone selling their USB key. If it's an official copy and it's being sold by the registered owner, MecSoft will transfer it for a nominal fee. I managed to find someone selling VM5+4th for a song and managed to upgrade it to VM6 for SolidWorks Pro for way under $5k. A few months ago there was someone selling one on CNCzone for cheap. You can probably also transfer RhinoCAM which is also just VisualMill.

As to the projected paths, there's actually a little trick in VM - the engrave strategy under 2.5D is actually a full 3D tool path. Basically, you draw a sketch of the tool path and VM will follow it. If you select a 3D sketch....well....you get a 3D tool path!

One last thing I just remembered. I've only played with it a little, but there is a free 2D cam package called HSMworks express http://www.hsmworks.com/hsmxpress/eula . It does the morphing trochoidal paths which would be very cool if you're doing aluminum or steel or something like that. No 3D support at all but hey, it's free!

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

I got RhinoCAM 2.0 from the seller when I purchased his machine. I looked into transferring it, and Mecsoft wanted $500 to transfer and another $300 or $400 for the upgrade to the latest version. So far I haven't transferred the license, so I cannot upgrade. Mecsoft told me that it will not transfer the license to its latest version.

Ken

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http://www.casperguitar.com

Hmm...this is new. They charged me $300 for the transfer plus a bunch of other charges to upgrade it to VM6 pro for SW but I still ended up saving about $1k on the purchase. Seems like they've raised their prices across the board.

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

My favourite CAM system for Solidworks is HSMworks, it is the best example of an integrated CAM I have seen bar none and I use NX! They offer a free 2.5d package that is truly excellent - and unbelievable that they should offer such a capable piece of software for nothing. It is fully associative so any change in the model and the toolpaths are updated as well. The support is excellent, even for the free package, and the forum is full of good advice. However the 3d package is not cheap, as you'd expect really for such a quality piece of software.

To save money and get your friend going could you not do his surfacing whilst he machine all the rest using the free HSMexpress? It would allow him to get to grips with the CAM process for no free whilst making up his mind where to finally put his $$$

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www.morganguitarworks.com
www.morgancustomguitars.com

Stuart,

You might look at Sprutcam...... a lot of power for the money...... ( We don't use it but Chris at Luthiertools sells it and uses it. )

Blessings,

Kevin

It's been awhile since I've 'shopped around' on CAM, but I found Visual Mill to be 'MasterCAM lite' in that the interface and options are very similar. I think VM is a much better value except at the high end where you need the 'high speed machining' toolpaths in MasterCAM, but those are going to cost you!

MadCAM + Rhino is still cheaper than most pro CAM systems, and MadCAM is very capable. Rhino, if they took the time to learn it, would also supplement Solidworks in many ways.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Any experience with
http://www.grzsoftware.com/
or
http://www.vectric.com/WebSite/Vectric/hobbycnc.htm?gclid=CIqRp_-IqrYCFdE-Mgod3HsAqA
?
I keep getting steered towards these two.

With Meshcam I understand you might lose some control however the simplicity may overcome this in many cases.

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Ken

HSMworks was just acquired by Autodesk....let's see how long they will keep making this product for Solidworks!

-I have also tried CamWorks and Solidcam....however, I know you said that those are out of the price range...however, I found SolidCam to be a very capable package, and Camworks to simply be crap!

Problem I had with Solidcam, was messing around with a generic Fanuc post processor, to make it spit out proper code for Mach3....after a little fiddling, seemed to work OK...

I am not sure I am convinced yet on the integrated CAM packages for Solidworks....for some reason, I always find myself going back to my old and trusty version of Mastercam-X....

Another thing that I found out to be EXTREMELY useful with Solidcam, is that it has full stock recognition when creating your toolpaths...so you do not have to mess around with a left over path, and will completely eliminate air cutting to a degree. The way you work with the stock model is the same way you would work with an assemblies...I found this to be one of its most powerful features.

What has drove me crazy over the years is the lack in Mastercam to do any sort of stock recognition when calculating paths...you would think they would add that after all this time....not sure why they allow you to say import a .stl so you can see what it would look like under the simulation, but it does not take into consideration the .stl geometry when calculating a path....really stupid on their part....

my.02 worth....

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-CyborgCNC
http://www.cncguitar.com
https://www.facebook.com/CncGuitar

@Ken - If you are using Rhino for drawing or for importing stuff from your cad guru I would strongly suggest a plug-in rather than a separate program. Choices are Rhinocam and Madcam for that. I see that Novedge is still selling Madcam 3x (3-axis) version 4 with free upgrade to version 5 (currently beta) for $690 which is a deal. Rhinocam standard is a little over $1k but it has less features but would still work and probably has a lot more users. MECsoft (Rhinocam) have started to charge annual maintenance but are calling it optional for now. I use a separate cam package, not a plug-in, and that adds a lot of work and can be a source of errors from the import/export process so there is an advantage to a good plug-in. No experience with Vectric but it is used a lot by the shopbot crowd and signmakers.

@cyborg - ADSK came out and said that they would continue with the Solidworks product of HSMworks. I dunno. The CAM I use has extensive stock and remachining features but I can generally easily beat that by just making regions myself. Glad I waited for that

Thanks RandK that helps a lot. I will download the demo for MadCam and see how I like it.

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Ken

I've spoken with Ken about this on the phone but I thought I'd post here just to share some thoughts as well.

Like Rand, I'm a big fan of plug in style CAM software. Since I do most of my own design work I've not had to deal with importing too much but I know that early on for sure, it saved a lot of time. Update the model in SolidWorks - hit regenerate and the toolpaths are re done.

Although VisualMill isn't the end all be all of CAM, I still think it's got the best bang for your buck and if I were to do it again with the same budgetary constraints, I'd buy it again.

Looking at the entry level versions though, it does look like Madcam has more features than the entry level VisualMill/RhinoCAM...definitely worth investigating.

As to Vectric - I've played with it some and their products are absolutely top notch - design and CAM all in one easy to use integrated package however, there's no way I'd buy any of them as my one and only CAM package as a luthier. Their stuff is geared toward the box/sign/ornamentation making crowd. They have a great inlay feature that will automatically round the male inlay to match the radius of the cutter but beyond that, I don't think it's got what you need for serious luthiery type CNC work.

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

Ken,

I jumped on the MadCAM train late last year. I already owned an earlier basic version of RhinoCAM, but it was way too limiting when I got to milling my acoustic necks. I used MadCAM with two necks that I completed around the end of the year. It worked well, but the UI was a little klunky so I didn't buy it. Then earlier this year I upgraded to Rhino 5 and tried the new version of MadCAM. Most of my UI issues had been addressed in the new version, so I bought a license. I just completed milling a couple more necks using toolpaths prepared by this new version of MadCAM, and I am really happy with the software. Still could use a little refinement on the UI side, but I am very happy with it.

For what it's worth, I manage all my tooling in an Excel spreadsheet, and using visual basic, I can generate MadCAM tool files individually or for all tools with the click of a button. I found this way easier than going through the tool setup dialogs, and I have a way to manage all my tools and comments in one place. Happy to share if this would be of interest to you.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to PM me or drop me an email. Mike (Turmite) is a great resource on MadCAM if you haven't found that out yet.

Ken

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http://www.casperguitar.com

Does anyone know if you can import an iges or step file into MadCam?

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I think what you would do is import the file into Rhino--once it's there, MadCAM should be able to work with it just like any other Rhino model.

Dave

I was hoping I could use it by exporting a solidworks file.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Ken,

I'd love to have the Madcam Tool setup...... to me that is the weakest part of Madcam..... ( we have 90 different tools/tool holders and it takes forever to enter these ....even though setup they don't change..... we've only setup the major tools that we might use for guitar making....... not the other stuff. )

Jim,

I'm with Dave, you import into Rhino the stp file or iges then save as a Rhino file and work Rhinocam just like you normally would. You may have to explode or group again certain parts or pieces to get them to cut or shape correctly..... not sure how you are doing your regions etc.

Blessings,

Kevin

Thank you for the kind words Ken, but you now really have my interest piqued. Is the Excel spreadsheet something that Joakim could include in Madcam?

I know that he is working, or going to work on the ability to model cutters in Rhino and have the ability to do tool paths for them. Many of the wood workers in the sheet good and cabinet industries use special cutters and have asked for the option of including them in their tool librarys. Maybe, the spreadsheet thing would make that possible sooner. You have my email address if you need to send me anything!

Mike

Jim the single drawback I see to Madcam is that it is not a stand alone. On the other hand it is so seamlessly intergrated into Rhino it is like working Rhino when you use it. You must have Rhino in order to run Madcam.

Mike

Rhino can import/read solidworks .sldprt and .sldasm files directly and also iges and step. In Rhino they are solids or surfaces as if they had been built in Rhino. You can extract edges, offset them etc to create geometry for regions/boundaries. You don't get access to any of the absorbed sketches, features, configurations etc. It will even automatically remap Y and Z if you want it to. I've resorted to washing a solidworks model or two through Rhino because creating my cam geometry from the imported solids was so much easier than doing it in my cam software. More programs isn't better but sometimes if I'm in a hurry it is a good workflow.

Hey Guys,

I was busy binding a FB this evening and getting a neck joint all dialed in so the FB can be glued on, and I am just now getting on the iPad. I'll clean up my spreadsheet a bit so it is a bit more user friendly, upload it to my website, and post a link.

Cheers,

Ken

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http://www.casperguitar.com