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Solid Edge University 2012 Quickly Approaching

Posted on May 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

Just a quick reminder that this years main event is soon to be and there is time to register.  http://www.solidedgeu.com/

I would like to point out that this is also for academics and non-users who are interested in evaluating SE and in particular for current users of SE to get a leg up on ST5. Go do the math and see what your VAR would charge for a few days of training and you will see the value here. Plus this is the only place this year where you are going to be able to meet the individuals that run and develop SE and it’s related products.

For you users here is something to consider. The BBS is the official forum for SE and indeed all the Siemens/UGS offerings. For those of us who frequent the SE side of things there we know that it is monitored by and responded to by people like Dan Staples and Karsten Newbury.  They pay attention to what is going on and what is said by those who care to post.

These same individuals and more will be in attendance and this is your opportunity to tell them what you think face to face and help to determine future features and capabilities. With some companies I could make a statement like that and be hooted out of the room by those who know better. With SE users I can see them in my mind’s eye nodding their heads yes as we have seen the interest of the SE leaders in reality for some time now.

The early bird discount is until 5-18 for the event. If money is a concern I am sure that many cheaper hotels than Gaylord are available and if you are willing to drive and commute this whole event can run well under $1,000.00.

The question now is can you really afford not to be here? I look forward to seeing everyone here this year and urge you to attend.

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The value of cheap labor to the end buyer.

Posted on April 27, 2012 | 4 comments

Won’t be a long post today and nothing to do directly with CAD. It does however have a lot to do with how your business functions. The ability of leaders in the manufacturing sector of the USA to manage actual factories and produce here has become too much work for many. Primarily MBA and CPA types who understand the dollar today and for the next ninety days as they manipulate things for the dog and pony show at the stock market with the goal of getting more money for themselves in salaries and bonuses they have not truly earned. It’s true believe it or not and their compensation is way out of line with historic norms.

Unlike an Engineering grad running a factory who understands processes and the real end result of stupid cost cutting measures these guys only seem to see cheap labor and parts as the Holy Grail of efficiency.

Two anecdotes come to mind here and they happened to me. Years ago I had a Lincoln SP250 mig welder. Nothing but trouble and I replaced torches and liners with great regularity with invariably short-lived results before erratic wire feed would ruin my days again. At this time Lincoln had been taken over by Bankers who used MBA and CPA types who ran the company according to “cost-effective” savings in components. I struggled with this sorry machine for a few years when one day I get a call from my distributor. He tells me he has the solution to my problem. It turns out that the idler roller on the wire feed drive was made of UHMW which flexed under load allowing for erratic feed speeds. The new replacement one was of Delrin and was rigid enough to do the job.

Lincoln had done this to me in other areas on other machines over the years but this was the last straw. This MBA CPA mentality had made my work and I suffer for years because they could save a dollar on a critical part. The end result of this is that I have never and will never look at another Lincoln machine again. They can’t be trusted to be worried about my bottom line too.

This week I am looking for an air dryer for my new Haas VF4. Shop around and then remember a great big Ingersoll Rand plant north of Nashville. So I call the local Ingersoll distributor and ask about a 25cfm unit. None here but one in North Carolina. Alright do you have anything close to that in stock here? Well no. We have one listed in our catalogue but we won’t have any more of those until JUNE.

OK, the light goes on and my next question is “where are these made”?  The poor lady dreaded this question and it was easy to hear the hesitation in her voice as she admitted that they would have to wait for the next slow boat from China. Parts are the same way and so you run the risk of being shut down because your critical replacement part may well be waiting for the next shipping container to be filled. But these bean counters saved production costs, or so they think.

Ended up with Zeks who makes the units they sell here in the USA. Oh, and they have lots of spare parts too. Ordered it Wednesday and it shipped from the factory Thursday and I will have it Monday. The real kicker is that it was $1,500.00 for a 64cfm unit and the Ingersoll “wait for the MBA CPA China shipping container to arrive” 25cfm unit was almost as expensive.

So all you bean counters at Ingersoll Rand, what is your profit from me now when you have just lost any chance at my business because you care nothing for my business?

Have you ever noticed how so much of this stuff from China never seems to reflect that deep CPA MBA generated cost savings to the end buyer? Or if it is cheap the quality is so wretched that at the end of the year you spent more by having to buy three instead of just one which would have been higher priced but domestically produced.

My whole point in this post today is to let the world know that this guy looks at more than just initial price and so perhaps should the rest of us. It is time we stop hamstringing ourselves with unacceptable quality and support and demand that the people we do business with think of our bottom line to. Ask where it was made and how it is supported before you buy and determine before you buy if your business afford to wait for the next slow boat of parts.

I could fill page after page of things I have seen and personally had to deal with because rather than dig in deep and figure out how to do things more effectively MBA CPA types just slash and burn and look for how to manipulate numbers for their next quarters bonuses. It’s not a very stellar ability to bring to the world of manufacturing.

My old Haas VF3 was built in 11-93. My 18-year-old Haas still has every part available for quick “no boat required” delivery with a superb best in class support network. It is reasonably priced and tons of factories make tons of money with these things every day. But then Haas is not run by CPA MBA degreed idiots.

Since the only thing many of these guys understand is money may I suggest you do like me. Deprive them of your money where ever possible till they get things right. Often wondered who was going to buy their made in China crap if no one was working here anymore anyway.

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So, WHO owns this stuff you put on the Cloud?

Posted on April 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

COFES as a group seems to be defending the cloud as a robust solution. Evidently many of the attendees and associated companies produce something that will depend upon the clouds usage to create income for their companies.

Dassault and Autodesk are telling us that they will be forcing their customers to the cloud. Yes I know that you hear two stories about what will happen with customers especially with Dassault’s SW but I think Jeff Ray was the most honest of all the Dassault officers when he made his famous when it hurts enough all users will migrate to the cloud statement.  There is no ambivalence by these companies and they want to forcibly squeeze you of every dollar they can by legal methods. Prove me wrong cloudies.

I think that forced income from pay for play is the primary motivation here without regard for customers. Perhaps contempt for the idea that these products should be of greater benefit to their prospective customers over what they have now would be another descriptive thing that could be said RE the cloud offerings.

Today we have more bad indicators of just how rotten the cloud will be for CAD.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/your-data-your-rights-how-fair-are-online-storage-services/4877

I think Google is the poster child for manipulating your stuff to their benefit without compensating you for the use of your stuff. If you will note in this article the various companies and their positions on data ownership there are some rather chilling claims laid to your stuff by some of these. Remarkably they are at least talking about EULAs whereas the cloud embracing CAD companies have yet to spell anything out other than vague grand sounding promises and threats.

Dropbox is the online cloud storage program most of the people I know use and it appears to be the most benevolent at this time but will still be using things like the Amazon servers.

Amazon, the server that most of the cloudies talk about using has this statement in the EULA.     “We may disclose Your Content to provide the Service Offerings to you or any End Users or to comply with any request of a governmental or regulatory body (including subpoenas or court orders)”.

Think about the ramifications here for just a moment if your company or products data is stored on the cloud. Where by law it can be accessed by those with connections. Governments like China will be able to demand access to your stuff under some legal umbrella and even if you are not charged with anything the fishing expedition will have divulged all your IP.

Look at all the fraud going on around the Whitehouse with Democrat bundlers getting all kinds of access to Executive branch favors with a possibly corrupt influence peddeling attorney General enabling and protecting them. The head of GE for instance meets with Obama on a pretty regular basis and I am sure he would never use his influence over croissants would he. So now you have your competitor donate $100,000.00 to the DNC and he gets access to your stuff through a court order. OK, tell me this is paranoia if you wish cloud guys but here it all is in black and white and legally binding.  Once your data is gone it is gone. Unlike problems with your bank you can never be made whole or reimbursed for your damages. The Patriot Act means this can happen and you won’t even have the privilege of notification or appeal before it is a done deal.

Back in December I wrote this.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/defense-giant-ditches-microsofts-cloud-citing-patriot-act-fears/1349?tag=mantle_skin;content

Next up is this heart warming story of BAE, a trivial and inconsequential itty-bitty defense contractor. It seems that yes, security does matter. And here we see a perfect example of why anything that uses the cloud is not secure period. There are just so many provable roadblocks between the promise and the reality and so much of it totally beyond the control of any software author from the infrastructure they do not own to governments they can’t control who don’t give a flip about your security.”

OK cloud purveyors. It is time to start telling us exactly what you intend to cover or not cover. What really are the risks and benefits and what are your ironclad guarantees of buyer indemnification.

My prediction is that there will not be one single detailed response because these cloud companies know all about these problems and don’t care. They just want you locked in to pay for play. This myopic business model is quite staggering in its lack of forward vision and I wonder if these cloudies can see past immediate cash in their pockets to the future. It will be hard to get subscription cash from companies who have gone bankrupt due to loss of IP.  It will be even harder to get cash from those wise individuals that will not be sticking around to be fleeced.

What a deal. Not secure, not reliable and not cost effective. Pssst, hey guys, I got some stock in the Brooklyn Bridge I can let you have cheap!

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Cloud Fraud for you, BIG Shopping Cart for Chinese

Posted on April 19, 2012 | 2 comments

So I read all the puff pieces from COFES this year and with the exception of Deelip there was hardly any mention of the failure of the cloud. Mike Payne no sooner gets done with the propaganda bit of the cloud is reliable, just trust me, when the Techsoft demo immediately after Mike’s PR deception fails because, well,  because the cloud does not work reliably. I applaud Deelip for being basically the only one I have found who attended COFES who states what happened there. http://www.deelip.com/?p=7485#comments in case you missed it.

So we have all the self promoting fanboys who run around extolling the wonders of the cloud that were there and who will not talk about it.  But today I want to talk about something besides the prevalent cloud companies fraud of making service delivery promises they know they can’t keep.

How about security? The NSA and the military are two groups that have to have security. It’s not an option. They both believe that only by avoiding the web can you be secure. They do not state to do so under special conditions. They do not have a single cloud software producer to recommend to you as being secure because none of them are. Enough of you guys reading this have work for or contacts with someone who produces things related to national security. Go ask them when their companies are going to the cloud with their important stuff. I think you will find they are not.

Cloud companies would prefer you not read any further so if you work for one check out now. You don’t want to know the truth anyway.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Richard-Clarke-on-Who-Was-Behind-the-Stuxnet-Attack.html

First let us look at the situation with Iran and their nuke program. There are some governments that do not like the idea of nutty jihad kook muslim’s running around with nuke’s who think they are going to get a lot of virgins in Heaven if they use them. So they just whip up this little program called Stuxnet and deliver it to the kook’s. Now the kook nuke sites are pretty high security I suppose so the best way to deliver your package would be the web I should think. The rest is history.

All major companies spend a lot of time and money on R&D. All major companies according to Mr Clark give it away as a result of putting their stuff in places where the web can access this. OK you cloud guys, Oleg and the rest, prove this man wrong. Where is your proof of security? Oh I forgot, silly me, you have all your stuff secure at a farm and under your total control. Lets just disregard the idea that nothing is secure here once it leaves this farm and pretend we are an employee of a cloud company.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/dell-ships-motherboard-with-malicious-code/6901

Uh Oh, you mean we may not be? Yes that is exactly what the little voices from the back of the auditorium keep shouting out and you guys ignore because you want to make some money. This is the fraud associated with these cloud companies that bothers me the most. They have to know about these things and have such scant regard for customers that they would rather lie about their products and say anything they have to just to make a sale.

The wisdom of MBA/CPA types that have shipped our industrial base to China so they can have bigger bonuses is another large problem. Ever wonder why we flew into Iraq so easily at the start of the Gulf War? This is the story I have been told. Air Traffic Control was sold to Saddam by the French. Included in these and made in the USA were pc boards and or software put in these and then shipped to France and then to Iraq where they thought they had state of the art defense systems. Well they were but not quite like they thought. Just before the planes went in the command to shut down or look elsewhere or just ignore (or whatever they did) was given and our guys flew into airspace untracked. Yes I know stealth bombers but that was not the only thing going on.

This same mindset that said ship our jobs over to our enemy looks only at today’s savings. China is in case you have forgotten by the way someone who wants to dominate the world and subjugate it. They don’t want just to be the leaders economically they want a world of vassals. They feel no compunction whatsoever about stealing everything they can get their hands on and the state sponsors tons of hackers to do that.

This same MBA/CPA mindset now is saying that we can save you money if you will just believe us and go to the cloud. They have no regard for your long-term future and can only see today and your money. The idea that the cloud is technically impossible to be reliable or secure is something they would really prefer you ignore.

Question for the day. What is the difference between con men and a thief? Answer, con men  are polite and want you to think they are offering something you need or want to get your money.

You CAD guys who are faced with being told you will have to work with software in the cloud had better start waking up to the jeopardy self-serving and short-sighted companies like Autodesk and Dassault are putting you and your companies in to.

Your turn cloudies. Let’s hear from the fan club that will once again ignore these issues.

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CAD and planning for Stability and Reliability

Posted on April 18, 2012 | Leave a comment

Watching all the PR stuff with COFES 2012 this week and reflecting on choices. I see the benefit of the cloud in small ways for CAD in things like taking perhaps an IPad like device to a job site and looking at details for a job. Maybe even simple work there but nothing complicated for sure. And the work done there would still be archived and organized back at the place of business.

Looking at the failure of the cloud in a spectacular way at COFES where they surely ought to have been able to deliver reliability if it was humanly possible. Evidently at this point in time it is not. It brings me to thinking about the CAD world and how we make choices for what we use and the ramifications of those choices.

I have been watching with great interest the Dassault debacle over their cloud implementation attempts. Tons of resources poured into stuff customers don’t want any part of. As clarification here I have no idea how this is all being received by Catia users as I am primarily interested in midrange MCAD. I can guess though by seeing Siemens picking up more customers than Dassault is. Insofar as the SW users go there is huge anger over all this mess. Nothing is for sure from the kernal to the way software will or won’t have to operate on the cloud. Dassault regularly sends out conflicting statements of future intent. I think in part this is because they are deciding if they want to even be in a truly cadcentric market or do they think they can make more money with social media driven “experiences”.  In the mean time whole careers built on cad design and geometry creation are in jeopardy as users are faced with cloudy places they don’t want to go to, bugs that are not fixed and emphasis seemingly on everything but robust geometry creation. You don’t think lots of SW users feel this way look at maintenance renewal rates  and comments from people on the web that were huge fans a few years ago who today are not.

Dassault also has another huge problem in that Synchronous Tech which is based on the parasolid kernal is owned by Siemens. There are things in there that make ST the best all around direct modeller out there that are not for sale to competitors. Now DSS is faced with SW having to work on a kernal with features missing or push to their own kernal. All the talk made about not to worry about the parasolid kernal and SW is I believe just a smoke screen. They are already way behind on implementing direct editing and if they don’t do something they are going to get their rears thoroughly kicked. So their choice is to change kernals for the “new” SW Catia Lite and give all the buyers the thrill of having to learn a new program GUI plus failed translations for years to come along with being beta guinea pigs for direct edit developement. Or you can stay with SW traditional and pay fees each year for meager cosmetic improvements until they end it entirely.

Autodesk is now telling everyone they will have to go to the cloud if they intend to use Autodesk products. I am not seeing in statements lately any ambiguity here and so while they are not giving lots of details I suspect it is all about pay for play and the end of things like permanent seats of software. This also means by the way the end of true data ownership by authors because if there are no permanent seats there is no permanent use of their own intellectual property either. Ya gotta pay to play forever no matter how egregious the conditions Autodesk creates for you are in this wonderful new world. I think I can make these types of statements with a high degree of certainty by the way as none of the cad on the cloud companies have lifted a finger to dispel numerous real concerns.

Don’t know a whole lot about ProE or Creo as they are just there and have a fairly large user base and not a whole lot going on. I guess here but perhaps it is a legacy user base that feels more comfortable with what they know over what may work best. Creo does seem to be a company looking for a place to be and a marketable identity.

So this leaves Siemens as the last of the big four software companies. When I bought into Solid Edge it was for the power I saw in direct editing. What it has become in the three plus years since then is a whole lot more.  I see consistent planing with a goal in best in class geometry creation. There are things coming up in the near future that even the most diehard surface modeller from SW will have no complaints about ending this last perceived lack of ability. SE is already the best all around implementation of direct editing out there. It is the best midrange MCAD modeller right now for mechanical parts which is the vast majority of all MCAD. The only thing lacking outside of the soon to be fixed surfacing is the integration of  other products. This too though has become a priority and will be fixed in the near future.

Oh, and can I say that there has been no mention of forced use of clouds here?

While many are faced with huge and disruptive changes I can say that this is not the case here with SE and I assume NX although I don’t use NX or keep up to date on it. No kernal change forthcoming. Mature direct editing. An emphasis on geometry where developement funds are used to my benefit and not to create pay for play cloud crap or “Minimoys”. Everything I see and hear is strictly business and that business is geometry creation. Bass at Autodesk/Inventor is telling you what you are going to get like it or not. Bernard of SW/Dassault capers across the stage with his IPad and tells you that you are going to like “immersive experiences” just because he says so. ProE/Creo ???? don’t have a clue. SE on the other hand is all about what you want and need to do your job in the most effective way possible.

I made a choice to move to SE from VX/ZW3D for CAD because it was a logical decision based on what benefited me in part creation and especially in ease of working with imported geometry and existing part changes. What it has become since then regarding the trashing of users by Dassault and Autodesk and the go nowhere philosophy at Creo is a whole lot more. It has become a stable future with a company that has a plan that includes my desires and needs with a product that is tremendously useful and quickly improving.

There are a lot of you CAD users out there who are faced with bad things and you have some choices to make that will affect the rest of you and or your company’s future. If stability, capabilities and reliability of the software you use combined with a corporate management philosophy that includes user needs and input along with a clear and concise roadmap for the future is important to you, I think you should have a look at SE. I have been well served and you will be to.

Let me add something here. I don’t get freebies or software or anything from Se that any other user does not get. I pay my way entirely out of my own pocket in every area. This blog happened primarily because most of the time I truly enjoy working with SE. Yeah thats right nothing is perfect. And I believe there should be a greater user community out there for SE so I am willing to spend some time helping it along. I recommend and support SE because it has proven itself to me to be tremendously beneficial to what I do for a living.

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COFES 2012 Epic Cloud Failure, Dassault and Autodesk Buyers Beware!

Posted on April 16, 2012 | 7 comments

http://www.deelip.com/?p=7485#comments

As far as I can tell COFES is supposed to be as cutting edge as you can get. Numerous companies touting hi-tech and latest tech shining a big light on the inevitable way of the future. And if you attend you can see it all unfold in front of you today!!

This little blooper to me is a perfect demonstration of why the cloud will not be useful for full-blown CAD in my lifetime. There are just to many variables way beyond the control of those who wish to force us there for any rational person who cares about reliability, security and cost containment to ever seriously consider it.

So we have this fine hotel that has experience doing this exact same convention for 13 years and the wi-fi/internet whatever that is required to function online capably. Problem is that in real life the bean counters say what you can do and it is a game of cat and mouse. What can we do to provide the barest essentials without making to many users mad the bean counters ask. So the spreadsheets come out and they analyse the numbers to find the sweet spot that costs them the least and makes them the most. They are in business after all to show the greatest profit for the least expenditure.

Enter into this cost efficient world the anomaly of high bandwidth users who are a small minority of all users but demand a huge percentage of your resources. What you get is COFES 2012.

Above and beyond all the outright lying about security and cost effectiveness cloud proponents wax so eloquently about there is another whole category that will prevent any but the foolish from going there. Just how to these fraudulent cloud perpetrators propose to control this infrastructure they do not own to guarantee all these wonderful things they promise?

The answer is that they don’t. In the world of CAD we have two behemoths in the forms of Autodesk and Dassault who are determined to force users to a cloud subscription model. Lets just cut right through the PR fluff and look at it for what it is. Unbridled lust for never-ending cash flow from subscribers who have to pay to play. No regard for numerous unsolvable technical problems accompanies the media blitz of glowing self-produced endorsements. It is the CPA MBA wet dream fantasy world of getting never ending gobs of your cash without being held accountable for results.

Is this not true? No where in all these PR blitzes has there ever been a clear spelling out of obligations and guarantees between users and producers of this cloud stuff. OK all you cloud lovers, here once again is a chance to trot out your copies of the EULAS for us to see. Go for it, I dare you.

I read occasionally of CAD users who want to go to the cloud. I do not personally know any and all the ones I do know have no desire to be there. The only reason I can see for this continued barrage of deceit is that these cloud companies believe the idea that if you lie enough people will begin to believe it. There is truth to this and we have Obama as president as evidence this philosophy can work.

This cloud for CAD being touted primarily by Autodesk and Dassault for the CAD world is just as realistic as say Ford or Chrysler stating that by buying their product you are guaranteed good roads, no traffic jams or detours, and never any pesky wrecks. AND you won’t need any mechanics anymore either because it runs without you having to work on it.

There is only one big difference between the CAD and Auto company analogy above. ALL the roads in the CAD world will be toll roads.

UPDATE

The beauty of writing about cloud failures is the plethora of ammunition these cloud companies unwillingly supply through their sloppy implementations and reliance on an infrastructure that can’t be secure. Oh, and have I mentioned that they don’t truly securely c0ntrol any aspect of the data stream once it has left their own in house equipment. Inhouse cloud provider infrastructure security assumes that there is no compromise from within and we all know THAT can’t happen.

Posted on World Cad Access 4-11-12 and here for your amusement. http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2012/04/cloud-no-longer-secure.html

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Another Brick Falls out of the ZW3D Wall

Posted on April 3, 2012 | 1 comment

Dan Micsa who is the creative genius behind the best part of CAM in ZW3D has left the company and is now the Chief Scientist for ModuleWorks. He was responsible for the “Quick Mill” milling programs in ZW and was indeed from what I hear the only one who could capably work on his creation at VX now ZW3D.

The loss of a key part of the staff that helped to create the program has to hurt and I wonder who will be next.

Good luck Dan on your new endeavor and for what it is worth there is no doubt in my mind you made the right move.

 

 

 

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The Old Way and The New Way

Posted on April 3, 2012 | 2 comments

Reading a reply on the SE BBS today and the topic was spindle selection for mills. One of the replies had this link. http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/04/05/an-automatic-machine-tool/

It boggles my mind when I think of just how quickly we are advancing in technology. My Dad used to be plant manager for a Huck Fasteners plant in Carson CA. He would tell me stories of the state of technology then and I would think of today.

I will be ordering a Haas VF4 this week and I look at this mill and contrast it to the old state of the art “cnc” Cincinnati mill shown in the above article. The vendor ads for  1950’s state of the art controls and how crude it all looks. I remember reading of the computer, such as it was in the Apollo Missions and how today’s CELL PHONES for crying out loud have far more power than they did.

It brings me towards thinking of software naturally and where it was and now is. Mid 80’s and you can’t do a whole lot and your software came with a specialty built workstation and could easily cost $150,000.00 for the privilege of doing what it allowed.

I never owned a PC until 2000. At that time I was happy as a fabricator offering services primarily to food service. But I was missing too much work because a lot of it required machining. So I decided to get a kneemill and a lathe. Well one thing leads to another and I quickly realized there was no substitute for cnc and I still was missing out on way to much work. So in 2002 I get my used Haas VF3 and go to work. I quickly run up on another problem though and that is how do I feed my mill? Surfcam was my machining software at the time because in 2002.5 they were offering a free two axis milling program and it was a good way to get started. I subsequently got their 2.5 axis software and became a customer.

But the biggest headache still existed and that was finding out as a small job shop I had to also be able to create geometry. In some ways I am lucky I came to the game this late as it was clear to me that between 2D and 3D geometry  creation 3D was the way to go. I completely dodged the 2D mindset and software and have only used 2D for shop drawings. VX CADCAM  (now ZW3D) was bought in 2003 and became my principle CAD program until I bought SE just before the release of ST1. I still use the CAM side today although this will not last through this year for reasons most of my readers are aware of.

Have you ever noticed how once you start down this path one thing leads to another and it never seems to have an end?

So now we have covered this circuitous path to get to my main thought today. I see Direct Editing and principally Synchronous Technology as more than an incremental step up. I find myself taking my parts to be edited for CAM back out of ZW3d and doing the edits in SE and bringing the part back in to ZW. I just look at how cumbersome the way I used to have to work was and I am amazed. It has gotten so bad that sometimes I have to sit there and try to remember how I used to work in a straight history based program. I invariably quickly realize the folly of doing this and take the part back to SE. Now I know ZW3D claims to have direct editing but it is so useless that I consider ZW3D to be a straight history based modeler. ST has been for this shop a paradigm changer not quite as big as going from a knee mill to a cnc VMC  but certainly the second largest impactor technology has brought to me.

My second largest subset of part files come from Solid Works. Now ZW3D is like all history based modelers such as SW and a pain in the rear to import parts from or into without something like direct editing to work on them with. I tell my Solid Works using buddies I can work on their  files faster than they can. Seeing is believing and you can always see the wheels spinning when you show them what they are missing

As an aside here. I have to laugh at myself sometimes. The tendency I have to be involved in the problems of the day tend to be reflected in the blog post of the day if I write one. So I am working on getting everything inline for the new mill and my problem of the day becomes the post of the day. Obviously integrated CADCAM has been a topic lately. It bears some clarification here and I want no doubt in anyones mind that I believe in SE. I am a huge fan of SE and see the validity of my CAD choice here every day I use it. I however have an immediate need for CAM that can’t wait much longer and so some of my posts reflect my frustration about this problem. I know within a year there will be a good CAM solution for SE and the legacy that SE has to fix will  be and is being fixed. However I just get really impatient over the pace big companies seem to work at so bear with me here.

Siemens is not the only one for sure and I think of one of my biggest customers. These rush design gotta have it yesterday projects with them sometimes result in work right away. Other times it just means that we now have four more face to face meetings with revisions each time and then they are going to talk it to death each month in planning meetings in between and beyond the four face to face meetings. I have stuff that drags on for a year and a half sometimes and still does not get awarded to me. Big companies just operate in mysterious ways to me and it is invariably frustrating to me to have to deal with this.

Whats even worse is now that I think about it I first expressed serious interest in a Haas mill to the sales rep a year ago. Wonder how impatient he has become?

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Welcome “On The Edge”, a new Solid Edge blog

Posted on April 3, 2012 | 2 comments

I would like to take a minute to welcome Matt Lombard’s new blog   http://ontheedge.dezignstuff.com/  to the world of Solid Edge. I have enjoyed reading his commentary on Solid Works, and other things of course, for a few years now. Matt makes a living off of software and so he not only brings the viewpoint of a user he also brings the insight that accompanies someone who is self-employed.

I find in many cases that someone who just punches a clock somewhere has a dramatically different viewpoint than someone who has to make sure things work right and well. The self-employed guy is different because he see’s every aspect of the work from sales to get new clients to how does my software work to making sure the product is satisfactory.

I enjoy Matt’s comments on software in his “Dezignstuff” blog and the comments on other aspects of the CADCAM world that impinges upon what we users do and have to deal with. There is commonality for users no matter which software you use as we all have similar problems in many ways and for sure similar goals. It is why I am interested in programs I do not actually use. It never hurts to see what others are up to.

Now finally I get to see Matt delve into Solid Edge for real and I look forward to his point of view.

Go on over and have a look and give him a welcome!

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Solidworks and HSM Works and why not HSM Edge

Posted on March 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

I am quite frankly in the middle of a dilemma here. With the ordering of a new mill scheduled for next week the idea of integrated CAM is taking center stage in my planing for the future. Along with the new equipment I am also going to get new software for the purposes of setting up a better way of doing things until I retire. I do not want bandaids here on any aspect of my operation by the end of this year. I consider lack of integrated CAM to be a big bandaid problem.

Solidworks has been very successfull in integrations and I would appreciate some feedback from you guys who specifically use HSM Works and Solid works. My purpose here is not to consider SW for my purchase but rather to hopefully demonstrate to SE the value of integration. I believe it when I am told SE is planning integration for on down the road but the pace of the effort is just entirely to slow for me and so I want to hurry it along if at all possible.

A friend of mine nearby with a machine shop recieves primarily SW files from his customers. He was using One CNC. I know when he first got it I went to have a look and it just cut way to much air for me. Over time Jeff had gouging problems which One CNC finally admited they had not solved. So his quest for CAM began again. HSM Works appeared to be a logical candidate.

Now that he has some time under his belt here he is in love with this combination. Now he is not a CAD guy and is pretty oblivious to CAD problems as all he does is work with imported SW files and does not really create much of anything. He thinks that this was the best thing he ever did for himself with software and can’t say enough about how well this works for him.

So actual SW/HSM users, is this your conclusion to?  Any other integrated CAM with SW programs are of interest to so please comment on these to if you are actually using them. What are the benefits to you and how much grief a year does it save you and the upsides and downsides to your particular situation. What types of parts are you cutting etc. You know what another user needs to know to make a choice here so fill me in.

Also considering the nature of the potential problems coming down the road for you SW users and V6 how important would it be for your replacement CAD program to have in place integrated manufacturing solutions along with the design solutions?

Just as an aside here. I am getting very weary of dealing with sales reps who will lie and cajole you at the drop of a hat to make a sale so I am turning to you fellow users for a bit of honesty. I know you appreciate the time and money that goes into these choices far better than the companies that write software seem to.

It really saddens me to say this about my favorite CAD program which is SE but the idea that manufacturing parts happens too and costs a whole lot more money to do than design seems not to be of vital importance.  It is acknowledged as a problem to be solved and I believe they are working on it. But where the rubber hits the road we are still waiting with nary a peep about anything other than stated intent to encourage us.

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