Tag Archives: CAMWorks for SolidWorks

Geometric’s Failure to Deliver The Goods With CW4SE and CAMWorks For SW

Posted on June 15, 2015 | Leave a comment

Checking into the Geometric CAMWorks website today in the hopes that they might just get on the ball for ST8 before my maintenance ran out this month has made me reconsider my statement to never post on these people again. Their True Constant Stepover tool path is worthwhile and I have paid for it although have not had much use of it since Geometric does not get yearly update permissions out very well. It is worth wading through all the myriad inefficiencies to use this on occasion and I had hopes perhaps they might get an update out for ST8 so I go there and check. While there one should never miss the opportunity to see what is going on with the SW guys. The only active part of Geometric’s forums as no SE CW4SE user has posted for five and a half months now.

What would we have to talk about anyway? Who wants to pick up where we left off and go through another round of asking why once again a new version of SE has no hook to CAMWorks and when will it be out. These Geometric people are so inept. I think about Inventor HSM Pro and how, somehow they manage to get two products to work together. Even when HSM was not a part of Autodesk the annual release for new versions of SW were within two weeks of the official SW roll out if my memory serves me well. When I got my copy of Inventor Pro HSM the CAD and CAM worked right from the first second the program was launched. The correct way to do things with planning and forethought. Autodesk takes integration seriously whereas the union of SE and Geometric’s CW4SE resides in never never land.

It is hard to tell who is most to blame between Siemens controlled SE and Geometric but in truth blame does not matter. What matters to customers are results they can work with and who knows when working reality will happen with CW4SE ST8. I tend to place the bulk of the burden of guilt on Geometric because they have a long history of problems that don’t go away. The SE guys in Huntsville are very competent in general except for second floor cubicle training guy and I can’t picture them being a major part of the problem. I can however picture the Siemens/UGS dictats creating budgetary problems and choking off resources available to SE developers for integration with outside products. I have absolutely no doubt SE would be wildly popular and very profitable for Siemens except for the cabal of small minded UGS veterans who have managed to insinuate themselves into a position of complete control over the Solid Edge product. These people have let personal emnity for SE trump overall corporate profitability and if SE died tomorrow they would be popping corks at the victory party. If SE died they might even offer an upgrade discount for unwashed plebian SE users to a real product like NX and we too could become royalty because they are such nice caring individuals. One could only hope somebody in Siemens above Chuck Grindstaff would become aware of this petty agenda driven erosion of Siemens software profit potential and stop this nonsense. This is something outside of Huntsville’s control and is a separate issue above and beyond competency. The biggest single problem SE has is it’s owners disdain and contempt. I can also picture the management and developers of Geometric who have a poor track record of diligence regarding timely and competent well working CAM products as being the major portion of the problems because they let serious defects linger for years.

The Tech Data Base or TDB and Feature Recognition are the keys to Geometric’s motto of “Program Smarter Machine Faster”. If these two things do not work their claims of efficiency break down into tedious time wasters that will eat your bottom line alive. Unless you are familiar with the product you have no idea how much effort is required to get this TDB set up to work and to try to keep it working. It can easily be a month of full time effort and then you can lose all or major parts of this TDB each year when upgrade time arrives. I am going to let a current post from the closed Geometric CAMWorks forum finish this post up. What real users are experiencing again and still and apparently to be never ending say’s it all.

I will tell you that these TDB problems go all the way back to when Geometric first bought out ProCam. They have yet to resolve serious problems that plague the program each year. What a reward for their loyal and in some cases long time long suffering user base from this $$$$ each year CAM program. Geometric and their partner VAR’s go out and basically lie about the wonders of CAM automation and the ease thereof. If they actually sat down and step by step took potential customers through all the hoops they were going to have to jump through to make the program work like the canned demos sales such as they are would drop through the floor.

So let us read what the SW guys have to say.

“Database question”
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This topic contains 6 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by Ted Ellis 2 days, 22 hours ago.
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• June 10, 2015 at 4:37 AM #37895 Reply

MIke Bober
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I have been having database issues with every new install of Camworks the last 3 times i did them, but i had stopped updated mid 2014. Is it possible to make a copy of just my tool libraries from my current database, and copy just that tool list into a brand new Camworks database after upgrading to newest version of Camworks 2015? I have quite a large custom library of tools and it could take me months just to manually copy all those individually into a new database.
June 10, 2015 at 8:13 AM #37897 Reply

Jon Kirby
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Why can’t you just import your old DB into your new one?
June 10, 2015 at 8:20 AM #37899 Reply

MIke Bober
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The last 3 times i imported my saved DB to a new version of Camworks i lost many of my custom machining set-ups and have had many issues with things not working like they used to. Its almost like my settings arent all overwriting the original DB files, and some are. Its so screwed up now that its getting to the point of being useless except for the tool list itself. Almost like something in it is corrupt or something. But i have a humongous tool list of custom tools that has been working ok with no issues.
o This reply was modified 3 days, 20 hours ago by MIke Bober.
June 10, 2015 at 1:58 PM #37907 Reply

PPC Engineering
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I feel your pain. I don’t think I have ever upgraded CWx without some type of database corruption. The last time I upgraded I actually had my VAR watching in an online meeting while we worked together to import the techdb. I had a copy saved INSIDE of a zipped file as a backup in case things went wrong and WITH THE VAR HELPING ME do the upgrade we watched as CWx corrupted the original techdb AND the one within the zipped file. I don’t know a ton about computers but I know that isn’t supposed to happen!
If it were me, I would see if your VAR can take your original techdb and import it into the new techdb then send it back to you and just overwrite the fresh one in the appropriate folder. Just make sure you have safe copies of your original because CWx will find a way to destroy it if it can…
June 11, 2015 at 6:23 AM #37909 Reply

MIke Bober
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I am thinking maybe that the new database everytime lately has new features and additions that just dont work with the way i have things set up for the type of machining we do here, and they will not work together through the import of the old database. Really sucks that ive been using and modifying my database almost weekly for 5 years now and it gets worse instead of better the past year and a half or so everytime i update the software. Makes me not want to update the software sometimes, but i have no choice because of customers sending files made with newer versions of Solidworks than im using and it wont allow me to open them.
June 11, 2015 at 6:44 AM #37911 Reply

Ted Ellis
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We had issues with the lathe module when we imported our custom settings.
It wouldn’t see our tools even though the mapping was correct.
We would have to ‘refresh’ the path to each custom tool for it to work.
I sent our TechDb to Go Engineer and they fixed it and sent it back to us.
It took them a few weeks, but they did a nice job getting the lathe issue corrected.
I would just write up exactly what the problems are.
That can take some doing, but is critical so they clearly understand exactly what isn’t importing correctly and whatever other problems occur.
They should be able to fix it for you, just be patient and keep tabs on their progress.
June 11, 2015 at 6:46 AM #37913 Reply

Ted Ellis
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Topics Created: 11
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Having support do an online session is also very helpful, sometimes they can spot things working with you online that might be missed in your email version. They are good at writing up issues for their teams.
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Solid Edge ST8 Is RTM and CW4SE Is Kaput Again

Posted on June 9, 2015 | Leave a comment

Much to my delight and amazement I received my license file on Saturday. Of course out here in cloud never never land the 4+GB file takes me about a day to finish but there it was finally and off I went. I have not had much time to play with it but walking through it this release seems to me to be primarily about fine tuning capabilities that are already there. Now I know there is some hoopla about working with Microsoft Surface pro’s and from what I gather this is considered perhaps the biggest “new” deal this year. I don’t plan on owning bitty screens and compromised power in the field so this is of absolutely no interest to me. Even at the age of 61 somehow I can still subject myself to the extreme burden of being a pack mule with 6 or 7 pounds of gear in tow. It’s tough to carry all that weight and I amaze myself with my never ending endurance. I get about seven hours in the field with my 15″ workstation laptop and can do anything I want. The extra battery is proof against no electricity but in practical experience it is rare that I can’t plug in if I wish.

I know the theory is about how convenient it may be for the uber small eviscerated CPU guys to show stuff to prospective clients but my customers and I somehow manage to get along. And quite frankly there are a lot of us who young and old have to wear glasses and don’t need the convenience of eyestrain compounding future problems.

But anyway on to ST8. I am in two worlds right now and the design is almost completely in SE and machining is totally Inventor Pro HSM. My old data from years of work is in SE and Inventor of all the major CAD programs has elected not to have a direct import of SE file types so bringing it all over would be a lot of work. I only work in Synchronous though and I intend to work VIA direct editing for the rest of my career. And of course as a half job shop and half design build entity there has to be a good way to deal with imported geometry. The very best way I know is with SE in hand. I hope for the day Inventor will step up to the plate in this area but until then I stay where work is most efficient. As of Inventor 2016 I still can’t import geometry and do basic things like assign driving and notational dimensions on imports from my parts. It is completely true with SE that what I bring in I can work on as though it were a native part with little loss of intelligence and that primarily in hole data.

My initial impression is that there are a lot of little things that are going to improve work flow based upon what I have read, been told and see in person with my cursory examination to date. SE is for this shop the very best MCAD program available. I very rarely get into complex surfacing and like the majority of shops around here will never see a fru-fru coffee pot or car tail light housing. So complex surfacing is something I have never and probably will never need to know and I am the wrong guy to give input on this. I will say though that I checked out “T-Slines” the other day in a video and the power there reminded me of some of the stuff I have seen in NX. Of course “T-Splines” along with other strategic buys is part and parcel of forward looking management at Autodesk in assembling in Inventor what will in time be the best mid range MCAD suite out there. I went to the app store touted by Siemens SE and just shook my head. SE guys don’t go to Autodesk or SW’s app sites unless you want a bad case of app program envy.

Autodesk is a forward looking company and T-Splines is now a part of Inventor. I have to say the pace of improvement with Inventor is greater than SE right now and looks to be for some time. I don’t expect to have these import problems in the somewhat near future and I figure Autodesk is working overtime to improve Inventor. You see the owner of Inventor wants things right and better whereas Siemens would kind of like the Red Headed step child to just go away. As Scott said buy the company. I trust the direction of Autodesk and I do not trust Siemens one bit to consider my future unless I buy into NX.

I will probably not do anything in the area of how to’s or videos for SE ST8. I will tell you my opinion and that is it as I refuse to spend time helping to promote such an inept group as Siemens and sadly they are the overlords of SE.

Well as you all know I have left CAMWorks for Solid Edge because of a boat load of problems. The 2015 SP1 release was I think their best yet since the involvement with SE. Sadly by this point in time I had moved on to the far greater simplicities and efficiencies found in Inventor HSM. Note to software companies. You make your customer mad enough to look elsewhere you better fear what they may find. So anyway after Geometric gets forced (Never forget they were forced into this. They had no concerns about product quality until a big public stink was made and it is their long time corporate management philosophy towards customers as far as I can tell.) into getting their act somewhat together I get the thrill of about a month and a half’s potential use out of it. Had trouble getting ST8 to work initially and one of the problems was— you guessed it—CW4SE.

CW4SE time to fail again

We could not get SE to run until this little jewel popped up and once the license server for CW4SE was shut down SE worked just fine. I am SHOCKED and sitting here in stunned disbelief that this could happen. Perhaps in a few months Geometric will get up and running for ST8 but I wont be there. Inventor Pro HSM 2016 in comparison worked from day one as an integrated program. My maintenance is up at the end of June and this headache is history. These will be my last comments about this most aggravating Geometric CW4SE saga and my cost per part cut with wasted time and the expense of the program and the inherent inefficiencies here far exceeded any rational performance expectations any business owner I know would have. I have no idea how bad sales for CW4SE are but Geometric deserves to sleep in the bed they have made for themselves. Check out the frenetic most recent post CW4SE user activity at Geometrics closed forum.

HaHa program smarter machine faster

The SW side of things there is pretty bleak too considering that this was the first integrated CAM program for SW and I don’t know what their market size is. I can tell you that HSM has been a topic of discussion over there too with users who vent extreme frustration over problems that never stop looking elsewhere. Geometric is pretty tone deaf and some of these fed up SW guys are begging them to get their act together or lose them. A situation very familiar to me.

Buy SE ST8 for the efficiencies it can bring to your in-house and imported parts and family of parts designs. I think even big SW and Inventor shops should have one seat as a secret weapon back there somewhere. Avoid SE because Siemens does not care if market share in seats will ever get you work or trained individuals to hire. Buy Autodesk for the future and for todays economic savings as inventor Pro HSM is by far the best deal out there right now and you won’t have to train anyone with a ready and available labor market. For the same $1,500.00 I will have to send Siemens to renew SE only I get Inventor PRO HSM everything and I like my money in MY pocket. HSM just works and CW4SE just fails again and again and again.

Sadly SE ST8 will be a release of a tremendously capable CAD program smothered by ex UGS people at Siemens and destined once again to be the best software you won’t hear much about. Sure do miss you Karsten and Don and the hope and plans and excitement that lived here for the future with you. I have yet to hear anything from the mouth of Miller whats-his-face who is supposed to be in charge and it has been over a half-year now. No plans no direction no user interaction AT ALL! I find the attitude of Siemens/UGS management towards SE to be the single largest reason to never buy into SE and it just should not be this way.

6-14-15 Update.
I had mentioned above that I would not be discussing CW4SE anymore. I went to Geometric’s site today in the faint hopes that they would have an update for ST8 out. You see I would still like to use their constant step over tool path at times but I am not willing to stay a year behind with SE to do so. Much to my amusement/disgust I read about current SW CAMWorks user problems with the Tech Data Base which is in combination with Feature Recognition the only differentiator for CAMWorks. This being the whole basis for their grossly exaggerated motto of “Program Smarter Machine Faster”. So I retract my never talk about them again statement as I will be talking about them again at least once more.

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New Direction

Posted on May 27, 2015 | 4 comments

Obviously there has been a shift in my loyalties in the last couple of years. With Solid Edge it has been a ride from ST1 until now with very few regrets regarding the software. Direct editing is what I came here for and while the first two versions were really rough the rest has been nothing but a validation of how correct this choice was. My principal complaint about SE has always been Siemens and UGS not caring if we make it or not.

What I mean by that is except for a period of time under Newbury and Cooper Siemens/UGS could care less whether SE’s market share grew or not. The ramifications to buyers ARE serious. From not having work from others who demand you be on the same page as in same software. Then not having a resource of institutions to train potential employees which of course leads to a lack of trained people. The lack of trained people stems from having few companies that use the program and since the job boards have few SE listings students do not ask their prospective educators for SE training. They look to SW and Autodesk courses because the job boards say they can find work with that training. So you as an employer have to find someone and then train them and then suffer under the other Siemens imposed handicaps to. Most just go on by and purchase SW and Autodesk whatever because these programs come equipped with better market/work presence and trained at no cost to you people to hire.

With the CAMWorks for Solid Edge debacle in combination with Siemens running off people who wanted the same things I did, namely for SE to thrive and acquire market share, has finally worn out my desire to even promote SE beyond saying it is the best mid range MCAD program out there. No more time with videos or how to’s or examples. Really I quit this some time back as I refuse to help those who have hamstrung my favorite CAD program. The Geometric CW4SE forum has not had a post in four months now and it is another sign of user fatigue over Siemens imposed problems. Yes that is right. I do believe all things go back to Siemens and the UGS people who have poisoned the well there for SE. It is a pervasive and under current management irreversible problem. Geometric has a lousy philosophy towards users but if Siemens had really cared about SE and CW4SE customers they would have kicked Geometric and kept kicking to make things right and in a timely fashion. Siemens/UGS has clout but zero desire to help SE in any way.

So I have changed the blog title to more accurately reflect my own personal direction. SE is and will be my principle modeler for some time I think. My maintenance will take me just over into ST8 and I have no intention at this time of ever renewing past this. I don’t believe in rewarding bad management that does not consider my needs with my money. Even the pace of improvements is dropping fast with SE. The very idea that they are touting as a major new ST8 deal the sparsely populated App store boggles my mind. You have to be a dofuss Siemens marketing dude grasping at straws and trying to turn a pigs ear into a silk purse to even put something like this out. last year it was all those partner products until someone went there and mentioned publicly how few there were and most certainly way short of claimed numbers. Of course marketing with Siemens is run by idiots so no surprise there but don’t you know if great things were happening they would at least talk about it? They aren’t so they can’t.

This takes me to Autodesk and what I see going on there and it is the only exciting place out there for future oriented people who are looking for a software company that believes in them too and wants them as partners and not chattel. Even as clunky as Inventor is compared to SE I fully intend to cut Siemens off and keep Autodesk. Siemens has malign intent towards SE and it’s users and Autodesk wants their users to succeed. Even to the point of donating free software to start-ups and trusting you to become a customer when you get past that point. And you bet most will and Siemens will never see any of these as customers. I had use of Surfcam 2 axis machining for free in 2002 and as a result when they finally did go cash only I bought from them. Autodesk has run free stuff far longer than anyone out there I have ever heard of. They believe in what they have enough to let you determine just how good they are for free. Who else is doing this at the same level? Who else is planting seeds for the future along with fertilizer and nurturing. Who else is confident enough in what they are doing to earn customers and their loyalties to do this?

Inventor Pro HSM everything both programs at $10,000.00 and $1,500.00 per year after. And I can tell you that if you are someone with a ton of money wrapped up into a program you have grown to hate they will probably take that into consideration when you negotiate for a final cost. Ask, all they can do is say no and you just might be really surprised. SE and CW4SE on the other hand for the same equivalent stuff would be well in access of $20,000.00 and well north of $4,000.00 each year after. Inventor HSM is right now producing about one update a week you can download if you wish. CW4SE had garbage until about seven MONTHS after the release of ST7 and have had one update they were forced into doing. These HSM guys want you to have tools in hands and work hard to get them there. Yes CW4SE has some capabilities beyond HSM right now. But the darned thing is so cumbersome to use and has been so buggy that why would you bother to try unless you were trapped there? The few shortcomings I see in HSM I happen to know they are aware of but more importantly they do intend to fix them and they don’t have to be forced to do so. I would crawl across nails before I would rely on CW4SE as my main CAM program ever again in the current state it is in.

Once again we see intent with Autodesk in HSM. Buy great tools and gain complete control over them and then use them. I don’t say much about Delcam products because I just don’t know much about them other than by reputation and peer comments. Bass bought them to though and they are part of the forward-looking plans. Carl Bass is the only big wheel out there that can program and cut on five axis manufacturing equipment and he gets the maker things from A to Z. The other guys talk about it but he does it and the programs he is assembling into the Autodesk fold prove his intent and hands on knowledge. Outside of NX CAM and maybe some CATIA stuff Autodesk now controls best high-end CAM with Delcam and it was no accident that HSM was bought before them. HSM is going to be vastly improved over the next year or so and really hard to beat for general CAM usage.

Why in the world would I not want to be here? So you see in the new header and name the beginning of a progression away from a combination of deliberately smothered great CAD and a duplicitously managed over priced CAM program made by people who don’t care if your days are ruined with SE and CW4SE to a company that is doing it all right. Yes there are problems with the programs but at this time I completely believe they will fix the problems. There is a lot on their plate right now and I know that. But they have not lied or give evasive excuses/answers to me and I have run across no-show stoppers yet. They just get in there and solve the issues in order of importance one after the other.

Perhaps some day this will be an Inventor Pro HSM blog only. For now though with my workaday feet in two worlds my blogging shoes will be to.

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Fine Tune Your HSM Adaptive Clearing Results

Posted on May 26, 2015 | Leave a comment

The whole rationale behind high-speed machining is to remove more cubic inches of material per hour and per endmill or insert. I still watch in awe over what can be done and remembering how it used to be when you had to slow down everything so you would not kill your end mill as you buried it in a step over or corner. There are various flavors of high-speed machining programs out there but they all have one thing in common. Vibration control is essential.

One of the first steps is to have the correct tool holding and while heat shrink is supposed to be the best most of us will never know. It is to darned expensive to set up for and most of us will never need that last tenth accuracy in our life times nor do we have the metrology lab required for this accuracy. The second best and much more affordable option is hydraulic tool holders. Personally I use Schunk Tendo hydraulic holders and right now they are running around $250.00 from my favorite supplier Technology Sales in Chattanooga TN for the .75″ CAT40 holder. The sleeves will run another $80.00 each. The sleeves come in slotted for TSC that will allow for six “sprays” of coolant to be directed straight down into the cut for tooling that does not have coolant holes and unslotted that will allow you to use through tool TSC. The Schunks are very concentric (.003mm claimed runout at 2.5″ on their web site) and also have never in my experience suffered from cutter pullout and I sure can’t say the same for collets and set screw clamp holders which HAVE ruined some of my days. So the first step is to have reliable and capable tool holding. Concentric pullout proof tool holding is essential to your tool life and cut quality in high-speed machining. If you do not take care of this first you can just ignore the rest of this article since your maximum potential will never be achieved unless all the puzzle pieces are put in place.

Have you ever started a cut and found yourself scrambling for the feeds and speeds over ride? Sure you have and we all know the tooth jarring squeal of impending end mill doom. As far as I know there are only two methods to fight this. One is to just fiddle at the controls while cutting until we find the place that sounds and looks good and generally that is where we stay. I dare say this is how most places do it. The second way is to embark on a rational method to fine tuning your specific mill and cutter combination for best results.

Autodesk has a spindle vibration analysis tool that goes on the spindle and analyses during the cut and for all that cut paths conditions. It also costs over 10g. There is another way that any of us can do though and all it takes is chunks of metal and some time. The following link will take you to a PDF well worth downloading and the two screen captures are from this.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCYQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fm.plm.automation.siemens.com%2Fen_us%2FImages%2FMMS-HSM-Oct05-17050hires_tcm1224-4241.pdf&ei=1RdiVcD_BoeyggT8_4DQAw&usg=AFQjCNHsI9TfE-5ynJtSg-M4bXol2gazlQ&bvm=bv.93990622,d.eXY (Yes I know the link is long but looking at link renaming tools always seemed to end up with junk so I just posted the real one. Any worthwhile suggestions and I am all ears as long as it is not a click for profit deal.) Here are two screen captures from the PDF that will show you a graphic example of why one should do this.

Block with cut paths

feeds and speeds breakdown

Every mill has a unique vibration characteristic based upon the actual machine variances and it’s environment like the floor stability. My Haas VF4 will be a bit different from yours and the same is true for those whiz-bang 300,000.00 dollar jobs too some people are so proud of. As a matter of fact UGS did this study and they deal in high dollar production and high dollar equipment where getting that last little bit of quality and speed makes a big difference. Speaking of Modern Machine Shop by the way here is a link http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/chatter-control-for-the-rest-of-us that will take you to a page with other vibration control articles.

Do yourself and your shop a favor and have a look at this idea. It is in most cases the last piece of the puzzle to be implemented and in many cases is never even considered.

Humorous update. I was looking for Helical brand end mills on EBay and these turned up. From the Buonshopping EBAY purveyor of fine goods in Hong Kong we have these fine tools. I went to see just what the end mill feedbacks had to say and much to my amusement the first few (I looked no further) had gobs of smiley faces and bad spelling har-de-har-har.

Hong Kong helical end mill

Buonshopping purveyor of fine goods

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Inventor Pro HSM Development Updates Available

Posted on May 22, 2015 | Leave a comment

One of the things I envied for years when I was on the outside looking in was the speed with which HSM has made updates available. Besides the year updates there are two other types. The latest official version is the one that has been vetted by means I do not know of right now for QA. The other is developmental which comes with the admonishment “not for production use”. In practical experience though if there is something you really need in one of these all it means is to go slow the first few times and make sure it works right for you would be my opinion. There are some turning things I want to try so I intend to grab this one.

Inventor Pro HSM update

While there were things that did not get into the official 2015 release it is HSM’s intention to as quick as possible work on getting the new turning and the Hole Wizard done ASAP. Turning by the way is supposed to be a complete revamp which would be good since turning has been a big weak spot in an otherwise powerful program. My guess would be that these will first appear here in the development side so early adopters keep an eye out. The philosophy that HSM has had for some time now is to have regular updates figuring that it was more beneficial to the customer to get working tools in hand rather than making us wait for an annual or semi-annual update that made a big old impressive looking list but also delayed significantly the improvements put into users hands.

HSMWorks for example had at least seven official versions for 2014 so if this is a typical average every other month will see new tools or bug fixes in your hands. There have also been thirty-seven developmental releases for HSMWorks for 2015 so far so there have been many things made available to users if they need them before the aggregate official versions get out. The pace of the official versions for HSMWorks has slowed down a bit for 2015 but these guys have had a ton of stuff on their plates with the integration with Autodesk so I can understand. Considering the world of CAMWorks which I came from the update rate here is amazing and quite frankly the idea that we users are important to HSM is a big breath of fresh air. It is HSM’s intent that some time this year the SW and Inventor and online programs will achieve near parity in features and be handled the same from then on.

By the way http://cam.autodesk.com/inventor-hsm-experimental/ will take you to the developmental I-HSM page where there are links to all the other flavors to. It is worthwhile to have a look and see what people who want you to succeed think is the right way to bring new features and bug fixes quickly to you. It is one of the things that influenced me when I was shopping some years back and still does.

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Solid Edge and the Night of Sharp Knives

Posted on May 20, 2015 | 4 comments

This author catches flack sometimes from various places and one of the ones lately has been from some fans of Solid Edge. Of course I am in that number but I am not blind to what the plans just might be for SE as demonstrated by the actions taken and not the few words spoken by Siemens SE and the Siemens Corp people. I get an email today reminding me of the October SE University and following the bread crumbs tells me why for the first time this premier annual SE event is to be well after the typical SE rollout time frame. It is because the whole thing is to be buried as a footnote into the world of Siemens PLM World and pretty much ignored from there. Why do I say this? Follow me as I use Siemens own pressers and words and I ask you to tell me how I am wrong in my conclusions. Then if you think I am wrong present evidence as compelling as what I bring forth here today regarding the future for SE to support your opinion. Please, it would be nice to be wrong here but where is any evidence to support the bright future idea.

http://blog.industrysoftware.automation.siemens.com/blog/2015/05/18/solid-edge-st8-design-without-boundaries/ will take you to an interesting release where it is announced that SE ST8 will be released at—- PLM World in Dallas this week. I had not seen this before and the only announcement I remember seeing regarding SE ST8 which I had assumed would be rolled out at the premier SE event has been announced instead for this PLM World. So now I begin to understand why SEU 2015 was so delayed. There is history here and I sat there in the middle of it and what I will tell you is from personal experience with witnesses who also saw this.

The year is 2009 and I ran all the SE sessions with the dreaded blue survey forms in hand for the PLM World in Nashville that year. It was what directly got me involved with SE as an active advocate for change when much to my amazement there were only 37 actual SE users there in attendance out of over 50,000 SE users by a Joe Greco estimate. I’ve been told there were over 500 in the annual Summit as it was called back in Cincinnati in 2005. But some wise people somewhere in the corporate UGS food chain decided that they needed to save money and looked for unnecessary things they could afford to cut out. So they killed the Summits and rolled it into PLM World where SE users DID NOT want to be. It was made clear to them they were not important and by 2009 the results were irrefutable. Karsten Newbury and Don Cooper and I along with a few others decided that it was time to restore a specific annual event for SE users and thus was born the Solid Edge Universities. It was decided that yes an SE user community was worth while and the Universities would be the kick start to a hopefully vibrant user community. There was a lot of fighting over all this and the PLM World people were quite upset. Now these PLM World people are really tight with the NX/UGS side of things and they never did really care about SE. Talking with one of the PLM wheels after the 2009 PLM World he interviewed me to get my opinion on what had happened. I told him that SE needed to have its own separate meeting. You see SE guys are polo shirt casual work a day types and the PLM World people are fussy “professionals” with a bit of look down their nose attitudes for any other than their NX etal peers. We did not belong there and the numbers proved it. Tom Both’s response was well hey, if we do something for you then we will have to do it for all the others who whine too. The concern for user opinions was quite touching and the war against the PLM World way was born that day.

SEU 2012 had a surprise visit from PLM World just after the University was over. Karsten and I were walking to the room that the user group wrap up was to be held in after the last sessions were over. I remember Karsten saying to me that a PLM World guy was going to be there and he asked me not to say a word no matter what this guy did. So we get started and the PLM guy, John something or other and no I am not going to bother to research his last name again, says he is there to find out how to get us back under PLM World auspices. Now poor John is such a perfect example of the problem and no clue about it either. He was the only person in the room including the leadership from SE who had a suit and tie on. It is how they dress you know and also how they think. Two separate worlds. I even asked him as I walked with him after the meeting if he had noticed he was the only one in the room with a suit and tie on. He laughed and said yes but was, he was in marketing now I kid you not, oblivious to there being any significance there. I find this attitude bleeds over in other areas too and it is why the UGS NX guys try to smother SE and never understand that these programs appeal and sell to two different markets. They perceive it as a threat to NX.

But anyway back to the meeting. I am listening to poor old John pontificate a bit and sitting there in silence fulminating. Finally Matt Johnston had enough and he spoke up rather bluntly about all of the junk the PLM World guy was saying and Mr. PLM John says they would form a committee to study what the problems are. I kid you not. The true Siemens answer for anything I guess. Form a committee and have lots and lots of meetings and decide nothing in them but bury the problem so you don’t have to deal with it. In any case Karsten knew what I thought and he wanted to see what the other users thought. Karsten you see cared and I will never forget him looking time and time again at the actual users to gauge their reactions to PLM John. It was quite clear that SE users wanted no part of what PLM John had to offer and John was being given enough rope to hang himself by. But you see the good guys that used to run SE are now gone and we are back to the loving hands of PLM World and UGS/Siemens.

SE ST8 to be rolled out at an event that has not one thing for SE I can find in the agenda. http://www.plmworld.org/d/do/5396 is the link to the full agenda and I have looked twice for SE anything. Please help me to find what I may have missed and point out to me the nice little SE things. So exactly what are they rolling out and to whom if it is not on the agenda anyway? Why even bother with this stupidity is my question and do they think SE users appreciate this type of patronizing attitude of out right neglect after some thrilling empty words announcement? No sad to say the thought processes never got that far. Siemens UGS PLM World just simply does not care.

http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/solid-edge/st8/index.shtml will take you to the ST8 new stuff. Go there and please tell me how exciting you find it. I can only hope they have a lot more held back. I see incremental improvements on things already there which in aggregate can be quite beneficial but nothing new unless the idea of porting to a Surface Pro is exciting to you. Personally speaking I find a real 15″ Workstation Laptop at a minimum to be worthwhile in spite of the larger size since I want to be able to fully work when I get to my destination. But I know little bitty screens and crippled computing capabilities excite some so there you go.

Question for you dear readers. Is there a discernible pattern of behavior here and what does this foretell for the future of SE if this current attitude is to become permanent Siemens policy? I want to hear from any SE user regarding what you see and hear this week at PLM World. If indeed there are any SE attendees to begin with. RIP.

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CAMWorks for Solid Edge 2015 SP1 with a bit of Inventor HSM 2016 for comparison

Posted on May 11, 2015 | Leave a comment

Made some time to work with CW4SE 2015 SP1 this weekend and other than some inherent inefficiencies with work flow it went without problems. If you are a current CW4SE user you really need to get this one. I went through a couple of parts and the post today will cover this and do some comparisons with Inventor HSM. The guys at Geometric did some pretty worthwhile work this time and hopefully they will treat the product like this in the future.

Two typical parts were used for this post and as of today no assemblies have been tried. One is 3D and the other is 2D.

The libraries and the Access driven TDB worked without problems. I did not try to edit anything in the included libraries nor add anything to them. This has been troublesome in the past. In any case there still are no 3 or 5 flute endmills in there and all drills are still 118 degree. For example there are 685 Bull nose mill entries and not one for 3 and 5 fluters. For me this would mean starting from scratch for bull nose mills since about all I use now are 3 and 5 flutes except for ball mills. But the links all worked problem free.

There are still no posts out of the box. The short list has big admonitions against use of the few there. If you are looking at CW4SE get commitments in writing regarding any needed posts before you buy and make working to YOUR satisfaction posts part of the deal.

post list

posts not for use

There is still no post output editor unless you want to spend extra cash to get one. I believe Predator Editor is in there but it is more $$ so consider this when negotiating to. This is the basic output screen.
cw4se nc code output screen

And this is code which you will have to edit in notepad or an equivalent.
CW4SE output sample

In comparison Inventor HSM (I-HSM) and HSMWorks have included an editor with every version along with gobs of posts for free. Here is some output code and note also the inclusion of tools used right at the start. A quick glance at the tool list and the tool carousel can save real grief and the real editor is quite useful.
HSM code output.

The first part CAM plan was this.
basic die part

CAM products represent two basic classes of thought here where automation or feature recognition are concerned. CW4SE uses feature recognition and automatic feature recognition. My default method of using CW4SE however is to pick all surfaces as the feature and then input tool paths one by one on it and use contains or avoids from there for specific features. I have never and will never take the huge amount of time required to set up the TDB so AFR in CW4SE will work according to the 80/20 rule Geometric espouses as ideal. This rule means basically that you have taken the time to set up all this to such a degree that CW4SE will automagically work roughly 80% of the time. When the demo jock from CW4SE or CAMWorks for SW comes to your door though make sure he shows you step by step a complete part set up on your part including generating the TDB entries and strategies relevant to making something “automatic”. It demos well but real life is far more complicated. I find the vast majority of CAM users do not want to have to do this.

The other paradigm is to use Templates as programs like ZW3D and HSM do. I have just started using templates with HSM and since the “hole wizard” is not complete yet my understanding is that templates will work well with only 3D shapes right now. The part I did this morning was the above one and taking a similar part with five oval holes instead of eight round ones worked by merely using the template and regenerating the tool path. I did not have to pick anything or any feature to create a complete adaptive tool path for the top side. Still a lot of work to do here though to be able to save a template for a complete part. With the wide variance of parts I cut the speed of initial tool path generation is the biggest deal for me and while AFR and templates are interesting I still prefer to just knock the tool path out quick and be done.

I used Volumill for this part CAM plan and this is an interesting comparison. CW4SE and Volumill worked fine on this part and I have no complaints about this understanding of course the extra time it takes to generate tool paths in CW4SE over I-HSM. One thing CW4SE does have that HSM does not is their true Constant Step-over tool path. This is the single best finishing tool path I have ever used for complex 3D cavities on food extrusion dies yielding a true constant X and Y step-over irregardless of angle or slope. This is the only thing I will be using CW4SE for in the future by the way. It is that good. In many cases HSM Adaptive or Volumill with small enough intermediary passes will give you a useable finished surface for most parts. On straight side walls you might need a finish pass and the same is true for flat surfaces but for 3D work on most parts intermediary passes will finish up fine.

Time is a consideration though and here it gets interesting. This part was as close time wise all things being equal between Volumill and HSM Adaptive as any I have seen yet. Still though HSM Adaptive cut roughly 20% quicker.

Volumill
cw4se volumill 8 hole

and HSM Adaptive

hsm setup

Now the HSM setup sheet shows 400 IPM but that is rapids no cutting speed.
HSM no cut feed rate max

hsm s & f

CW4SE
CW4SE S & F

Both use the same end mill and a .01 step up intermediary pass and .112 step-over but yet HSM Adaptive cuts faster. In the past half-year I have yet to find a single part where Volumill time wise does a better job. Getting into true end mill life and true cubic inch material removal over the expected life of the cutter between these two is something I can’t give concise data on. But I can say that I do know the cost of my end mills and the reduction in time to cut and make an accurate judgement on benefits to me. The end mills seem to last about the same number of pieces where I have cut exact parts to compare by and HSM does so quicker so guess who wins in my shop.

The second part was a basic 2D part.

cw4se corner round crap

It is a mystery to me why 2D can be so tough compared to 3D. I spent little time on the above 3D part but trying to get this “simple” part right in CW4SE was problematical. I spent about a half an hour trying to find the magic combination to get two sides only to cut in corner round. I never did find the actual command for this but there was mention of corner round in one of the feature picking prompts. But then you got all four and not the two ones required. Where is the corner round or chamfer in the strategies?

wheres the corner round

Good question and I never did find it. There is probably a simple answer here but this is my point. Stuff is hidden and finding them is time-consuming and not straight forward. Dirt simple in HSM and since I knew I was not going to cut this kind of path in CW4SE I just quit looking. You go look and have fun without me. Tell me what you found and I will add it here.

Geometric has done a lot of work with this release and if they were to continue to do this where usability is concerned they could be a market beater some day. It would require them two have two basic programs though in order to cater to most shops I know. One could be the existing complex and hard to use/set up TDB AFR way. The other could be a simple easy to use without the AFR TDB baggage way like HSM does and this would be where most of the seats would be sold. I have discussed this with them in the past and HSM is a topic of discussion for them. So far however they are adamant about the AFR TDB way and kind of stuck in it since this is their principle differentiator from other CAM programs. It would require years of serious effort and a complete rethinking of who they want to target for two ways to evolve. As it stands right now they have to be somewhat deceptive with prospective clients and get them in there with cool demos and not real life efficiencies. I do not see this philosophy change happening quite frankly until their backs are really against the wall. By that time of course people like HSM are marching on with improvements so it gets harder and harder to play catch up.

The integration with SE is the single biggest thing Geometric has going for it with this SE user. Second for me is the Constant Stepover tool path. But I find myself using HSM with imported parts because I just like simple that works predictably, quickly and reliably and with good tool paths. Geometric is on the right path and really fixed a lot of things this time. Problem is that there are just so many more to go for CW4SE to operate like I want my CAM program to be that I doubt it will ever happen. Plus it is far more expensive to buy and hugely more expensive each year after and I refuse to spend more money hoping they make something I will really like some day. If you are already there with CW4SE though and intend to stay this latest update will put a smile on your face. The best by far of any version I have yet used on some parts typical to this shop.

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Autodesk Inventor Pro HSM 2016 On Track For Frequent Updates

Posted on April 14, 2015 | 2 comments

One of the things that has intrigued me with HSMWorks is the idea that if an update to a problem was done why not just get it into user hands? Why wait for some point in time where a “major” update would be done and roll the accumulated fixes in at that time? Perhaps for most companies it is just convenient to have a few updates per year. But HSM took the idea that customers have value a bit more seriously and they have for years maintained a regular update regimen.

Take 2015 for instance. Solid Works 2015 was released on 9-9-14 and on 10-9-14 HSMWorks 2015 was released. The update history since then will be a bit of a shock to many CAM customers. Regarding the poor souls waiting for a working version of CAMWorks for Solid Edge ST7 for the last 33 weeks it will be quite sobering to see how a real CAM company works. The CAMWorks people might want to have a look too as there are still major problems with their 2015 release if the forum comments are anything to go by.

Check this out. 35 Development Version updates to HSMWorks 2015 to date. Go there and count them yourself and read some of the update release notes. http://cam.autodesk.com/download/hsmworks/ This same capability is going to occur with I-HSM although probably not with quite the same degree of regularity for now. The idea that your CAM vendor actually cares ought to be a part of the equation when you make your choice to buy. Or when as in my case I leave CAMWorks for Solid Edge in utter disgust looking for a CAM author that gives a flip if I succeed and make money expeditiously. In my observation over the last three plus years the release/update philosophy at HSM has been consistent both before and after the Autodesk buyout. I don’t think it was by serendipitous whim HSM was acquired first by Carl Bass to initiate his manufacturing ecosystem steam roller. I think he saw value and made it his before it had any chance of going away.

On a side note here. If you have followed me for some time you know my negative opinion of the cloud for CAM or CAD. It is impossible for me and tons of others due to all that lovely infrastructure these cloud wonders can’t control. (We wont talk about cloud insecurity today hehe.) My downloads get about 80 KBS at best and the 2016 Inventor Pro HSM download will take at least 14 hours for me. Autodesk has a download updater thingy that installs with your program that really excited me at one time. I was seeing 300 to 400+ KBS and that was so huge I could not believe my eyes. I thought wow, maybe Autodesk has solved some major throughput problems here. But the sad reality soon ended my brief reconsideration of cloud throughput when I discovered that somehow the download would break and break and break. After starting over numerous times I just gave up trying for anything of significant size.

Can you imagine the insanity for many of us that cloud backups of complete systems or large files represent? I get a big kick out of the wonderful sounding cloud bliss places like Carbonite extol with complete easy simple secure and FAST backups. At 130+GB useage on my C drive with my capacity of 80 KBS it would take 451 hours to do a system image presuming uploads were as “fast” as downloads. Sorry guys, not ready for prime time and probably won’t be in the next ten years or so if ever. Yes the internet will get faster but even faster than that will be the increased data amounts the average person will generate every year.

Behind every cloud though there is a ray of sunshine and it shines brightly on your autonomous permanent seat of software on your very own desktop PC and your $120 one time purchase 5GB backup hard drive. Buy two and have your very own redundancy just like the big guys do and finish your system backups in less than an hour. I can find something to do while my backup runs for an hour but 451 hours seems a tad excessive to me to have to find other things to do. Know what I mean Vern 🙂

In any case though the 2016 goodies are finally here and you can’t go wrong checking it out if you are not already on board. I will also say this. If you are fleeing a bad situation with a CAM product that has failed you and you can prove this you might be surprised at what you could work out with HSM towards getting a program that DOES work. Talk to an HSM VAR and see what might be possible. It has been my personal experience that these people want you as customers and also want you to be a successful customer.

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Inventor HSM 2016 Is Open For Business!

Posted on April 13, 2015 | Leave a comment

HEY folks http://camforum.autodesk.com/index.php?topic=6757.0 will take you to a page for information on Inventor HSM 2016 at the Autodesk CAM forums.

There are links in the post that will take you to information and download links. Of particular interest is the “beta” section that SW users have had for some time now will be there for Inventor users to. Go check it all out. As time permits I will post on what I find of interest.

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33 Weeks After ST7 Release And Still NO Viable CAMWorks for Solid Edge

Posted on April 13, 2015 | 8 comments

Today I am going to talk more about the Siemens SE side of the equation than the Geometric side. First though the count.

37 Weeks since the last communication from Geometric to SE CW4SE users about CW4SE for ST7.
33 Weeks since ST7 was release to customers.
14 Weeks since the last CW4SE user post at the Geometric CW4SE user forums.

Can you offhand think of a single example of such woeful neglect of a buying customer user base? I mean it. Think about your experiences over the years with any software vendor and can you think of another debacle equal to this one besides perhaps an outright bankruptcy of a software company or Dassault Cloud Vaporware? Refund our money Geometric. You can’t fix this mess and your inability to do so I think has been pretty well established. Give us our money back and just GO AWAY. What are you going to do this time? Give us another extension of maintenance so we can have another year or half-year of waiting for nothing? I have really enjoyed my half-year extension which is now four months up and still nothing to use in sight. In reality this means as an SE user I would still have to be using ST6 and LAST years cam program to have a semblance of working software.

The other side of the equation is of course Siemens Solid Edge. I don’t refer to Solid Edge much as an independent entity anymore as those days died when Karsten left. Thus the Siemens Solid Edge moniker. Look at the contrast with the following two screen captures. First we have one from a real person who cared.

ScreenHunter_06 Apr. 13 08.50

Now we have one from somebody whom I am not certain exists as a real functioning head of Solid Edge/Siemens Mainstream Engineering Software.

ScreenHunter_07 Apr. 13 08.52

I want you to pay particular attention to the rate of comments posts per month and the stark contrast between one who cared and one who quite frankly can best be called MIA.

Now read this. http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Forum/Welcome-from-the-new-guy/m-p/296259#U296259

Can I be blunt here? This is the most mindless empty bunch of verbage, referring to what was supposed to be coming from John Millers mouth that is, it has been my misfortune to have read for some time. It is just as bad as the first introductory post he supposedly made some time back.

I remember sitting down with a couple of marketing people while we had just a couple of days under our belts with CW4SE during beta training before CW4SE was released. These marketing people were silly enough to actually ask us how much improvement we were going to gain by using CW4SE over our current CAM programs. My response was I have no way of knowing when I have not cut a single part with it and I forbid you to use my name in association touting the wonders of a program I have yet to cut a part in. The stuff that John Miller is supposed to be saying reminds me of the empty Marketing garbage they wanted me to sign off on. I mean it literally. They were presenting me with comments from their fertile imagination and all I was to do was sign off on the use of my name. They were not there for real feedback or commentary although that is what they ended up with. Subsequently they never used anything from my “interview”.

John Miller I am beginning to think has yet to actually speak to the SE user community. I base this on the marketing and publicity babble-speak nonsense it has been my misfortune to see from empty heads in the past who are however paid to produce something. So the end result is an eruption of industry accepted phrases and empty words that fill a spot that we in the intended audience are some how no doubt going to get excited or pacified over. That is how I regard the commentary that has so far populated Millers “posts”. The direct contrast between what Karsten Newbury used to say and the clear interest and genuine interaction is diametrically opposed to the empty junk coming from the automaton P&R generated script purportedly coming from Miller. Marketing and Publicity has I figure been given orders to fill an empty spot is my guess with something because perhaps the idea that Solid Edge has been cast adrift with a place holder manager is gaining traction. But even here the paucity of comments and the vapid empty words used reveals the lack of interest Siemens has for SE.

Mr Big has yet to reply to my questions about CW4SE. I don’t think “he” will and marketing for darned sure will not touch that one with a fifty foot pole. I am sadly coming to the conclusion that the CW4SE users are being cast adrift and are of no consequence anymore to the decision makers at Siemens. BUYER BEWARE! Buy Solid Edge because it is the best midrange MCAD program with the best direct editing capabilities out there. Do not ever consider SE for any other function though as there will probably never be a robust family of integrated aps and pursuit of market share which would gain you additional work potential. If you do work in-house design SE can’t be beat. I use it all the time and can’t imagine working without it. Even if you are an SW or Inventor house you still would benefit from at least one seat of SE just for editing imported parts and best in class sheet metal. But you are not going to work with other SE using companies in all likelihood and you probably will not have a resource of trained users unless it is you who creates them. I have yet to work with another company that uses SE here in southern middle Tennessee, just north of Huntsville by the way, and quite frankly I am tired of hearing surprise about my choice of CAD programs from others. Comments like you are the only one I know of using it.

Solid Edge, the best software you’ve never heard of from Siemens the company that does not care if you ever hear of it. Co-sponsored by CAM prize fighter Geometric that could not punch it’s way out of a wet paper bag.

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