Tag Archives: camworks

CW4SE CAMWorks for Solid Edge 2014 Update, Begining The TDB Jungle Journey

Posted on February 13, 2014 | 2 comments

For those of you using CW4SE the SP1 update is finally out today and available in the customer downloads section of CAMWorks website. MP 4 for SE was released earlier this month and it had the fix needed to get assemblies up and running inside CW4SE so we are in the final days of the wait for assemblies capabilities in CW4SE. I expect within a couple of weeks this last remaining hurdle of integration will be jumped for those of you waiting for this. Busy downloading the update now and if any glitches show up I will comment. Otherwise assume all is well.

In another note. I have decided that the correct way to begin using the Tech Data Base is to go into it and into the mill tools section for instance and do the following. I use three flute and five flute tools almost exclusively and four fluters for ball end mills. There are many MANY hundreds of silly tools in there and all come checked for use and so you are doomed to things you never use showing up all the time automatically when you generate your operation plan. Look at the following silly stuff Geometric leaves in there for instance.
TDB tools

The second column is labeled “ON”. Just start from the top and keep going and uncheck pretty much everything. I saved a few ball mills and insert cutters but nothing else since this shop never uses all this junk. Add your own tools of preference at this time. I think out of perhaps a couple thousand tools some programmer dude who never cut parts put in there I saved maybe 25 or so. But now at least the TDB is going to start looking more closely at tools I intend to use. This is not the complete answer here but it is a start to fixing this bad tool library mess Geometric ships. While you are in there you might as well change the degree of angle for all the drill bits to. I use nothing but 135 degree split points and sadly the Geometric drill data base is exclusively 118 degree. So go through and fix this to.

I make a separate folder labeled “ENGLISH DAVE BASIC” for these updates and save it to “C:\CAMWorksForSolidEdgeData\CAMWorks2014x64ForSolidEdge” in the “LANG” folder. When you are done doing this open up the TDB and click the Maintenance tab and link to your new folder but leave the old “ENGLISH” folder there and don’t mess with it. Edit the new folder you have created by the way and not the old one which is a sort of backup of last resort.

I would also save save a copy of your new file edits independently somewhere else and keep it handy. I have read stories about version and SP updates that dump your hard work. To prevent this an independent copy can always be used and linked so there is no excuse for this to ever be more than an inconvenience at worst.

Anyone with some tips and tricks on how to tame this TDB mess I will gladly post it here if you are willing to send it in. Supposedly Geometric is going to fix these libraries but I don’t think it is very important to them so be resigned to at least a year or more before anything of significance shows up here. Otherwise you get to read what I come up with for better or worse.

By the way, the internal code is now the same for both SE and SW flavors so the only difference is how it interfaces with the two programs. ALL the CAMWorks stuff for both like the TDB are identical and so I welcome and encourage SolidWorks users who use CAMWorks and feel they have something to contribute to do so.

Micheal Buchli’s “Camworks Handbook 2014” is now out and I recommend it for any user of CAMWorks. Get the PDF version online and it has like 80 minutes of imbedded video and it is the best $50.00 you will spend for training anywhere. The Tutorial section for CAMWorks is also quite good so between the two of these save some money and fire your VAR when he shows up with those $$$$$$$$ classes. Now if your VAR offers $$ classes that might be another story but I don’t know any VAR’s that do $$ training. And of course make YouTube your friend.

I want to remind SE users that there is a video creating and uploading to YouTube tool right in SE and even though Siemens officialdom has forgot it you should not. Use this tool and help your peers walk through the ins and outs of your program of choice.

YouTube link

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The Autodesk Juggernaut Starts Rolling

Posted on February 12, 2014 | 4 comments

One of the things that started my sojourn into blogging was interest in CAD and CAM in general. This of course means interest in topics besides my CAD CAM flavors of personal choice and I have always watched what others are doing. The cloud has in many ways been tied for equal interest with software as it may have such a profound effect upon how we do business in the future for those who foolishly go there. The other side of the coin which was alarming to me and the single largest reason I have had for posting bad things about Autodesk and Dassault’s Solid Works was the idea that they were going to try to force the cloud upon users whether they wanted it or not. I believe that if this paradigm were to be proven successful that other companies would probably follow this path to if vendor and cloud lock in with forced subscription only models for these two companies proves to be successful. Other than that the software from these two is what it is and if they dump this cloud garbage I would not have a whole lot to say about them because at that time they would not represent a potential threat to my future anymore.

Today just for the heck of it I went to this Autodesk site. http://cam.autodesk.com/pricing

Autodesk Juggernaut

Now I have to admit that this is the first real evidence I have found that the cloud is not inevitable here contrary to the statements made by Carl Bass. It would serve him well I think to clarify just what really is going to happen here. But at least at this current time cloud and not cloud are available. But what most impressed me were the we want you as customers prices. And per comments from Autodesk regarding a question from Al Dean the other day that Delcams PowerShape had technology in it including Direct Editing that would be incorporated into future versions of Inventor.

Autodesk is gearing up here for conquest. Look at the prices for just HSMWorks on this web page and it is the same as the prices will be for Inventor HSM. Except that HSMWorks will be + your full price seat of Solid Works and I would imagine two maintenance payments per year. If Autodesk really does a good job of integrating direct editing and other needed capabilities into Inventor and they make it the equal of Solid Edge or Solid Works and maintain this pricing it will be hands down the value leader in mid range MCAD and CAM combos.

I like HSMWorks. The Tech data base in Camworks IF you spent the time to implement all the stuff needed to make it work will get you quick toolpaths on most of your parts. As a matter of fact it is the best out there for Feature recognition but set up is a fairly involved process. Volumill is the very best HSM strategy out there right now and HSMWorks does not license it so plus another one for CAMWorks. HSMWorks does not offer these two things but I have to say that for those shops that just want good tool paths quick to learn and not cumbersome to set up HSMWorks is pretty darned good. They also have their own version of HSM which is capable. A friend of mine close by has one of those pressure cooker job shops and he swears by it and does a lot of different stuff each day. To be honest HSMWorks was my first choice for integration with SE back when I was asked to look at CAM programs for possible integration with SE.

In this day and time with each dollar counting more and more I believe that if Autodesk keeps permanent seats available this combination of Inventor HSM is going to be tough to beat as value leader. Now I presume that they intend to make Inventor into being more capable. But even if they don’t it is still way cheap and for that kind of money many will make the choice to just deal with a cam program that is not fully integrated with their CAD as long as Inventor handles imported parts well. Retail on SE and CW4SE up to 3 axis + Volumill 3 axis + turning is now right at $18,000.00 or $19,000.00 and there is not too much to be had in the deal zone off of that. My maintenance on this duo is going to be right at $4,000.00 per year and I bet yours will be to if you buy this. I don’t know what a full five axis and mill turn seat would cost from CW4SE but I suspect it would crowd you real close to $20,000.00 just like Mastercam would and probably be $4,000.00 per year on maintenance and with the additional maintenance from SE would add up to $5,500.00 or more per year. I also have no way of judging the relative capabilities of HSM versus CW4SE when you get into 4 and 5 axis and mill turn because I have never cut parts doing this. The labels however say these two can do it and I can say that after a trial of HSMWorks I did about two years ago if the capabilities of the rest of HSM are as good as the three axis stuff was it is more than capable.

That rumbling sound from down the road and just over the hill where you can’t quite see it yet just might be the Autodesk Jugernaught heading straight for you.

UPDATE 2-14
I have been told that the maintenance for the inventor and HSMWorks combo is 11 or 12% per year. This gets back to the idea of compelling potential customers to consider you and to keeping customers as customers with reasonable prices. Money is money and as a small business man my bottom line is more important to me than Siemens or Geometrics. So we have for new customers with SE and CW4SE to get what I have will be $18,000.00 plus $4,000.00 per year and a cam program I am getting increasingly irritated with. I don’t think I like this TDB and I would rather have templates if I were to be interested in automation at all. I am hoping someone shows me how to work the way I want to work with CW4SE and I will be all smiles soon. Then there is the $9,990.00 price above for cad and cam and only say $1,200.00 per year and I get a cam program that does things the way I want it to. I have to admit to sitting here and thinking real hard about where my future money will go because the payback with this HSM stuff is three years based on my recurring costs with SE CW4SE.Then I would have annual costs of one third what I will have if I continue the SE CW4SE path I am on. It is my money and it does have to be earned if you want some of it. I have a lot of thoughts wandering around in my mind right now that I never thought I would have three months ago. If Autodesk promises to maintain desktop permanent seats indefinitely and I feel I can trust them to do so I may just buy into it. Truthfully CAM is the most important part of my business in some ways because I may only design something once but make thousands of them afterwards. It is just as important for my CAM to work right as my CAD because I am a manufacturer and the recurring costs are a part of my profit picture. I have to admit that when my must pay maintenance jumped over 4G recently it was a wake up call that began to ask the question do you really want to be here.

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HEY Three Stooges of Siemens Failed marketing and Publicity, Check This Out!!

Posted on February 7, 2014 | 6 comments

An article today I am reading today http://den-media.com/portal/wts/cgmcgbbe8sibbsyAqcksD86ckBkrAwa has jelled some thoughts in my mind. While I despise the idea that Carl Bass and Autodesk want to establish a feudal overlord cloud kingdom I am really coming to admire their plan for doing so. If they reconsider this cloud only paradigm they will probably be the powerhouse that will take the SolidWorks throne in the future and not Solid Edge. I hate to say this but this referenced article has me thinking hard here about the possibility for the first time that Solid Edge might not be the heir.

It has been a struggle for SE for years under UGS and now Siemens with gosh awful marketing and publicity. Thanks Larry, Curly and Moe and I hope you know the grace period you have been given for three years with Dassault screw-ups now has to be shared with Autodesk. Because of your corporate paralysis and your inability to do anything worthwhile in a major way for YEARS I truly believe that you have allowed a hungry, organized and totally capable rival to in a very short time threaten to take the place that should have been yours. And Carl Bass won’t have much trouble whipping you sorry individuals most thoroughly when it comes to appealing to new customers in spite of the cloud he proposes. I sit here today just fuming and it is hard to describe the total and complete contempt I feel for a company that is so ossified and preserves such incompetents and failed policies with such vigor. I really wish someone would buy Solid edge out from Siemens hands at this point in time if this is all the opportunity you three stooges ever care to give them. This brilliant software deserves much more than you can deliver.

Here is why I grow increasingly mad with this situation and it is not just because of a couple of ads. It is because I see a well conceived plan being made and executed and absolutely no coherent plan from Siemens to counteract it. Frightful thoughts keep creeping in to my mind that the three stooges may not even discern this is happening or worse even care.

First off MCAD is just design stuff and if you do not have a method to build these designs by you are incomplete. This has been one of the problems with SE forever and the closest they have ever come to software that can’t go away from them is NX Cam Express. OK look I am thrilled that CAMWorks is now integrated with SE and I have bought into it. But deep down inside with all the acquisitions going on this last year and a half I wonder when Autodesk will buy this too and then I will be in the same boat as HSMWorks and Delcam users. I believe that Autodesk has totally bought into this end to end idea and further I think Carl Bass himself designs and builds and he gets the connection. And unlike Siemens Stooges he cares and he has a plan.

This is what I see. If I were Carl and just twiddling my thumbs one day idly dreaming of beating my rivals, I bet he does that you know, I might decide to take SolidWorks place in the market. It is pretty clear that Solid Edge is a good product but Siemens has no clue on aggressively marketing what they have. And you know when you go toe to toe with Siemens, a company that has a hard time getting past meetings to plan on meetings and retains numerous people who specialize in ways to say no, action will win the day. So what to do,,,, Hmmmmmm,,, I know, lets create a cohesive complete rival ecosystem and clean everyone’s clock.

First we will buy HSMWorks. It is a powerful program that has good tool paths, is really quick and easy to learn and allows you to generate toolpaths the way most shops I know prefer to do so with a great logical intuitive GUI. And it is attached to our arch rival. Now that you have bought this no one can take it from you and you can plan however you want. You have a job shop with gobs of different parts each day and don’t want to fool around with complicated Tech Data Bases this is it. In the mean time you continue the 2.5 axis FREE machining package that now is entering into its second+ year and also port it over to inventor where you do the same. I know this level of functionality in Surfcam for instance is about $4,500.00. They aren’t giving away cheap crummy junk here.And you treat the old SW users right and with respect and defuse all the bad vibes the takeover caused. My friends shop was given two years free maintenance for HSMWorks to defray the cost of him having to get a full seat of SW AND they gave him a really serious discount on a second seat just for the cost of maintenance basically. You are now creating loyalty from HSM users and giving them exposure to your 3D offerings via things like Fusion 360. No this is not a capable midrange MCAD program but it gets you in their minds eyes and you are going to improve it.

Now lets tackle the thorny problem of 3D design. I know Inventor is not what will draw many to my company so what do I do now? OK, Delcam has a pretty good modeller out there and a really stellar suite of manufacturing products. As a matter of fact when it comes down to strictly making things I think Delcam has everyone beat for variety of strategies from machine probing to 5axis dental implants to you name it. If it has to do with measuring, verifying or various machining strategies overall they can’t be beat. Single things out there like Volumill are better than Delcams HSM stuff but overall no one beats them. I think I will buy them to. You know what says Carl, I really like this ownership thing and the control it brings me. Hmmm, Should I buy Geometric to? Hey Mabel, set a meeting up for me with Mr Big at Geometric for next month. I need to get the ball rolling there to.

So now Carl has all the pieces needed to assemble a cohesive and complete manufacturing from design cradle to build out grave ecosystem that will appeal to huge numbers of people over time above and beyond the ones he has purchased. And they are treating those who have been bought out right from users to VAR’s as far as I can see so in this case so far the buyout company looks to be on track not to run old customers off. And he solves the stigma of only having Inventor to offer to MCAD prospects. I see all these buyouts and for the first time I am beginning to reconsider the idea that they mean to force everyone to the cloud. I think there might be a line of demarcation here and they will end up offering most to autonomous and cloud customers because way to much proprietary manufacturing information goes along with the Delcam purchases and many of them will not go to the cloud. I don’t think Carl intends to just throw them out. But if he does then the Autodesk plan of conquest will be short-lived and they wont do it and SE wins then in spite of gross Siemens marketing and PR ineptitude..

And talk about planing for the future! I admire the way they have slipped their product into the Superbowl in such a clever fashion where a huge audience will in many cases for perhaps the first time see what design and analysis software is. Kids in college, parents writing checks for kids in college, tech schools wanting to teach programs people have been inspired to learn. Junior on the sofa in grade school watching this with his Dad will in many cases remember this years later. You know darned well things like this have affected every one of us. And what name will they remember? Why Autodesk of course. I think they are slick to buy time ahead of time in anticipation of the SWW2014 debacle for things like Josh Mings post. I know I have not seen most of what Autodesk is doing so I have no idea how pervasive what they are doing is. I am going to bet that when they get the 3D ball rolling in a big way they are not going to give out such chintzy inducements to get new customers away from SW and SE as has been the norm at SW and SE for some time now. I still can’t figure out how I could buy Solid Edge Classic for basically $3,000.00 five years ago and no one has been able to since that promotion ran out. It’s like there is a life time limit of once for SE to be really hungry for SW users. Is SE going to profit from this since I will probably be with them for 15 or 20 years unless they get stupid? Autodesk will understand this and eat everyone’s lunch at SE and SW. I have to think this football thing is a sign of things to come. Carl has a plan and he is visionary unlike Bernard Charles who is delusionary and Siemens Stooges pervasive incompetence. He is not afraid to step out and do it. Siemens has studies and navel gazing and circular logic sessions. Talk about making more money you Siemens big wheels, get rid of this albatross of unproductive incessant meetings and those that create them so they don’t have to actually produce something or heaven forbid make a decision and I bet your bottom line would be noticeably better.

The big tech school on the north side of Nashville teaches SW, Autocad and Featurecam and they have a lot of students. I bet they may be teaching Powershape and or Inventor soon to but nope, not SE. Losers.

The other serious thing here for SE and SW in particular with their track record of vaporware is the speed with which Autodesk seems to be creating viable test beds that actually work and they don’t hide behind a shroud of secrecy when they do it. They have had a history I’ve been told of buying things and taking bits out to use in poor integrations and letting old programs die. I am not so sure this is going to happen this time.

Carl Bass, I despise this cloud thing you espouse and I think you lie about the clouds capabilities but I truly admire someone with a coherent plan who steps up to the bat. I watch with admiration as you step by step make plans to conquer your rivals in ways they seem to be in able to respond to.

For the first time I am seriously considering the idea that the stupid side of Siemens is going to be what defeats Siemens and this infuriates me.

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If You Can’t Innovate Obfuscate

Posted on January 13, 2014 | 4 comments

What prompted this post was reading today about conjecture over Windows 9. My eyes kind of rolled back in my head at the title but I had a look anyway before they rolled back to far. Part of the article was conjecture on what MS would have to offer to get people to continue to spend gobs of cash with them. What would they have to offer? Indeed considering the state of affairs in most companies what is there to offer that buyers would VOLUNTARILY spend cash on.

I am not a code writer nor am I an expert OS tweeker. So what appears to me is what appears to the vast majority of all users I would imagine. And what appears to me is innovation stagnation. Other than this execrable ribbon bar monitor real estate hog what has MS really done for some time now? And the same for über cash cow MS Office. Tweaking around the edges it seems to me without anything really profound or new. So what you do in these cases is change the wrapper and call it new. Drum roll for the ribbon bar which I still see no reason for and which was a PITA in the CAD field to all I spoke to.So we have to relearn how to do the same things all over again for no purpose. Think about it, did this ribbon bar paradigm bring anything to you except the consumption of your time to learn new so MS could claim innovation? And WIN 8 with all those cool new hand gestures. I have had a Dell M6700 for a while now with the touch screen and quite frankly with the option to work however it pleases me I hardly ever use gestures. But then I am working with mine and not playing or showing friends how cool it is to make things zip around without a mouse. So we have the New Big Deal for Win 8, an environment designed for touch screens. The unparalleled thrill of having a 24″ smart phone and how cool is that? Now this window dressing did not bring anything of value to most users so MS had to relent and change things so you could work the way you used to. I think that is conclusive proof that the innovation ceiling has been reached doing things the same old way. Change for the sake of change again. I for one am not going to adopt Win 8. I know Win 7 is not “optimized” for touch screens but I see enough of the functionality to know this is not for me.

Now a word about tech Neanderthals. This is about the time you cutting edge super wonders chime in with how I am a foot-dragging Neanderthal who just does not appreciate new. I dare say that out of my own pocket in the last couple of years I have spent far more than most of you on innovation and buying into more productive ways of doing things both mechanically and in software. I search and look for innovations and better ways and I am an early adopter when it makes sense to do so. The very first time I saw direct editing in SE before ST1 was released was enough to convince me this was powerful in so many ways that I could not afford to do without it. It took until ST3 before what I saw became user-friendly reality but this was new for the sake of users and not new for the sake of new. It was not new window dressing meant to gull the unknowing or naive into coughing up the dough. Now I know that the idea of direct editing has been around for some time but how to make it work really well and with power and precision and wrap it up into a user-friendly package? Plus it required a certain amount of compute capabilities which were not here until recently, or so I have been told. I looked at Ironcad years before I had a look at SE ST. Ahead of its time but it just never clicked with me like the very first time I saw ST. I assume there are serious limitations with it and that is why it has never gained much market share. The idea was sure interesting though. I think Direct Editing is the last powerful thing that can be done for CAD as we know it and it was the last unused innovation arrow that will hit the bullseye for CAD. Until there is a new paradigm for how shapes and data are created and at the age of 60 I don’t expect to see it.

SW has been moribund for years now and the parent company has run into both technical and philosophical social media oriented barricades they may not be able to surmount. SW World 2014 End of Life convention is going to be full of smoke and mirrors. Don’t look at the man behind the curtain look over here. Look at our shiny new old CGM kernel stuff we have for you because we can’t do it with parasolids. So lets put an, ahem, “CAD Ribbon Bar” or “The power of 3DExperience Social Engineering Group Think Power of Cloud Compute” monikers on our stuff and call it cool to hide the fact we have run out of ideas and or talent.

Adobe has not brought about much that I can see that is remarkably better than what has been out there from them for years. Incremental improvements. New improvements of mediocre import they make available to cloud buyers only is all I see.

Autodesk has not been much of an innovator either but they have been a prolific buyer of talent and market share and they do have a plan. And it is the same plan as all the above companies have and it is the same common thread that ties them all together and brings me to my main premise for this post.

When you run out of things people will voluntarily buy, when you run out of true innovations and you can no longer sell yourself on provable new benefits and features to your buying market what is left? Why the Cloud of course. It is the last refuge of those who see that their existing customers could do quite well with permanent licenses and not send you another dime for years and years because what they already have bought does everything they need. The closest thing to a new way out there in CAD right now is SE. It is not coincidence that they are the only major CAD company that is not pushing you into the cloud. They are going to draw customers from the existing pretty much static sized CAD customer market from their competitors because they are the only ones doing really good stuff right now.

Autodesk is my favorite set of bald-faced liars. They stand there and look you in the eye and babble about unlimited compute power when you are using cad and cam programs that have core limits. And yes they do on the cloud too so you just go ahead and slurp that Kool-Aid these guys serve up. Throw in all the connectivity problems and the additional layers of software and software problems that they are going to heap on this and add in no ability to guarantee security and just where is the compelling reason we all should voluntarily buy into this junk?

So scratch the voluntary cash transfers and move on to pay to play. THIS is the new innovation which of course accrues benefits to those who created it and not buyers and it is the last resort of companies that fear a level competitive playing field and who have run out of new things to sell their customers. I believe this whole cloud thing is solely about digging into your pockets. There is a reason why none of these companies have been able to present proof of concept at this time for complex cad creation on-line. Yes I know there are some things out there in controlled laboratory condition dog and pony land but I have yet to see a typical connectivity situation proved out and a concise list of all expenses from every angle that typical users are going to have to pay created. In other words no proof it works better and saves you time and money. Remember, this is from the same group of people who can’t bring enough solid innovation to you to sell their stuff on its own merits. Nor is there any indication they intend to maintain loss leader costs on their programs with a guarantee of time duration for them because the sky is the limit as soon as they figure they can get away with it.

I figure that in this time of fiscal austerity sub rates are dropping for many software companies or they see them dropping in the future. Now one of the chief weapons companies have had over time is user lock-in. Traditionally this has been accomplished with proprietary ways of saving and using data that makes it hard to go elsewhere with it and fully use it. And the expense of new programs and training add to this. Today this is not enough security and thus the creation of a chattel instead of a customer market. Or so they hope. Make your customers work under the above conditions and then add to that the forced archival of their intellectual property and then also make them pay to use it forever and withhold access to their data if they do not pay. The destruction of permanent seats will be a key part of this if these guys can get away with it. There is nothing benign here and it is all about heaping on costs to a captive market in ways that will guarantee and grow profits for all involved except YOU the customer. It is why none of these guys layout with proof the benefits to you. What true proof can liars bring to the table anyway? Remember the fraud of unlimited data forever for iPhones utilized as incentive to get people there? Remember what happened to costs when a certain critical market size was reached?

So remember the rules of engagement for the CPA MBA attitude of corporations that figure earning your business is too hard. If you can’t innovate obfuscate. Tune in to the latest episode of this new way as the MIRV Bernard Charles straps his iPhone and iPad on and launches for San Diego. Or check in to the latest words of feudal overlord wisdom from Carl Bass as he tells you what you are going to do instead of selling you on what you should do or want to do.

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CAMWorks for Solid Edge 2014 to be released

Posted on December 30, 2013 | Leave a comment

OK folks it looks like the customer release of CW4SE 2014 will be on 12-30-13 and customer links should show up for downloads at this time assuming no last second delays.

I don’t know what were the problems behind the scene with lack of publicity and announcements and general progress over the last six months but after some communication from Geometric this week about these topics I do have an update. Assemblies is waiting on an MP update from Solid Edge and then we will be good to go. I expect that the next MP or the one after will be the one. So the last big integration hurdle will be jumped at that time. Multi-Axis milling and mill-turn and wire EDM will be in this release. I have had a chance to play with the EV pre-release version of CW4SE 2014 and they have cleaned up the work flow a bit. Without sitting down and doing a direct click by click comparison the feeling I have is a smoother work flow and it is going in a direction that is more intuitive for how many of us work.

Tech Data Base is still this convoluted monster that you will have to spend some time at learning before you can even begin to have a hope of making the program work well for Automatic feature Recognition. I have started to try this out and while I can see the power getting there to fully use it is complex. I have yet to find really good training resource for this and if anyone knows where to go please share it here. There are a LOT of parameters and pages and stuff to fill out. As it is out of the box it does things arbitrarily that most of us won’t like and without many common use tools in the base library you end up spending more time fixing things than if you just started from scratch by picking features and assigning tools to a blank tool crib. However, I believe that Geometric is after all these years going to be updating this and the tool library beginning with turning tools. I wish it was milling since the majority of the work out there is milling but I am pleased that they are getting ready to change some of these old legacy parts of the program into something more useful in the somewhat near future. I know, it might be a somewhat long wait but at least it is progress and they are acknowledging it is a problem that needs to be fixed. It is important more than they know I believe because when people get a thirty-day trial they are not going to have time to fool around with the byzantine TDB and their impressions on CAMWorks will not be as favorable as it should be. The tool paths are great and nothing touches Volumill but this stuff in between start here and posting code is to complex in the TDB and it will turn off many potential buyers.

Now all this having been said I can today see that this TDB will be worthwhile to set up for at least some of my parts families and when done so, if it works like the claims state, this will be a real-time saver in these instances. I really regard this as a production manufacturing tool where there are dedicated individuals who will have the time to really learn and set up the TDB and make in essence an operational work flow happen. For a lot of small shops this will probably never be implemented and they will I think opt for doing it as close to the way they are used to doing things as they can. The TDB and it’s complexity is not something with my ignorance of how to use it and set it up I can judge as to whether it is unnecessarily complex or all the bits and pieces need to be there to work right. My opinion may change here as I get some actual time with CW4SE under my belt. Some of the language used here though to describe features is so weirdly convoluted as to logic that it is best for you to print off a list of what they call various feature types and keep it at hand until you memorize it.

There is a method to do a pretty good work around if you are not interested in all that TDB stuff and I will have a post soon on this.

Insofar as where you go for good material on CW I would have to say that looking for good CAMWorks for Solid Works is the best answer at this time because there is hardly anything for CW4SE. The two programs are the same except for the CAD side and the basic tip I found to allow me to do the TDB workaround was found under SW tips and tricks and it works just fine for SE.

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CAMWorks for Solid Edge Update

Posted on December 12, 2013 | 2 comments

At this time there are a few things to announce. Apparently the API required for integrating assemblies has taken more work than they thought so the timeframe I was told for this to be done is probably January of next year. There is supposed to be an update that will have multi-axis and EDM later this month. There is now an SE user forum at the Geometric Camworks site so if you are a new CW4SE user go over there and help populate this. In general there are darned few user oriented things like tips and tricks at the Geometric site for users of both SE and SW flavors and the best source for help outside of tutorials still looks to be youtube, things like http://camworksguide.com/ and the Solid Professor stuff. Now let me say that the CAM differences between the SE and SW flavors is pretty small, (except of course we SE users have the killer CAD program;) ) and that what you learn from either side of the aisle where CAM is concerned will help.

I think sales have been pretty slow and I attribute this to the same problem SE has suffered under for some time. It is a puzzle to me why people expect the software to sell itself and not have to put their own money and time into an aggressive marketing campaign. A campaign that only has to talk about what this combination of CW and SE with best in class direct editing can do that makes it better than the rest to sell both SE and CW4SE. But I am not the smart guy PR wonk so I probably just don’t grok the genius behind the concept of no marketing is shrewd and effective marketing.

And last but not least in my world I finally have my seat of CW4SE and I expect to have some posts again soon on this topic.

I welcome anyone from Geometric who wishes to add or clarify anything. I have quit asking to be notified of any updates because these people do not respond until you chase them down. Evidently this gets back to the philosophy of PR management mentioned above.

ScreenHunter_04 Dec. 12 09.42

UPDATE 12-13-13
OK according to Ally PLM my dongle was supposed to be delivered yesterday. Now par for the course Geometric does not communicate. No notification or tracking number so no doubt it is still floating around where ever with whomever. Get a grip guys. When SE or ZW3d send me dongles or even version updates if delivered by DVD I get notification and a tracking number. Had you bothered to TELL me I would have arranged to be here yesterday.I have things to do today to and if I don’t get some idea of when to be here I will probably miss it again because I have to do things away from my shop. Is it so hard to act like a business that desires to keep it’s customers informed??

UPDATE 12-13-13 B
OK, 4:40 and the whole day is gone waiting for this to finally arrive and I had to cancel an appointment with a customer because of this. Now while talking to the UPS driver I see him scan the envelope and hand it to me. “No signature required I ask?” No this was not requested is the reply. “Do you mean to tell me that you would have just left this leaning up against the outside of the door like the other packages are when I am not here?” Yes is the reply. So let me get this right. A dongle that is worth $13,700.00 can be dropped off at my place with no signature and if this thing gets lost I suppose it would be my fault. Does anyone here see anything wrong with this picture?

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OK, You Designed It, How Do You Propose I Make It?

Posted on December 11, 2013 | 5 comments

One of my pet peeves is how the idea of designing things has become the end of the process of manufacturing for so many. I guess if I sat in a cubicle and all I knew was based on classroom training and I had never dipped a toe into a manufacturing facility I could think this way. Or if I was silly enough to think manufacturing began and ended with my scintillating but academic
design genius capabilities as I sat behind my monitor. So then this bit of enlightened design meanders it’s way through the process where hopefully someone with a bit of sense will see it before it gets out to the people who will be asked t0 make it.

Such were the thoughts going through my mind this week as I regarded a part that I had been sent to quote on. Now keep in mind these guys know what I have for equipment and they thought that this was a part suitable for milling.

ScreenHunter_01 Dec. 02 11.51

I am sure that all the plugin connections were dimensionally correct and that sufficient space in the “box” was allowed for components according to precise sizes garnered from somewhere. The problem is however that this designer had absolutely no idea of what is required to allow for milling this kind of part. First off this is impossible to mill unless done as four or five pieces that would be assembled with fasteners or perhaps welding. It could be done with some of those new fancy metal powder deposition laser doo-dads. Except for the problem of how to tap occluded holes in some of the round bosses I think it would be possible there. But then again this would never yield quick or cheap parts for something that was to be mass manufactured. You could afford to make one this way if it was to be used as a pattern for molding. But then you would have to drill and tap those holes on those bosses on every casting and quite frankly I don’t know a way that this would be possible except with a through hole which is not indicated based on the part file. In any case I am not familiar enough with casting to know if this is a feasible design.

What I am going to do is go through this part and show reasons why this cant be milled. It is my hope that perhaps this will get some of you who are not familiar with machining to reconsider how you go about designing. This guy spent his time designing something that cant be machined and at the very least he wasted his time and the time of shops sent RFQ’s.

Join me as we venture into the never never world of inexperience.

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CAMWorks for Solid Edge misses September

Posted on November 5, 2013 | 4 comments

Not much to report here on CW4SE but since I had a guy email me regarding whether or not Wire EDM was in there yet I decided to follow up. As of yet I do not have a seat so my information is coming from another one of the Beta Testers who did buy.

First off, assemblies was promised for sure for September as was EDM but this has not happened as of 11-2-13. Predator Editor is available to SolidWorks buyers but not Solid Edge buyers so as of right now the SE guys are stuck with state of the art Notepad editing for their posts. The Geometric web site for SE users has not changed since basically the SEU2013 event so still no forums and no public face for CW4SE users anywhere I can find. Searching Youtube videos still does not show any new Geometric activities where CW4SE is concerned and the very short list of new stuff is from VAR’s. Siemens, SE and Geometric appear to have pretty much dropped off the face of the Earth since SEU2013 and no one seems to know much about anything amongst my contacts.

I know Geometric is working on their new verification stuff and that they are having problems with Mill Turn and evidently these promises and integration schedules with SE may be taking second place behind these other problems. It would seem to me that rather than putting your new customer off you would get them up to speed first and then worry about these other things but you know sales guys. We promised these new bells and whistles and we don’t have enough talent to do all we promised so lets have a meeting to figure out who gets put off. It looks like SE is the one. I also know that they are looking into working on the TDB and posts but who knows what will happen and when.

To reiterate on the tool library it is a vestige from many years ago and apparently not a concern of Geometrics. Talking to the other beta guy today and it is an irritation to him to. I can understand as there is not one tool in their library that is typical for what my shop uses and the same is true for your shop to I bet. Talking to a guy that does this kind of work he says that even though Geometric is stuck on stupid with the ancient Access data base it is still possible to port SQL data to it and make things like the Milling Advisor from Volumill (if you don’t have this it is a free ap and you need to get it) be fully integrated within CAMWorks. To make things like tool databases from manufacturers be importable. What the deal is, is that this has not been important to Geometric and so it gets stonewalled. I begin to wonder here if Geometric over promised what they were capable of delivering on to Solid Edge and while they have an excellent cam program they also do not have enough programmers now to take care of business.

I read about their stock numbers and their financial audit for last year from India and supposedly they have had 22.7% 2012 to 2013 revenue growth. Who knows if the public face of any company can be trusted today with all the Enron type things that go on but this is their claim.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgeometricglobal.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2007%2F10%2FGeometric_annual_report_2013.pdf&ei=KlF5UuudBJe-sQSlr4H4AQ&usg=AFQjCNH-2UTAWDrO3iyPjSbE6LtGNyTnMQ

So we have 65.10 market share for the US and Europe is 23.89 for a total of 88.99% of all revenue for Geometric. The reason I bring this up is to illustrate something of the stonewalling ignore it until it goes away attitude I think may be the driver behind why some things are not updated or finished with Camworks. I made mention to some of the CAMWorks guys how weird and counterintuitive some of the language chosen to apply to features is. This is important when you have been brought up in a certain way and your mind trained to look at things in a certain fashion. Quick, how many of you US readers can look at 22 degrees C and tell me what it is in F ? It is not that you cant do the math it is because your whole life has been spent looking at temps with farenheit as a reference. I have told the Geometric guys I have spoken to about how weird is it that a pocket can be an open slot or an island is a boss. Why not change it to something more user friendly for the vast majority of your customers? Something that works with the mindset and logic of your customers? These kinds of things make programs a lot easier to learn for the vast majority of users.

Well, we would have to do that for everyone and their languages to and that is just to tough. No not really. I think it is safe to say that English is the language of the US and Canada and over in Europe for England and a strong prevalent secondary language for the continent. Needless to say English is also widely spoken in India too. So this now becomes we don’t want to change the language for what, 75% of our users. Is it unfair to assume this kind of number? I don’t think so and I consider this when I look at progress in other areas. It becomes a sort of litmus test for me for the real intent of a company which in this case is Geometric. I am coming to the conclusion that they will leave rough edges if they can get away with it and that this is with intent.

If the Geometric Financial report is real we know they have the money to do this right. What remains is to see if they will manifest the actions to make it right. It seems to be something that most software companies do sadly. Make grand promises and then back off, delay, work on the new window dressings over the old legacy problems and the rest of the things that gripe the hell out of paying customers. We have been well trained over the years to subject ourselves to buggy incomplete software at large dollar amounts. We have been trained to be resigned to things our own customers would flat out not pay us for until we made it right.

In all honesty I am wondering about Geometrics will to make the CAM side of CW4SE as good as the CAD side is. I have gotten spoiled by SE because they have and do take seriously their customers needs and complaints. You Geometric guys have your foot in the door of the SE user’s market first and I think over time this will/could/should be a very good thing for you. If you don’t screw it up. Remember, you were the first for SW too but you certainly weren’t the last and you lost market share there to people like HSMWorks because your program did not dedicate itself to being nearly as user friendly. HSMWorks is not technically as powerful but out of the box without days of fiddling around for the average shop which does not go for full feature recognition integration with a customized Tech Data Base it is quicker and easier to get a program out to the mill by far. This is why HSMWorks ate into your market share there. I have to tell you that time is money by the way and this is a consideration your potential customers made over on the SolidWorks side of the equation and one we SE users will make to when the chance arises. Get on the ball and make it right.

Don’t screw this up Geometric.

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Industrial Psycholgy 101, Camworks for Solid Edge-SolidWorks and Solid Edge

Posted on October 21, 2013 | 2 comments

I am going to try to make a point here to these two mentioned software authors but in truth it applies to every program out there in some way. Why are simple things left not done because, well because I don’t know. It baffles me why the authors deliberately leave these loose edges for every user to have to deal with.

Here is an example from SE. Now this is being worked on finally but there is a principle here I am going to touch on. Why oh why have users been told from day one until now that if you don’t like the thread data here is where the text file is and you go edit it? We who write these programs and do not have to make things with these programs see no reason for you to get accurate manufacturing data from us on threads when after all you can do it yourselves appears to be the principle here to users. After 20 versions of SE and six versions of SE ST the data for threaded holes is finally right but threaded shafts are not. Now let me explain something here. It is not that we users can’t change this on our own. It is that we resent this having to be done at all. So the answer for many of us, and you may not understand this at all but none the less it is true, is to get mad for years over this and post notes on our drawings that can and do get messed up. Our answer is not to go in there and do your job for you but rather to resent this every time we send money in or work on an effected file. Looking into my own mind and assuming this is a typical response my choice, irrational to you guys or not, is to get mad. We EXPECT these simple basic things to be right for the money we pay. We do NOT expect to be told that our time has so little value in your eyes that each and every user has to make these edits on our own. How about we have hired you guys to do this right and you need to put your intern on this. Here is the equation to keep in mind. One guy x hours is what we pay for and not 50,000+ users x hours. Kinda get my drift here and see why users resent this stuff? This one has popped up at the BBS periodically so I know others feel this way.

Here is one from CAMWorks for SE and I understand SW. It is the pitiful tool library that was put in the program from day one and NEVER updated. The difference here though is that users are forced into correcting this because the program will not work right without you doing do. So once again lets look at the human equation of one guy x hours is what we pay for and not ???,????+ users x hours. When I finally get my seat I will have to add one by one every tool I use in there. There is not one 135% split point bit in there. There is not one type of coated carbide endmill in there. There is not one three flute endmill in there. There is not one five flute endmill in there until you get to .75″ and above. So here we have Volumill as an important part of CW4SE and SW and there is not one thing in the TDB that reflects that this program is even there. The answer is, that is the lazy programmer and software authors answer is, well we know you will need to set this up to reflect your unique and individual needs. So here I am, a user and the first thing I am expected to do is create a tool database to work from. We are each and every one of us expected to manually addin everything we use. You can’t import a data base here by the way is my understanding so it is one by one. Now I get that proffered cop-out that well we can’t tailor make this for everyone and everything. I understand evasion of responsibility to give your customer a better out of the box experience because you are to lazy or cheap to do so. How ever, you do understand someone will have to do it and who does it as long as it is not YOU is fine with YOU. This is something that will offend every looker or buyer. No it is not a show stopper but it is a major days long irritant that we users all will have to suffer under. A three axis mill package with lathe and Volumill is north of $15,000.00. Buyers expect these things to be taken care of up front and if you think it does not aggravate us, think again. It is expected that there should be a decent and complete tool library. See Surfcam’s tool library for a great example. Gosh looky you mean it can be done? Yup it sure can Ethel. We can fine tune things from there. The whole idea of feature recognition with CW is powerful. And it would be far more immediately powerful with a real tool library. I bet your demo guys would sell more to if this was in there by the way. Instead you say here it is and it is great and after a couple of days of work your tools will be ready to be a part of this. And don’t ask me what I think of the procedure to add these tools in by unless you want an earful.

Part and parcel of customer satisfaction is the implementation of practical databases and libraries that reflect what we all have to deal with. When a customer starts to dig into the program these things are expected as a part of the purchase. Useable information to be incorporated into whatever we are doing with minimal input from our ends. These things are cumulative and if there are enough of these irritants it results in alienating potential customers and in aggregate perhaps eventually running off existing customers when they find a program that does care about these things and does the rest to.

OK you industrial psychologists, you want to make more sales and happier customers don’t look exclusively to tabs and layouts on tool bars or ribbon bars. Don’t limit yourselves to vernacular and syntax. Find out some of these simple but egregious things in our eyes and measure user satisfaction incorporating this to. A powerful sales tool, at least it would be to me if I was looking, would be how complete the implementation of your program is to immediately produce trouble and hitch free workdays. In this day of the internet you can run but you can’t hide this stuff from people any more.

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Cookie Dough Die Round to Ellipse, Solid Edge for Manufacturing

Posted on September 18, 2013 | 6 comments

Here we have a part that failed to produce like the customer wanted. Using a similar die for testing the deposit was elliptical in shape and the deposit needed to be round as in round cookies. The solution was to redesign the die and create elliptical cavities that would yield round deposits and send the customer a screen capture and drawing for approval. So follow me as I edit this part. I have to admit that I can barely remember how clunky life was in a pure history based world and man what a difference.

Now I thought this would be a CAMWorks post too but my temp license ran out. My first time updating this file there worked and did so flawlessly updating ALL the changed geometry and tool paths with a couple of mouse clicks. Sad to say as I redid this video it never worked again so blame the license gremlins. It was nice to sit here tonight though and edit this part with ST and then step over to CW4SE and do an update and it all went so quickly.

You know what? Time IS money and I can’t fathom wanting to work any other way ever again.

Join with me as I edit this part.

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