Tag Archives: Fusion 360

Solid Edge Direct Editing, Dogbone Die Assembly + User Community Comments

Posted on January 7, 2014 | 9 comments

Here is a part that slipped through the cracks of QA which happens when everyone is in a hurry. This was a panic order and after delivery my customer made mention of a little “ridge” on the inside of the cavities. He said it was not problem and it worked fine so we left it there. Time passes and I decided to have a look at it last week and see what he was talking about. There was more than one problem and in the following video I will show how easy it is to fix these problems in Solid Edge.

Now there are a couple of things I would like to point out here. Synchronous editing in SE is not at all like direct editing or “move face” in SolidWorks. Throughout the edits I will do in SE there are not any additions to the Pathfinder or “history tree”. When changing existing features the part complexity does not change. Also the file sizes change very little and they are not cumulative adding steps with every alteration. In addition even though features may be consumed driving sketches are not and these can be reused at any time. Of course with imported parts this is not possible and if you are worried about this I would advise you to make some sketches of features before you delete them. Once you save you can’t go back. Another option and the one I prefer best is to just save a renamed copy for use if need be.

I don’t know how “move face” would work with SolidWorks in assemblies and I have not found a video on-line that would show me. I am VERY interested if anyone knows of such a video as I would like to do a comparison between SE and SW. Please send me a link if you have one. Now in order for there to be a useful comparison the link must show the history tree in SW to allow for a direct comparison of file size and complexities.

Here are two screen captures reflecting file sizes from before and after the edits in SE. Please note the file sizes and how little change there is.
dogbone first

dogbone last

And here is the video.

I would like a word with all the Solid Edge users that may see this. Each and every one of you have something of value to contribute to the community in some way. When I post videos on how I do things I do not say it is the best way, nor the only way, it is just the way I do it. Part of my purpose in posting is to generate a community of INVOLVED people with SE. If you have a better way or a different way why don’t you contribute what you know? I am willing to post here both worthwhile comments and videos with accreditation to contributors. In addition there is an official gathering site
http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Community-Blog/bg-p/solid-edge-news
where you can contribute and I know Matt is looking for volunteers who are willing to share their expertise. Become a FAMOUS WORLD RENOWNED Power Contributor. 😉 I even created this wonderful moniker which will accrue much prestige upon you so how can you lose? Just do it.

Now if I were Siemens I think I would be providing a little incentive here for contributors. Perhaps free attendance and transportation to SEU 2014 for the best user contributor of the year. Another worthwhile incentive might be a free years maintenance as prizes for notable contributors. Or a gift card of equivalent value for contributing employees of a company where a years free maintenance would not mean much. I bet you creative marketing types can figure some things out but don’t be tightwads. At the last user group meeting in Huntsville Saratech contributed a graphics card as a door prize just for attending. Of how much more worth is an individual who is willing to take his time to share his knowledge and show the world how users deal with CAD creation and editing? Perhaps it is time for Siemens and SE to step up to the plate and let users KNOW they value contributions to the establishment of a vibrant users community. Is there really any reason why this should not be so except that Siemens has not spent the time nor created inducements? I want to make it clear I am not trying to get these things for myself. I chose years ago to do this because I believe in the product and in the Value of community. But I know it is a rare individual who will make this type of decision based upon a goal that does not materially and directly compensate them for their time or effort. So I am asking for two things here. That any individual that feels they have productive methods or tips and tricks to consider showing all of us how you do it. And that Siemens start motivating those who would not otherwise consider contributing that they VALUE contributors. I mean you Siemens guys do don’t you? Quit being cheapskates and get on the ball.

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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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Dassault’s SolidWorks End of Life 2014 Cloud Poster Boy

Posted on December 19, 2013 | 4 comments

Sometimes you see something that is just so Freudian that you bust out laughing and asking yourself what could they have been thinking? And then you reflect upon the truth behind the phrase “Freudian Moment” I have long been an opponent of cloud based software for the sake of users and useability. Technically it is an impossibility for probably 99% plus of all CADCAM users for instance to achieve anything even remotely close to the power and speed that resides on their own desktop. Still the propaganda machines from Dassault and Autodesk churn on in their efforts to fool C-Suite execs into believing this junk. Personally speaking I don’t know a single user who wants to go to the cloud for this.

And security, can we talk about security for just a second here? Really it is all it will take and it is why Autodesk and Dassault will not indemnify you for anything online. It is why 40,000,000 Target users have had their “secure” online data hacked as the news reveals this week. Oh, and NSA and honest politicians and bureaucrats that would NEVER use your confidential information against you or sell it to your competitors, right? You know of other stories to. IP is different though and just how will you get reimbursed from Dassault or Autodesk when they trash your stuff? How do you even find out your data was stolen until it shows up in products from China? Considering that the first person to file a patent wins can you perhaps see the potential for NSA to become a clearing house for IP transfer to crony capitalist’s? The single common allowing mechanism for this to be possible is if you buy into these cloud only schemes. Follow the money I have been told and as far as I am concerned this is all about putting users into forced chattel situations where they end up spending more money with Dassault or Autodesk, not to mention other uncontrollable costs from data caps at ISP’s, and an effort to end piracy by in part punishing honest users to solve the theft problem. And it reveals the contempt these people have for you and your company that they would force this and then not indemnify you.

So, let us venture forth into Dassault’s priceless Freudian Moment and regard the future face of data loss as this poor guy’s internet stuff blows up in his face. This is from the current Dassault splash page.

Dassault splash screen

Is this not priceless 😉

UPDATE Today this at SW forums forwarded to me. https://forum.solidworks.com/message/399992 Mark Biasotti, Senior Product Manager for SolidWorks has left the corporation and he joins a long list of those who made SW great in departing the Paris Feifdom.

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SolidWorks World 2014 End of Life Convention Soon

Posted on December 12, 2013 | 17 comments

Well probably not totally but certainly for many an existing user. SW recorded declining income recently and I had an experience that demonstrated why in my shop this week. My nearby machining shop buddy broke part of his Renishaw tool probe and he sent his son over to get my spare part to get him up and running again. While he was here he saw my Faroarm and asked what it was. One thing leads to another and the topic turned to CAD. I mentioned SE and direct editing and how handy it was to design with. Now unprompted Cody mentioned that they used SW, which I knew, and that the list of things for 2014 looked really small.

I have to say that it seems that the SW blogosphere agrees and that the excitement and buzz is just not there this year. Even the paid blog squad stuff is forced to make trivial “new and exciting” things look larger than life just to have topics to discuss. Sicot and Charles both talk up new directions and ways of doing things and it is the cloud and Catia V6 CGM kernal stuff and not how exciting new powerful features and capabilities are being added to SW as it is now known. Go back through the last few months of posts here on SW for links to the words that come out of SW’s fearless leaders mouths and tell me I am wrong. Sure there will be a large body of SW users just like there still is for PTC Creo. And for the same reasons. The pain of leaving is greater than the pain of using software that is falling behind what others are doing. Isn’t that a nice inducement to stay? But many old users will leave and new CAD users will pick what (SE) is more useful to them further eroding the base that could have been SW’s

I wanted to post on the difference between SE and SW in the area of direct editing. When I first embarked upon this I figured there would be a lot of videos on Youtube for SW move face/direct editing I could contrast SE’s version of Synchronous Tech direct editing with. I believe that direct editing done right IS the single most powerful new user productivity tool out there and that SE ST is the best iteration of it. The guy who invented Nurbs, Kevin Versprille seems to agree.

http://ontheedge.dezignstuff.com/dr-ken-versprille-the-father-of-nurbs-on-synchronous-technology-and-the-future-of-cad/1218#more-1218

So with this litmus test in mind and considering all the blather about the pre-eminent capabilities of SW I sally forth to do my comparisons and find just about zip to work with. Go to the official SW site and look up direct editing. SW knows what they offer is a sad vestige of direct editing and they have exactly ONE video on this topic. Go anywhere and look up move face or direct editing for SW and you will be amazed at how little there is. Don’t take my word for this just go and do it.
ScreenHunter_02 Dec. 12 08.16

This is the only Parts entry in the SW demo library. Evidently they don’t think direct editing is a useful tool you need.

ScreenHunter_03 Dec. 12 08.22

This is the tutorial section for parts creation. See all the cool stuff for Direct Editing? Don’t feel bad if you missed it because it is not there. I think the reason is two fold. One, SW has not been able to produce a worthwhile version of Direct Editing so they pretend it is not important. Two, stuff they post is an invitation for comparison to what is inside of SE and they can hardly afford to do this and win THAT competition. Don’t worry though all you faithful SW users. Your loyalty will no doubt be rewarded next year as Mechanical Conceptual launches the Dassault New Way boat. Well maybe launches it but who knows how well it will steer or float as Dassault has a real track record of failed programs, promises and launch dates for any new program for or related to SW. Mechanical Conceptual will be at least four months late and who knows what it will do. I don’t know what direct editing capabilities reside inside of the CGM kernal but since it is where you are all headed you better keep your fingers crossed that CGM has powerful direct editing capabilities.

It is worth noting too the philosophy of honesty that preceeds this SW 2014 EOL convention. You look at responses to questions asked about the future from the top of Dassault down to the bottom and tell me it is a consistent message where all are on one page. It is not. Top dogs tell shareholders and analysts where they are heading and everyone below them does damage control because this is not where the users want to go and the people there where the rubber hits the road are very nervous about the future. In the midst of declining sub income they are doing their best to reassure people who are not stupid that what they are seeing as the future is not so. Look at the long term goals as stated by Dassault. Social mediazation, new word for the day 😉 , the cloud, grocery store shelf layout software, gamification, group think over the internet, and on and on. Where is the emphasis on designing for MCAD or consumer products?

It is contrasted by Siemens NX and SE with cogent plans to expand the set of design tools for MCAD and consumer products and whose decision is based upon improving this as a set of tools for design. Unlike Dassault whose choice is shoving SW into some wonderful 3DExperience corner where it will be a minor part of some grand whole life all encompassing scheme by a French mad man. I follow all this stuff with great interest because it fascinates me how a well done bit of software like SW was that overtook the market is now in the incapable hands of people who are pretty clueless as to what designers want and seem determined to jettison what made SW great.

The rest of the story about my friend by the way is this. About a year ago I had a job in Richmond VA welding some SS counter tops together. I stopped at Matt Lombards house on the way over there and had a chat with him. He had his stash of SW 2013 Bibles there and I could not resist. I asked him for one for my SW using machinist buddy and told him to autograph it with the words in effect that said “Hi, wellcome to the Bible but SE will rule the world soon and you to will be assimilated”. His son will be over one day next week to have a look at SE. Very soon the only reason they will have SW is because their customers make them have it and it is integrated with HSMWorks which they use. And they have to have the current version not because it is the best choice for their shop but because it is demanded of them. I just love it when you take an SW file and edit it faster than the SW author could. The expressions are always worth the time spent.

Oh, and Matt himself has been assimilated and now works 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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Dassault SolidWorks Management is CrAzy, ARE YOU?

Posted on November 21, 2013 | 6 comments

First off this post is based upon one from Desktop Engineering. Secondly Novedge has listed the Dassault icon at my post and this was done by them not me. I want NOTHING to do with these guys.

http://www.deskeng.com/virtual_desktop/?p=7856&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dassault-systemes-3d-experience-forum-2013-taking-the-cloud-back-to-the-enterprise-not-the-other-way-around

Therein is quoted verbatim comments from Bernard Charles who probably has a better idea of exactly where Dassault intends to go in the future than those below him. In spite of all the assurances Dassault and SW underlings and their bloggers give about how nothing will change with the beloved SW the truth of it all IS out there. And you SW users have some very serious things to prepare for.

Without further verbiage let us read what the 3D guy has to say.

“Charles recalled, “Two years ago, we asked ourselves where we should be in 2021. Every ten years we try to reformulate where we want to be and why we want to be there, and what do we want for. This is about looking at the world in a different way, a different perspective, looking at it from the future.”

He concluded today’s economy is driven not by products but by experiences: “Welcome to the world of experiences — 3DEXPERIENCE,” he said. A critical component of the 3DEXPERIENCE would be the web and the cloud. “We will drive everything we do from an architecture that complies with the internet, with the cloud,” he reasoned.

In January, when Dassault launches V6-based products, they’ll be cloud-powered products. During his lunch meeting with the press, he further clarified that “[The new solutions] will be on Dassault’s cloud, but augmented with Amazon elasticity in the back-end.” In other words, if more computing capacity is necessary, Dassault will tap into Amazon cloud to deliver scalability.

Charles didn’t get into the details about how the change might affect licensing, but he suggests no hiccups should be expected. “We already have lots of customers in rental mode on DS software. We never left that model. That’s what makes up 70% of our revenues today — recurring revenues,” he said.

Charles sees the app-driven, cloud-hosted setup as the foundation for the new crop of engineers who grow up in the World of Warcraft and iPhone app store. “Everything we have today are becoming a collection of applications,” he declared. Consequently, he envisioned that purchasing software — Dassault’s solutions included — should be “like going on the app store and provisioning apps.”

Now let me say this about the confidence they have in their own PR drivel and propaganda. Sorry if this offends you but what pretty words do you want me to put on deliberate deception? I am going to let you make up your own mind here as to the veracity of claims by a company that will not guarantee your IP security online nor will they indemnify you for damages done to you by being forced there in order to use Dassault products. Can you see any wiggle room here to say with confidence that they are not going to force you to the cloud as a condition for using their products based on the philosophy Bernard espouses here?

Look at what they are using in part to justify this. These same kids who disgust you because they expect to be allowed to use half the day you pay them to produce results instead spend it with social media things at work. I have listened to the utter garbage that comes from HR people about how new hires fresh from college expect as a condition of employment that they have this “personal” time on your dime. And now add in to this Warcraft and iPhone apps and we can insert gamification of CAD and whole group of people who have been trained to expect to have a closed ecosystem of apps and monthly fees along with the product based upon useage. And that IS what an iPhone is since it is based on charges generated by how much data you use online.

Why exactly would you want to hire an employee who acts this way and further why in the world would you continue to plan on using software products from a company that has contempt for the ideas of IP security and productivity? Do any of you really think there is validity in the idea of cloudies designing things en mass kumbayah and coming up with something in an efficient and cost-effective manner in this brave new world vision? I see chaos and your products being produced by those who stole your IP. Look, even in our own country we have the NSA riffling through everything you have online. Combine this with a proven corrupt administration whose only rival in US history is Tammany Hall equipped with all that lovely NSA power and you honestly think Dassault forcing you to the cloud won’t be taken advantage of by criminals inside and outside of this administration? And then we have the benevolent Chinese to consider too. These days I am not sure which has more malice forethought but suffice it to say that there is no security online possible for you at this time.

Deep inside of the Dassault building lurks a legal department that puts that wonderful disclaimer of liability language in all Dassault TOS and EULA’s because they are not quite so quick to lie to you about things that would cost them their company if they guaranteed their promises as are the executives of the company who just want you as chattel and hope you do not read the fine print.

Think Adobe here where their desire to push everyone away from permanent seats and into subscription models whereby Adobe would increase their income through things like selling you online storage at multiples of cost over what you could do for yourself with your own PC. Data caps and online fees from your ISP never seems to be mentioned either by these cloud clowns. Think Adobe with 2+ meeeeellion hacked accounts recently on their “secure” system and think your IP dribbled out the same way with your CAD program.

I have covered the numerous liabilities of using the cloud for ANYTHING you value when it come to your IP. If you think I am wrong then fine, you go there. But before you do and before you let Dassault talk you into how wonderful their new world of 3DExperience is going to be for you why don’t you see just what they are willing to guarantee for you there and just how robust is their indemnification language to cover any damages you may suffer there?

I read all this junk and I think about that modern marvel the iPhone. I remember when it first came out and the unlimited data plans that went with it. First you get people to buy in even if you have to subsidize it and then when you have a large enough “captive” audience you stick the screws to them and if they want to continue using your product they have to agree to this. Now where you go with it can be tracked down to individual rooms in buildings and they are getting ready to have targeted ads in shopping malls based on where you are in the store and your sex and your likes and dislikes and the offers will be ringing you up on your dime as they try to sell you over your wonderful iPhone. On your AHEM secure iPhone over the secure internet which does not share anything you don’t want shared.

Anyone care to tell me where all those unlimited plans are now? Any of you believe that with Dassault or Autodesk cloud stuff it will be different? I have some Brooklyn Bridge shares for sale would you like to buy some?

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Autodesk to buy Delcam?

Posted on November 7, 2013 | Leave a comment

OK folks get ready for the next huge round of shake outs in the CAD CAM market. http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2013/11/07/autodesk_delcam_acquisition/

I think that Autodesk is very smart about their plans to aquire pieces of the complete manufacturing puzzle. First HSMWorks, a purchase no one saw coming and one that shook up the CAM world. Now to Autodesks credit they have bent over backwards to satisfy their new-found customers and alleviate their fears. A friend of mine had a seat he used in his shop and the deal he finally ended up with was three years of HSM maintenance free subscription to cover the cost of now having to buy a full seat of SW. And of course Autodesk is busy porting this to Inventor with HSM Express the two d version there for free available right now for these guys. Obviously they intend to migrate users to Inventor over time would certainly be my conjecture.

So now we probably will have Delcam as a part of Autodesk. The same Autodesk whose Carl Bass has made no bones about having to work on the cloud for their stuff in time. You know what? If Autodesk buys up enough stuff and they can conspire with people like Dassault to force people to go where they want many of us will end up on the cloud as a condition required by the use of software we can find no substitute for. If you use Powermill and SolidWorks could you afford to jettison both the considerable cost to own this stuff and then legacy file problems to boot? I think most will in all likelihood choose to subject themselves to being subscription hostages because in these lingering economic problems that have no end in sight who can afford to replace it all. I think it is with malign intent that these pieces of the puzzle are being assembled and put in place to make subscription chattel camps out of huge swathes of users in order to make more and predictable cash flows for companies like Dassault and Autodesk.

My friend swears that at the HSMWorks convention in Florida Bass told them all they had nothing to worry about with the cloud. To their credit I think they handled my friend far better than I expect Dassault or Siemens would have handled him. Siemens is so tight-fisted with promotions for the new CAMWorks for Solid Edge for instance that even though introducing a new product they have never really had a significant inducement to buy other than it is integrated with SE. The way they have acted with CW4SE I expect my buddy would have been told to cough up the dough or go. Contrast this to Autodesks serious financial commitments to existing HSMWorks SW users like the one made to my friend. But I also see Bass’s comments about going to the cloud and he has yet to make a unequvochal statement and guarantee to everyone in writing that this will never happen. As far as I am concerned on this topic he is talking out of both sides of his mouth until they can assemble a large enough and diversified enough purchased user base that there can be no escape for most. Welcome to the brave new world of rising uncontrollable expenses as a cost of doing business. And of course will this eliminate permanent seats and result in data hostages just to continue to do business? I don’t particularly trust either Dassault or Autodesk in this area and figure that they would do the same stuff Adobe has done to their users in a heart beat and as long as they get their money your data security is secondary.

This is the true power of permanent seats of software and any of you who move away from this model sow the seeds of your own destruction in many ways including the right to reserve to yourself only your own intellectual property. Read the fine print with the Adobe cloud stuff and see for yourself what they think of your intellectual property and insert Dassault and Autodesk in these sames types of EULAS if they can make this work.

So where are we Solid Edge and Siemens? So far of the big CAD CAM companies Siemens stands out as the only company that has publicly made the commitment that they will never force you to the cloud. They make stuff that works there but they will not force you there. Bass and Bernard and Sicot talk about programs based on forced cloud usage where to use something you have to go online. They say these things and I have quoted this stuff here before. You don’t believe me go research for yourself what the respective leaders of these companies are saying. Grindstaff of Siemens is the only one of these guys who says your choices and your autonomy will be preserved.

The big question for me here as a more than satisfied Solid Edge user is what is Siemens going to do to protect my interests here? CAM is essential as a part of a complete manufacturing ecosystem. CAD exists only to produce a method of communicating to the guys who make stuff and allowing their parts to speak to their CNC equipment or have prints on the shop floor. But without a complete manufacturing solution life is more difficult. NX IS NOT the answer for SE users and at this time only CAMWorks is. If they ever get on the ball, and finish this up and then do the right things to promote it both with incentives and publicity.

So far the incentives and the publicity have been really rotten for CW4SE and I bet sales are not all that good and it is a purely self inflicted wound. There are others who are waiting for it to be finished and just as good as CW4SW which is what we were promised it would be. And why is it that this has not happened and Geometric has no updates or comments to make for SE users?

When there are no answers and deadlines and missed and no one says squat about anything conjecture begins. A friend of mine and I were trying to figure this all out and wondered if perhaps things were at a screeching halt because Dassault was considering buying up Geometric? I think Dassault does take SE seriously as a competitor for SW and after watching the uproar about HSMWorks would they take a preemptive measure and make sure CW4SW stays in their hands? It would be pretty smart to wreck CW4SE before it has a chance to take off since SW is falling farther and farther behind the direct editing productivities of Solid Edge. The new territorial boundaries are being drawn and there are only a limited number of entities that can be absorbed and the rush is on to lock this stuff up. Siemens is really anal about meetings to decide to have a meeting where it is determined to have a meeting to decide on what they will discuss in that meeting but only after the meetings to determine a date subject to extenuating circumstances which may require more meetings. I don’t know how they get anything done. But right now they had better have a meeting that makes a decision on how they are going to combat these acquisition threats. Delcam was considered to be too big to be bought out and so was Geometric. After HSMWorks was stolen from SW Siemens was very aware of the risk of the same happening to them with Geometric and the lawyer arguing went on for a long time.

As I see it there are two things here to consider for SE and Geometric. Geometric apparently does not have the desire or talent to finish up CW4SE in a timely fashion and their public face for SE users is non-existent. So they first off need to be kicked in the butt to make things right. That is a given but even more importantly perhaps they should be bought out by SE/Siemens before they are gone to a competitor. I really hope the stipulation was made to Geometric that insofar as CAMWorks goes the entire CAMWorks suite would have to be offered to Siemens first as a condition of sale of the program or the company itself to any entity. I am sure there are better things they could find to do with the money but if they are going to step up into the big boy league of complete manufacturing from A to Z and compete head to head against arch rival SW they HAVE to do this or forever be an also ran. Who knows, at this rate even though Inventor stinks compared to SW and SE it still get things done and if they make the right packages available to people with the pieces they are assembling many will hold their noses and use Inventor anyway just to get the integration. If they would just stop that obsession with the cloud.

I don’t know about you other users out there but I hate uncertainty and I really hate uncertainty when it is my dollars at stake and in the hands of those whose response is “well just spend a bunch more and shut up about it all”. I am not happy that I have not been able to afford CW4SE by now but in light of all that is going on with buyouts and Geometric dragging their feet on their CW4SE commitments perhaps it has been to my benefit here. I want Siemens and SE to understand something here. I write about SE because I really like it and I truly believe it is the best MCAD program out there for what I do. But I hate that SE has been incomplete as a manufacturing solution. And now when I am considering spending money in short supply for CAM it is to a product whose future owership I am not certain of rather than buying a CAM product that belongs to Siemens and is not going anywhere. THAT is what would make SE complete in my eyes. The capability to buy integrated products that are not subject to Autodesk torpedoes.

I am getting to the point where I look forward to the day when I decide that I never need to buy another program or years maintenance again to see out the rest of my working career and if all these trends continue it may be sooner than later.

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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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CAMWorks 4 Solid Edge Comments and Thoughts

Posted on August 16, 2013 | 6 comments

In a bit of a holding pattern for now until September for posts on actual CW4SE parts I will be working on. However there is a bit of news and a bit of reflection and comments upon CW4SE.

As of right now there is no forum for CW4SE. The official Geometric forum has a section for SW users only and this should be changing soon and will include a section for SE users. Even though the basic program is the same it has been Geometrics decision that SE users should not have access to the SW users forum. Since both are closed forums I guess that you must have a seat of one or the other to access them. I have no idea what will be there and it is a shame that years of experience as cam users on the SW side of things will be roped off to SE users but with the politics that could result I guess I can understand why the two will be kept separate.

I don’t think SE at the official BBS site has any intention of having a forum either and the one time I mentioned a need for one it was met with a rather curt reply from a Siemens guy that this was Geometrics job and not Siemens. Sometimes I wonder about who talks to who and who plans these things as I would have thought that a forum would have been planned and who was responsible for what would have been picked and resources dedicated. Support for CW4SE is important and unless the VAR’s are slated to fill this area I am not sure how smooth the initial support for CW4SE will be. I think this gets back to the Dart Board idea I promulgated some time back where planning is chaotic and meetings are had to decide what to talk about in the next meeting and then another one to determine if the first two meetings were effective and on and on they go. People, time passes and this is a roll-out of a new product and an important addition to SE’s ecosphere. It is important to get this right and we are months after SEU2013 and this forum is still not established. But beyond the forums there is another category and it is who does your potential VAR have as a trained support guy? CW4SE is a new integration with SE but it is not a new program. I am hoping all the major VAR’s intend to have a veteran of CAMWorks for SW on staff to answer questions on the CAM side. The program is the program and if your VAR is intending to provide support based on freshly trained guys who have not themselves cut chips with this program it could be a problem. Make sure you ask your VAR of choice what he intends to do in this area. I have no idea what Siemens official policy is towards mandatory minimum support required of VAR’s to sell CW4SE and so it is left up to the buyer to be aware of this. Make sure your VAR can support you before you buy would be my suggestion.

There is a book out there, “The CAMWorks Handbook 2013” that is for the SW integration that looks interesting. Obviously the CAD side of it is for “Brand X” and includes nothing for direct editing 😉 but from what I have read and seen with the CW4SE manual given out with the program (I assume it will be the same one I was given during beta testing) it may be a decent alternative learning method for the bits and pieces of CAM needed to decide what features are needed to do differing CAM plans. Disregard the constant references to the class B modeler and you should be alright. If I order the book I will report on what I find.

There have been webinars from various VAR’s out there. I don’t know what all of them are doing but I do know that Saratech has a veteran CW user running theirs. Now is the time by the way to tell your VAR’s that you expect at least one guy in the organization that has actually cut chips with CW4SE to be there for support for CW4SE. Remember that the only time you have to get your wishes across to these guys is going in so push for all you can before signing with one.

On the program front as planned and announced some time ago September is rapidly approaching and working with assemblies will be an additional function to be released then. I don’t know what else is coming out and as I have reminded people if they want it talked about they have to release information. Hopefully this will happen soon.

In any case I expect to have my seat soon and then it will be on to some real parts. One thing I will be interested in is how CW4SE will work for a small shop like mine where automation and the Tech Data Base setup is not so beneficial. I want to just recognize features I want to pick and go from there and also avoid populating the TDB with my own tools so I can just pick them as I go. For instance, the TDB has a lot of tools in it but not one three flute endmill. This is the preferred endmill for cutting aluminum and as it is recommended by Volumill for just this I am surprised that Geometric did not have any of these in the tools for milling section. The TDB is an area where there could be improvements made and from what I gather in talking to some SW users of CAMWorks they agree. Now the TDB is a powerful tool for automation and I think is particularly beneficial for larger shops with a system set up for tool and machine management but this is a little complicated for those who just want to pick a tool, or input the cutter data individually for each tool path and go from there. In My old program for instance I can scroll through a list of tools and just pick it and edit it right there if I need to and save the new tool to the library. Far easier than this TDB thing is. Of course I am quite familiar with the old program and not CW4SE yet so my opinions here could change as get used to using it. It would be nice if Geometric would allow for the importing of tool libraries into their TDB from manufacturers but as of right now you have a tedious excel like chart to fiddle with and you have to add these things in one by one. It would also be nice to be able to do away with having a tool library required to create a cam plan and just pick and assign tools to the cam plan and have it be remembered as tool whatever in spot whatever and then just save it. Automation is really cool for those shops that want or need it but some greater consideration for those shops that don’t want this would be nice.

One of the things I really liked during beta testing was the constant step-over tool path. I was over at the HSMWorks forum the other day and they were complaining about how tough it is to get a constant scallop heighth there. Kind of like I use to have to do with ZW3D you have to create different tool path stepovers at differing places in the part to get a really consistent finish on the part. So you end up with four or more toolpaths to do almost as good as the single toolpath in CW4SE will get you quickly and easily. Just a word here by the way. I find some of the CW4SE GUI to be clunky and some of the nomenclature to be worded in such a fashion that it is hard to remember what it means. So welcome to the real world where no program is perfect and they all expect you to learn according to the idiosyncracies of each different set of programmers. Many of which I believe don’t really grasp what actual users want because they have never cut chips and don’t understand our work flows and the reason for how we choose our work flows. The programmer liked it and it made sense to him so it must be right, right? But don’t mistake my grumbling about these things to be really serious objections to the program as a whole. I know enough about it to state that the improvements to my bottom line for cutting efficiencies will be large over time compared to programs I have used in the past. And of course the fact we now have true integration between CAD and CAM.

The insanity of allowing programmers who have not cut chips to be the final determiners of how a program is set up to work for users is a topic for another day and I am of the opinion far greater heed to user wishes should be made. I am afraid that with Geometric, like most other software authoring companies, once the program gets out the door the silliness is programmed in and it will take an act of God to get programmers to understand that just because what they did can be made to work does not make it the right way or the best way to work and to then fix it. Kind of like how dumb is it that SE still after all these years does not yield accurate manufacturing data for threads but someone in Programville decided it was OK so every user subsequently has to struggle with this. I bet this comes back to haunt them as how can they recognize accurate manufacturing data on holes imported from say SW if they can’t do it for their own program? You use software to design or cut I am sure you have pet peeves based on programmers choices too and this problem is everywhere.

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