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No Interest No Bloggers SolidWorks World 2015

Posted on February 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

Have you been to http://www.novedge.com/pulse/items these last two days? I did not realize until I returned from a job in Orlando over the weekend that this yearly event was going on once again. With an attendance at over 6,000 even if many were VAR’s or SW employee types it is still an impressive number. One that Siemens and SE can only dream about if they even care. I perused some of the official SW blogs and noticed entirely too much cloud collaboration and crowd whatever paradigms but I also noticed something even more striking in my mind. We know what to expect from a company tooting its own horn but what has happened to the independent voices that used to spend their time writing about a topic they were passionate about? The bloggers today for instance were all paid employees of Dassault, VAR’s or of ezines whose income is derived from CADCAM centric activity. Not one independent that I could recognize.

I believe that user fatigue has set in. Way to many of us don’t like the direction our CAD companies have chosen to go or not go. In any case they are doing things we do not like and so after years of accumulating disappointments most of us have simply dropped off the map. Why write about companies who are tone-deaf and so wrapped up in their own little worlds that they forget we have ours too and the two do not juxtapose as well as they used to. When new features mean the cloud and crowd sourcing so the wages achieved for CAD users means a race to the bottom for wages are we all supposed to be happy? I bet this is the number one concern with long time users who used to also be passionate advocates for programs like SW. So we see companies yanking the rug out from underneath us and then additionally putting intellectual property in jeopardy to as the cloud still is sadly not secure and will never be. But somehow there is never any indemnification offered to protect us when we get sued for loss of out customers intellectual property because of the requirements to work online foisted upon us by companies that do not care about what we think. So we go away. Who wants to talk about Turkeys unless it is Thanksgiving?

There was one post though that really caught my eye. http://blogs.solidworks.com/solidworksblog/2015/02/the-cam-ecosystem-at-solidworks-world-2015.html As a Solid Edge user who has been soundly abused by the first true CAM integration for SE I could only look on in envy at the list of SW Gold CAM Partners. SW benefits from the tremendous forward looking visionaries that began it and created the community of integrated aps that has been so successful. Autodesk is another where this has benefited them in great ways. Then there is Solid Edge and their efforts too as haphazard as they have been. I looked at the CAM list for SW and #2 was CAMWorks. I can only say that you SW guys are darned lucky that much of the work for CAMWorks was done before Geometric bought them out. Judging by the repeat problems that stem from licensing and the Tech Data Base that have been there from day one (based on research into past forum postings by users in existence from the first day of CW on) you benefit from prior works by others. Here in SE never-never CAMWorks for Solid Edge land we have a program that after a year and a half is still so fraught with problems that it defies belief but for those who have to deal with it know. Geometric did not have others to do the heavy hitting here for them with prior works and boy does it show.

Part of what has made SW and Autodesk successful, and this is conjecture on my part as I have yet to speak to anyone who is in a real position to know for sure, is the maintaining of certain standards to be the equivalent of a “Gold Partner”. Solid Edge does not have in place any authority over this with teeth and the current CW4SE debacle is proof of this. People, I cant say this enough. If you are in the market for CAM integrated with SE you only have one choice and it is not at this time a viable one. You are far better off going with a good external CAM program that is not integrated than doing to yourself what I did. Do not walk but run when the CW4SE sales guy comes to your door knocking.

Of the three, Dassault, Siemens and Autodesk the only one who is doing anything of interest to this independent blogger is Autodesk. What is being done there is the establishment of a manufacturing ecosphere that is not only including best in class CAM products they went a step further and BOUGHT them instead of partnering with them. I believe in what is going on there enough to have spent my own money to be a part of it. Sad to say though I am in two worlds as SE is far superior (light years) to Inventor at this time and HSM beats the pants off CW4SE and even works right where getting much of anything done with CW4SE can be an epic journey of time and frustration. Bouncing files back and forth is no fun but beats the masochism of CW4SE.

So we limp forward into another year with dwindling independent blogger interest and is it any wonder? Users tell these guys what they want and then get ignored and so the interest wanes. Philosophical directions by the leadership in SW and in SE the bad integration issues with CW4SE casting a pall on CW4SE and indeed on any other integration partner for SE and then Autodesk buying up great CAM only to saddle it with Inventor. Don’t really have a goal in mind for this post as much as just reflecting on how many flies are in the ointment and wondering why no one seems to get it right. I hope for Autodesk to get things right but today with Inventor was a sad one and I wonder with SE and Inventor how one part can be so good and the other not and why? It would be nice if SE would kick Geometric in the rear end hard enough to make them fix CW4SE and then keep them on the straight and narrow in the future. Geometric will slack off the second the scrutiny goes away I fear so attention can’t wane. It would be nice for SW to drop the crowd sourced internet managed stuff and get back to CAD as its users use it and not undermine their wages and security. It would be nice if Autodesk would fix Inventor so that so many uneeded steps were not in there along with outright missing things. I am coming to the conclusion that with Inventor they expect you to work only with native files and not on imports and when you machine parts for others imports are what you get.

Is anybody really listening to the growing silence and of any of you software companies does anyone really care? Would you please start fixing what is there and skip the window dressing new doo-dahs for a while?

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Does Geometric’s CW4SE QA Really Exist?

Posted on January 29, 2015 | Leave a comment

Some time back when I was more enthused about SE I requested and received a copy of most of the QA hurdles SE had to jump through before release. Some was proprietary and not released to me but the majority was. It is pretty amazing what people who are serious about what they produce go through to make it right as much as possible before release. In addition there are a number of beta testers that go to Huntsville each year where they receive some training and are then cut loose to use the software for a week while in Huntsville. With immediate access to the developers who wrote the code to see any problems testers come up with on their work flows and parts. This process goes on for months and is pretty darned thorough. I have been with SE since ST1 and as for bugs that affect what I do there have been very few. Yes ST1 and 2 were rough but this was new technology for SE and you still had traditional to work with if need be. The folks in Huntsville really know what they are doing and my hat is of to them for a great bit of software.

On the other hand we have Geometric which on it’s best day comes nowhere near the quality of SE on its worst day. I have been told there is no internal Geometric machine lab here in the States to proof out what is put into CW4SE. I don’t believe there is one in India either as the staggering amount of bad code that gets out indicates this. The flip side to this would be that they do have one but have so little regard for customers that they don’t care about what they find and send it out anyway. Personally I think they don’t have a lab, don’t care and use coders that are not qualified to fix problems. These coders also apparently have no machining experience to correctly determine how things should work and to be able to see that what they write will work correctly and not just shove an end mill through a part or cut gobs of air.

I quit talking to anyone from Geometric when they hurt me with a terrible ST7 beta release and huge delay in the SP0 release for the same. I just got tired of hearing stories and then having to deal with something that was so bad it did not really even qualify as beta worthy. Beta to me implies that there has been internal testing and QA and while it is not a finished product it should be usable. Beta evidently to Geometric means something different and what they put out to waste our time with was impossible to use. Considering this I moved on to Inventor HSM.

This led to a kind of good cop bad cop situation with another early CW4SE adopter and I with Geometric. While I did not pull any punches and had nothing but disgust over the whole mess the good cop still made an effort to communicate and plod through repeat email streams and videos and more and more time-consuming communications regarding flaws he would find. Time and time again where even elementary problems had to be explained to Geometric techies who could not seem to grasp the issue. In addition the idea that these should all have been found before we ever saw the program seems to be a thought that had never occurred to the staff in India. The good cop finally had it this week and in an email stream we have had for some time regarding CW4SE he had this to say. Now before the quote I want to say that Dylan is qualified to make comments on this topic and he has really made a great effort to make it all work out. To no avail and the people in India don’t seem to even remember they have had prior conversations about the very same problems that don’t go away time and time again. A history that is verified by comments on the closed Geometric forums where the same problem topics appear year after year.

I remember being on a conference call with a real machinist employed by Geometric and one of the guys from India where the machinist mentioned that now would be a good time to change language to reflect common usage and the India guy got kind of mad and said we have talked about this before. Bull nose instead of Hog nose for end mills for instance. Or open pocket instead of open slot for another. Or a tech data base that would reflect current technology. To much work to make things act like machinist users think and work and once done carved in stone forever. In any case on to the quote.

“On 1/28/2015 7:15 AM, Dylan wrote:
> Vivek asked for my input after 2015 was released. What a huge time-waster to have to go and prove out a million bugs again to him and the team and take video and evidence and explain things…all for bugs like SCREWED UP LEAD-INS AND FEATURES THAT EXPLODE. You guys really need customer input to figure that s— out?? I feel like I signed up for some experimental drug therapy, and now they’re hacking off limbs and going “Hey, does it affect your mobility when you’re missing this leg? Yes? Ok, how about if we cut the other one off? Better or worse?”

This is from a guy who spent his cash and now has to go and use his friends laptop and seat of Mastercam in the evening after hours to get his CAM plans done. This is where I found myself also using a demo version of Inventor HSM and or ZW3D 2012 just to get the work out. You can’t imagine the time spent trying to get things done right with CW4SE. The only reason he too has not left is that the high powered Geometric money vacuum has sucked up all his available cash for such things and he can’t for now.

Geometric in our cases has taken people who wanted the promise they portrayed and integration with SE and turned them into angry users and new hefty dues paid members of the CW4SE Masochists club. My recommendation would be that you not waste your time or money and run don’t walk past anything to do with CW4SE.

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Without a Post What DO You Have

Posted on January 26, 2015 | 4 comments

The interface between your CAM program and your production equipment is essential. No I do not mean the bits going across the network I mean the output from your CAM program that tells your machinery what to do. Without this in place and working right nothing is made.

What has led to this post is the refusal of Ally PLM and Geometric to honor a promise made to me to provide a lathe post when I finally needed it. So about a year after I paid for lathe in CW4SE my new lathe arrives and now I am expected to pay for a post. Make no mistake there is animosity between Geometric and I nowadays and I suppose this is their answer to me. They forget that I have reasons for this and my anger is predicated upon their failure to deliver a competently working product. Today add to this another broken promise with this post issue. Clueless from day one about how to handle customers and experts at stonewalling solutions for customer problems they don’t surprise me by acting this way.

In truth everything they do like this just clarifies the philosophical differences I have experienced between Geometric and Inventor HSM. Ever have anyone tell you that “no one ever does this” or “you are the only one we have ever seen with this problem” as bald-faced lies to you when you know better? When you know that your peers around you who are fellow users and have no motivation to lie agree with you and not them? I own Inventor Pro HSM. While it is the top of the line Autodesk CADCAM offering it is not as of yet complete. Many more missing pieces of the puzzle will be in hand though this April and if we compare apples to apples CW4SE CAM alone at this level will I imagine be over $20,000.00. Now Geometric you don’t like this number I quote you provide me with one reflecting equivalent features of I-HSM Pro and I will immediately post them. If you don’t these numbers stand and I am not going through the fiction of wanting to be a new customer to find out. Regarding these prices by the way. Don’t you love these companies that sneak around and hide prices and you only find out what the expenses are after the sales guy has had a chance to wave his magic canned demo wand over you? Most of the time this means at least a day and a half of your time wasted as you show the door to Mr. Sales Guy. Autodesk shows you the prices online and no secret password or salesman mumbo jumbo to go through.

But let us see some differences between a company that wants to charge you double up front and more than triple each year after where the rubber meets the road and one where they want to be your partner.

Of the following screen captures I have working knowledge of ZW3D, CW4SE and I-HSM. The provided posts from ZW3D and I-HSM work out of the box and only minor things like coolant on/off timing or table position at end of cuts have been things I change. Nothing of any significance has been a problem and you know what? These guys will help change the post for FREE. That’s right the free post gets work done on it for free. Understand that complex posts like 4 or 5 axis with unusual requirements will be something charged for. But simple 3 axis milling or turning no way. My provided post for HSM by the way I suspect can do far more than just 3 axis but since I don’t have these capabilities I don’t know for sure. Note that CW4SE says tutorial or sample only and they stress that in the program with admonitions not to use in production. As buggy as much of their program has been I can’t imagine what the dire results might be if you disregard their warnings against use for production.

HSM posts

ZW3D posts

CW4SE tutorial only posts

I have also used Surfcam in the past and their post provided was good. 57 posts for ZW and roughly 93 for HSM. Who cares how many for CW4SE since they recommend you not use them as they are. Thus the tutorial and sample monikers.

The sad story however goes from here and let me demonstrate some basic differences regarding posts between I-HSM and CW4SE. So now that Ally PLM and CW4SE have determined that I need to pay for a post where would I go to get help? CW4SE forum?

CW4SE forum

CW4SE has been out now for 1.5 years and this is it. Not much to speak of is it. Now over on the SW side of things it is better. Keep in mind though that these forum statistics cover a time period 12 years long.

CW posts forum

Over at http://camforum.autodesk.com/ it is a different story. On this open forum where Autodesk has nothing to hide we see……

Autodesk forum

I don’t know how far the forum goes back but I think it is clear how much more active this is. Post writers and techies from HSM frequent the forums every day and they are searching for problems they can answer and or fix immediately or in a future release. Speaking of releases I have had four HSM updates in two months and one CW4SE update in 9 months. Just something to ponder there regarding what the CAM provider just might think of you as a customer. But I digress and I guess what I want to say here is this. My experience with these two companies boils down to a pretty dramatic contrast and this post problem just exemplifies this. CW4SE/Geometric wants you to be their ATM. They do not seem to care if you succeed as a machine shop considering all the many year problems and inefficiencies never fixed. They want you to pay and shut up about all the software problems and pay them some more while you are at it. Help for SE guys is problematical as the VAR’s who have had this put off on them don’t make their CAM guys stay current. A common complaint among the few CW4SE users I know.

I-HSM guys have a post for you and will work with you to make it right. Yes that complicated hybrid machine post will cost you but for 90% plus of all HSM I-HSM users you are going to get a working post you will like for free. As far as I can see the HSM guys want you to make money and get fair value for what you spend. Even those who have stopped being paying customers attend the forums here and get answers to problems when their maintenance stopped being paid some time ago.

One of the other things I see with the Autodesk site is honesty where it is needed. Geometric will just ignore the forums and hardly ever reply to unhappy customer problems. Autodesk on the other hand will answer and will give you replies you might not like but they tell you the truth as far as I have been able to see. They do not over promise or make commitments until they know they can deliver the goods. They do work on solving your problems and they do listen and care. Don’t take my word for it go there and see for yourself. Of course as mentioned you can’t do that with Geometric but then again after what I have been through my thought is why would you abuse yourself by doing so anyway?

This is quite a progression for someone who was death on Autodesk a couple of years ago. But I have to earn a living with the tools I buy and I would be foolish to disregard what Autodesk is doing today for the offenses of the past. Offenses which by the way I think they have no intention of doing in the future as the cloud clearly is not going to be the answer for most of us and Autodesk knows this. Once this cloud paradigm was flushed it then became what works well. What works easily and quickly and has good support and people who care if you succeed? Today for CAM it is hands down HSM for this shop.

Keep your lathe post Geometric and thanks once again for proving the wisdom of leaving you for I-HSM.

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Chip Evacuation in High Speed machining

Posted on January 22, 2015 | 4 comments

One of the most important aspects of successful HSM machining is the evacuation of chips. Re-cutting of chips is the single most damaging thing to the life of an end mill besides outright improper selection of parameters for feeds speeds and step-overs. There is a whole science devoted to investigating problems in cutting metal and this has led to discovering another common problem with carbide and coated carbide end mills. The heating and cooling of the leading cutting edges from being embedded in the cut to turning outside the metal and being quenched by coolant leads to propagation of micro fissures and premature break down of the end mill compared to dry cutting and evacuation of chips with air blast. But the chips must go away before re-cutting no matter what method for doing so is used.

While cutting a simple part recently I was surprised at the different strategies used between Camworks for Solid Edge and Inventor HSM. Time wise it looked like this part would cut at close to the same time for the three tool paths. .875″ depth of cut and .06″ step over and 9067 RPM with 317 IPM travel speeds. Now when you are moving along at this clip things had better be right in order to get good life from your end mills. So it was with interest I see how two from CW4SE start off wrong and the one from I-HSM works right. Now I don’t know if this was a deliberate choice of strategies by the programmers with HSM or just fortunate serendipity but the effects are profound in any case.

I used to think Volumill was the very best thing out there until I put some time into I-HSM’s Adaptive strategy. Keep in mind the importance of chip evacuation and let us see what the three have to offer. First up is CW4SE’s Volumill.

CW4SE Volumill tool path

CW4SE Volumill verify

Notice how Volumill cuts a ramp down slot in the middle of the block. By the time you get down to the bottom of the slot there is no way you can avoid serious re-cutting of chips as these things bounce around like ricocheting bullets back and forth. I suppose at some sort of CFM and PSI you could assure the evacuation of chips but Volumill will make it difficult to do on this part. In any case your percentage of engagement is supposed to be low for high speed machining and look at the near 80% flute breaking engagement you are forced into with Volumills entry path. So much for my choice of .06″ max.

Next up is CW4SE’s Adaptive.

CW4SE Adaptive tool path

CW4SE Adaptive verify

The chip problem with the Volumill tool path is even worse here as I doubt anything under jet engine PSI and CFM could ever dream of evacuating chips in a little bitty pocket that even as it grows larger will still tend to bounce chips around in a pocket generating re-cut problems galore. I figure with my screw compressor max PSI at 125 I would have no chance of succeeding here. Kind of like putting sand in your end mill “engines” oil I figure.

Now one of the joys of CW4SE is wrestling with tons of parameters and unintended consequences. For those of you using CW4SE here is a gotcha to be aware of.

.CW4SE Adaptive will not work

As you experiment to find the best way to cut a part you will try this and try that. Better remember what exactly you did though. For instance if you use Volumill and check or uncheck “machine cavities” the result is the same on this part and it will cut. If you go over to Adaptive after unchecking “machine cavities” in Volumill and forget you have done so Adaptive will not generate a tool path. You have to go back and re-select “machine cavities” to get it to work.

Now let us regard what I-HSM does.

I-HSM Adaptive verify

I-HSM Adaptive tool path

Remember this end mill is climb cutting and the chips are automatically ejected from the cut and the block with no potential for chip entrapment. I see no way for re-cuts to happen here and air blast at regular PSI and CFM on my Haas will work just fine if indeed it would even be required as these bullets are all going down range so to speak.

Perhaps never planned to be this way at HSM but the results are what they are. Pretty darned good for a CAD CAM combo less than half the cost of CW4SE + SE I would say and guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.

As a comment here. If you are a buyer shopping for a CAD CAM program I will say this. I was badly burned by CW4SE and the problems it had and has. I regret being responsible for people having bought into this expensive problematic program based perhaps in part upon my recommendation. Today I am using the program I had originally wanted integrated with SE but sadly inside of Inventor. You download and try these programs yourself and see for yourself what makes sense in your operation. I know where I want to be and have many reasons for this but you must do some serious investigation on your own and see for yourself what you need. I will say though that if I knew a year and a half ago what was in store for me with CW4SE I would never have bought into it and I would have bought SW HSM if I had to just to get the CAM. This week I have 19 different parts to cut and I need something quick and easy and intuitive to use with good tool path strategies that just work. Today I do have this CAM tool in my shop and it is kind of fun once again to cut chips. Life is better when things work right. By the way, if you are a refugee looking to flee a program you have sunk a ton of money into talk to the people at HSM. You might be pleasantly surprised at the consideration they may give your plight.

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Discouraging Addition to the Semi Annual Marketing and Publicity Update

Posted on January 21, 2015 | Leave a comment

I have no idea what is in the water people in corporate boardrooms drink. No idea how they formulate ideas that are supposed to appeal to people like me who use their software. No idea why a cohesive multi-year organized effort to promote SE or a vibrant ecosystem or user community does not ever happen. No idea what salient features and promo campaigns they think are useful to grow market share because none ever survive long enough to even have results to judge by.

So today this is posted. http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Blog/Interview-with-John-Miller-Senior-VP-of-Mainstream-Engineering/ba-p/288511

There has been a hiatus of driven and focused leadership for a while now with the Cooper Newbury team finally giving up before the Siemens corporate have meetings and do nothing culture. Seemingly obsessed with protecting make work jobs for those who could not produce real and meaningful results if their lives depended upon it and protecting NX et al at all costs SE has languished and continues to languish. So I read what this new guy has to say and I think empty words. Yet another Marketing PR guy with no real vision and no clue and no road map for success. I read what he has to say and think here we go with buzz words and catchy phrases that mean things only to the select group of psyco-babble market-speak cloistered company dudes. How many times do these guys think they can wrap up the same tired old promises and mantras and expect to be believed?

OK John you like the word passion. I used to have one for Solid Edge but nonsense like this empty rhetoric you bring to the table has killed it. All I see here is same old stuff new suit and SE is going nowhere. Yeah yeah synchronous. The best single thing to come down the pike for CAD and Siemens SE has been so inept at convincing users of its value that it’s power as a sales tool has been completely squandered. I sit in user group meetings where I am the only one who uses ST and the students who are supposed to be part of the future for SE are not even taught ST at the University of Alabama Huntsville. I don’t know which is worse. Teachers who are so lazy they can’t be bothered to put this powerful tool in student hands or the dumb company that gives software away and then never follows up to enforce what is done with it. Or VAR’s that should be showing the value of ST to customers who would then adopt it. Really, they don’t go out and prove this so customers think they have no time to learn new things when in reality if they did learn this new thing their time savings from then on would dwarf this supposed “expense” to switch over. But one thing is for sure we don’t have to worry about “passions” running amuck with you Siemens UGS SE guys and planing for and demanding results with cohesive long-term pervasive strategies. The market has been there to seize and Dassault did their level best to give market share to you all but corporate backstabbing and NX UGS turf protection stopped the only guys who wanted to deliver this.

Another year, no summits, no user organizing, best software you’ve never heard of campaign still going strong and no growing ecosystem to speak of to contend with SW’s large and established one. Big whoop, finally got rendering. Last one to do so. Finally get integrated CAM which then falls flat on its face because you don’t care enough about what is associated with your products to police your partners. Further more you have no established method for doing so and the belated chasing after Geometric to do right was started by disgruntled users because you guys failed to do your jobs. But meetings. Oh those wonderful meetings that go nowhere and do nothing were quite prolific and lots of wages were earned with them while staving off the dreaded specter of concrete positive results.

Or the ecosystem being assembled with bought outright superior tools by Carl Bass who does have a plan and desire and the ability to make it happen which is coming your way to make life even more difficult. I quite frankly can’t see Siemens or you ever coming up with any kind of strategy to beat SW or the giant billy club Autodesk is going to hold over your head later this year. You guys have no clue what you are facing although we little people here in the trenches that you would like to have as customers are certainly paying attention. I am completely thrilled that you are going to have meetings and conferences to jump-start your new way. Oh goody I can’t wait. Another SEU where over half the people in a rather small crowd are employees of Siemens one way or another or VAR types because you guys have totally failed to convince the world there is a reason to attend. And conferences too and all this nonsense that leaves convincing people to become your customers as an afterthought while you professionals talk to each other and mirrors.

I read this interview today and just shook my head. Not in disbelief anymore but rather with a sense of resignation to the idea that SE is never going to amount too much in the world of MCAD. We have come full circle back to the sad days of Bruce Boes Velocity Series genius I fear. I hope I am proven wrong about my suspicions. I would like for SE to have it’s technically deserved place in the world. I will however go to sleep tonight convinced this will never be. Whether it is Siemens culture or outright UGS veteran hatred of SE does not matter. The results are going to be the same.

It is a sad contrast to what I am seeing with Autodesk Inventor HSM after you guys forced a loyal customer into looking elsewhere with the Geometric CW4SE debacle.

Update 1-23-15

Yoo Hoo John new leader guy looky over here.

Anyone but Solid Edge

I figure you don’t mean any of the PR babble-speak emitted and I figure you are just there because there is a position that has to be filled. Even though the job description is to keep SE under the radar for the majority of potential customers so it can’t grow or possibly threaten any precious NX seat sales there still has to be a warm body there so why not you eh? Siemens will not take the chance of putting an effective person in this position again because, well you know why. You took the job and have your instructions so you do know. Be their rubber stamp take your pay and don’t rock the boat. Have all the meetings you want but don’t make progress OK. Here you go John, enjoy. The sublime irony of a job title like VP Mainstream Engineering when the function is Forgotten Pond Engineering.

Question for the day. Is there any particular mid range or high end MCAD program missing from the Dell list? If there is would there be any particular reason why?

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2015 Solid Edge Semi Annual Publicity and Marketing Efforts Review

Posted on January 7, 2015 | Leave a comment

Continuing a tradition of heralding the single most important key component to the success or failure of SE to thrive. The program is and has been quite competent for some time now and with the level of capabilities existing in ST7 especially with Synchronous there is no technical reason for SE to be the best software you have never heard of. But we know there are core software competency technicalities and then there are Marketing and Publicity technicalities. The second has been and continues to be a failure.

I have recently become a customer of Autodesk because of this and let me explain why. Marketing, unless it exists in a mental void where meetings to plan for more meetings is the penultimate goal has to be aware of what draws and keeps customers and plan accordingly with a consistent multi year endeavor to both create an integrated software ecosphere customers will want and then consistently without fail year after year MAKE people aware of what you have. Geometric’s CAMWorks for Solid Edge is an example of where SE might have been heading until the powers that be set about destroying what Don Cooper and Karsten Newbury wanted to establish. The only major new integrated ap for SE in some time besides Keyshot and the first and only CAM program truly integrated with SE. But apparently with turf war troubles beginning some time back eyes were taken off of CW4SE and focused on who knows what. CW4SE is if Geometric would ever get it’s act together and stop stonewalling customer improvements and make the workflow reflect the way machinist’s work with current modern tools and strategies in the TDB before shipping pretty darned powerful. Recently Geometric had the heat put on them to get their act together and seemingly within a few weeks fixed a lot of problems they had maintained were “intended behaviors” prior to that point in time. Why weren’t they fixed sooner? Why were these things, numerous and aggravating to say the least and show stopping at worst not audited by Siemens SE and prevented to begin with?

Now no one from Siemens or SE comes right out and tells me much in this area but I can see what happens as time passes year after year and even though my comments are my opinions try and disprove what I say. So M & P who have no plans and have had no plans drift along grateful I suppose that the nuisance of Cooper-Newbury are gone and they can go back to doing nothing which they excel in. In the mean time CW4SE which they probably never wanted runs unattended and into serious trouble before any oversight agency at SE is aware there is a problem. You see no one really cares at Siemens SE anymore or else this would have never happened. Now Geometric much to my disgust was willing to stonewall a lot of these things and the idea they would do so deliberately bothers me a lot. Does this mean they will revert back to doing this junk again when the heat is off? I hope not but they have had problems with the same things year after year and somehow never finally fix them. I will say this current version of CW4SE has been the most painless install and the TDB for the first time is working correctly as far as I can see. But why did they have to be forced into doing this? This behavior by both Siemens SE and Geometric is pretty disdainful towards cash customers who have to guarantee what they do to for their customers only to find out that there is no guarantee of quality from Siemens SE CW4SE for them. A double standard that is not unique to them perhaps but never the less sure is in the minds of those who buy and are then abused by this cavalier treatment.

When I lost three weeks recently to problems that was when I jumped in my life raft and bought Inventor HSM. But this was dwelling in my mind this New Years as an example of how things never have really changed with SE. Back in the recent Halcyon days when it looked like SE was finally going to be the big dog it deserved to be on it’s merits one of the things that were done was the hiring of Matt Lombard. For a brief while he actually had some spot on stuff before the slimy psuedopods of the Siemens SE amoeba got in there and made sure nothing of even the slightest controversy could get out. In part thinking of all this today it was an old article from On The Edge that made me think about the way it is and was. He was the ONLY bright M&P spot I can think of besides the creation of the Universities for SE.

Here is a link
http://ontheedge.dezignstuff.com/is-solid-edge-the-best-cad-program-youve-never-heard-of/1044

Inside of this as I read through all of it I reread something Al Dean had to say. This time however I went to the article he referenced which was
https://web.archive.org/web/20031203205940/http://www.cadserver.co.uk/common/viewer/archive/2003/Aug/1/feature2.phtm

So this M and P failure precedes Siemens by many years apparently. I just don’t understand it and I guess there will never be an end to it either. This attitude is why the header in my blog was changed early last year and this is why it will remain the way it is.

The question I now have is was the original source of the Naegleria fowleri M&P amoeba from EDS and spread to UGS and then Siemens or was there an independent transmission vector causing all three companies M&P to independently fall prey to this only to then combine pockets of lack of vision and abilities into a large singular morass of the same?

2014 as far as I am concerned is another year of abject failure of SE to deliver value to it’s customers beyond the basic capabilities of the software which is considerable. Giving you an ecosystem like SW to thrive in with increasing market share for them and jobs for us? Nah not gonna happen. Like Autodesk where the guy running it is a builder and he understands every aspect of design to building far more than any other major CADCAM software company executive is planing. Giving his customers extra value with extremely competitive prices and a big ecosystem with lots of jobs and future workforce guarantees for employers and as the circle goes around more jobs and more jobs for Autodesk customers. From a guy who is hungry for conquest and is going to use his unique ability to use the software produced under his direction work. Now I say this and think about Inventor with crossed fingers in hopes for may things to change there. But even so just because I don’t get it yet I see lots of people who do good work with Inventor so I know it can be done.

So far I really like HSM and it is the program I had originally wanted integrated with SE. Inventor is painful to use compared to SE and I struggled today to just try and figure out how to apply dimensions to parts. A lot of my problems are newby problems but the way things flow in Inventor just don’t make much sense to me yet compared to SE. But by golly I CAN hire someone trained to use Inventor and HSM is a breeze.

I have to admit that the move to Autodesk for HSM has relieved a lot of pressure on me but I find myself in two worlds now. SE for CAD and HSM for CAM and quite frankly hoping for Inventor to dramatically improve so I can go with just one company. If Inventor was as slick as SE I would leave Siemens today. I am tired of the treatment SE customers get and I am tired of wrestling with CW4SE and I just want my days to be trouble free. I don’t trust Siemens SE to have my interests at heart after Don and Karsten left and I don’t think they much care about things like CW4SE either or this 2015 mess never would have happened.

So another half year passes and the fine tradition of the best software you’ve never heard of continues and you won’t hire in the state of Tennessee anyone trained in state in SE at any Tech school High school or University close to where I live that I am aware of.

I get tired of running into my peers who when they find out I use SE tell me I am the only one they know doing so. Thanks M&P for all you do and may you prosper for another year with your endless meetings and empty works.

May I propose a 2015 campaign for you. Yes our combination of CW4SE and Solid Edge will cost you twice as much up front compared to Inventor HSM and yes the yearly fees are almost triple but we give unto you dear customer the absolute thrill of being a part of Siemens. You won’t have to lift a finger to do this as all the real work is being done by Autodesk to your benefit. I mean judging by the last eleven years this is the way you want it isn’t it?

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Straightforward and Simple + Accuracy Improving, Inventor HSM Tool prompts

Posted on January 2, 2015 | Leave a comment

In the current manufacturing environment it is small things that can add up quickly to be either hidden costs or savings. I tend towards simpler is better when at all possible because time is money. Inaccuracies that take you over a tolerance cliff also cost money and identifying where the last little bit of tolerance stack up took you over the edge can be a problem. The best way is to eliminate the things you can ahead of time and reduce the number of negative variables that affect what you make. I am going to talk about one of those ways here.

One of the great things about HSM is the tool generation process. The capability to quickly “make” a tool and in the same order features are cut have them assigned to a pocket on my tool changer. I never leave assigned tools to one location as I just don’t have this type of production here. I do not want this individual CAM plan to have any relationship with tool data elsewhere since the very next job will see me start over with a fresh new tool setup and order on the mill. It just goes too quickly to want to work any other way as far as this owner is concerned. Other CAM programs probably do things this way or very close so I am not claiming the HSM way to be revolutionary or unparalleled. What I am saying is that this is the very best way to do it for almost all the shops I have direct contact with and indeed the way I do it by choice.

There is also another important aspect of operating like this. Cutter manufacturers are often getting into resharpening services nowadays for those tools they have manufactured. If I have five or more 1/2″ end mills for instance Hanita will take them in and recut the geometry and recoat to factory specs. The practical life of your endmill may be extended by as many as four or five lives if you don’t beat them up between resharps. But none are true original size end mills anymore.

I like Haas Mills. I know the debate rages about what is best and why but there is a reason Haas is so large and so many people make lots of money day in week in and year long. They are good machines and one of the key things that helps to make them so is the best bargain in new CNC equipment. The Haas Renishaw probe. Accurate easily to less than a tenth according to the Renishaw guys I have spoken to it is better that the claimed repeatability of of the mill itself when brand new. And it lends itself perfectly to the idea of the tool library system I describe above.

Now about that tolerance stackup I mentioned above. Until you have a probe and you start measuring the true diameter of your endmills you have no idea of how often you have introduced tolerance problems right from the very start with endmills that say .500 on the box but really are .4985 or some other variation. All these add up after all and two sides of a cavity is double the difference between .500 and .4985. In addition just how do you measure three and five flute endmills anyway without a probe? OK before some smart alleck gets in here there and points out this is not the only way and that expensive metrology equipment will do this too I will say sure, and probably cost more than the probing system on the mill and be no where near as handy and limited to one function. The combination of quick new tool creation or existing tool editing if need be inside of HSM is perfect for accounting for the use of the true correct size of the endmill in question and no fooling around with libraries. The probe will also account for any out of round condition in the holder to which is another important step in error reduction. I am slowly replacing all of my cat40 tool holders with Schunk Hydraulic holders with sleeves for all high speed tools paths and precision cutting. The faster you push adaptive tool paths the more concentric your cutting needs to be with the spindle centerline for best end mill life. The additional benefits are better accuracy and finishes.

Join with me today as I show not revolutionary stuff but the right stuff for quick and easy tool generation that will save you time and produce better parts.

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The Builders Philosophy

Posted on December 16, 2014 | 2 comments

I have considered for some time that there is a philosophy that directs how programs are focused and who determines or how this is determined. You have people who are convinced that the design of something is paramount and all that happens around after and before is just what follows this most singularly important event. Then there are the guys on the shop floor who know that if it does not work well there it can impact the bottom line of a company far more than the design ever did. Then there are the PLM types that figure it all hinges on them and rather than making the collator organizer type thing PLM is supposed to be they make it the chief entity and all other programs have to be shoehorned into it. Then you have the customer who judges the end result and finds themselves wondering on occasion what genius came up with this mess. Most of the people contacted through my business fall primarily into one category with perhaps another as ancillary to the primary. They may design for instance and they may walk out onto the shop floor and look at parts being cut or talk to the machinist so they have some knowledge of what goes on there but no real knowledge like they have for designing.

I remember about four years ago starting an argument with the SE guys about thread data that would go with a part file. My complaint was the only reason for SE to exist was so someone could manufacture something from it and in order to do this efficiently the right manufacturing data had to be in there. It was not until last year that SE began to fix this so that manufacturing data would be reflected in the actual dimensions on the CAD file. Prior to this point in time for instance none of your surface data could be used in the part. For instance a 1/4 20 thread would not show a .2010 drill hole size but rather a silly .25 hole size. Decisions made by programmers who just could not understand why this was a big deal. Had they been made to deal with the problems this created on a shop floor or CAM program they might have had a better appreciation for the thought that no software meant for any part of the manufacturing process truly is an island by itself. By the way ST7 finally has this fixed right for the first time ever in the history of SE. Why did this take so long? I wonder if it was because they finally decided to consider manufacturing or whether it was the fact that the US military will soon require all correct and actual part conditions and tolerances to be incorporated in the actual part files in design software used for things they consume. But this is a perfect example to me of the divide perpetuated by management and coders that see themselves as the primary entity and not as a part of an integrated system which as an aggregate is in reality the primary entity.

I find very few individuals who have the knowledge that I have and an appreciation for the how it all must work together. When something is done here I design the part, go and program the CAM paths and cut the part, weld the sanitary tubing or sheet metal assemblies. Assemble the product to the degree required and then deliver this and make sure the customer is happy. Every single aspect of the complete manufacturing process I have hands on experience with. I go to the SE Universities and am in awe of the skill level there with some of these guys. They are so far ahead of me in design abilities and I never expect to be their equal in that area. But I am an expert in shop floor procedures and I am good enough at design to create all I produce. I actually create the idea build it and guarantee it and so I have to deal with every aspect of the part. Very few people do. This leads me to the idea of what philosophy determines the content and capabilities of the software that you use.

I have a builders philosophy. I just want what I use to work well and competently with all the other aspects of building real things so I can, well uhh so, well so I can build real things and my living depends on ALL of it working together. This is one of the things that really excited me about Karsten Newbury being in charge of SE. He had an industrial degree and he grokked the importance of how it all must work together. Miss you Karsten and hope you come back some day and they give you the free rein you and the SE customers deserve. It is this world view of software I find missing so often from people who work with software programming who have a tunnel vision and everything else is below them in the “real” world they live in. So these types of people build little compartments where each thing is separate and the manufacturing ecosystem has to go from room to room to work with dividing walls everywhere hindering efficiencies. And heaven forbid the upper management of these companies getting this in most cases.

Last February Autodesk ran an ad during the Superbowl. Well yes it really was an ad but so cleverly done. The dynamics of air flow around a football and showing how it was done. I was floored with the originality of this presentation and it started the wheels spinning. For some time Autodesk was #2 bad boy after Dassault in my view based on my utter loathing, which I still have by the way, for being forced to work on the cloud. Carl Bass had been accumulating essential and best in class components for A to Z manufacturing for a while by then and it dawned on me what he was doing. He was assembling a comprehensive integrated manufacturing ecosystem. He was also laying the foundation to create interest in design/building/engineering amongst the future and existing workforce. Those who just might be inspired by this and end up using Autodesk products while learning in schools and universities and expect to afterwards to when they were in the private sector as employees. So here I was as an SE user watching Siemens cut SE off at the knees and looking over the fence at Autodesk who had a plan and was implementing it. I wondered then and still do wonder if the companies that compete against Autodesk have any idea of the peril they are in with small to medium or perhaps even larger manufacturing ecosystems? I just have this idea of a juggernaut that was being assembled as people watched in shock apparently incapable of reacting in any meaningful way. The really good CAM bits left on the market get snapped up by Autodesk as part of a plan while others who could have done something elected to relegate the idea of complete manufacturing ecospheres as secondary. I was in admiration of Carl Basses plan at that time and said so. Still not convinced though that the cloud was unavoidable with them. But he and they had my attention and I ask questions.

One of the remarkable things I have since found out is that unlike any other CEO or major corporate officer of any other design software company I know of Carl Bass personally owns CNC machinery himself. He makes things and he writes the programs to do this and I have concluded that out of all the corporate executives out there in design software land he is the only one with a builders philosophy. I am completely fascinated with this and regard Autodesk today as the most singularly exciting place there is because the builders concept is being put into place there by a builder.

So far unlike some past acquisitions by Autodesk things are now being handled in exemplary fashion. The fears the HSM users had have never come to pass and they were treated with respect and courtesy and I don’t know anyone who has left. Not that I know many but of those none complain or leave. Delcam is being integrated but not subsumed and don’t hear squat for complaints on the web from Delcam users about all this now. What I am saying is that by all the information I can dig up there have been no stumbles and no duplicitous garbage forthcoming from all this. I was for some time quite angry over the cloud issue and the lack of information about how the future was to be shaped regarding it but this fear has left for me now and I am today a customer. I am seeing a company that is the most transparent about what they are doing amongst their peers and making prices right to be a player with small to medium-sized and above companies who make or design things.

For me with a builders philosophy I am certain you can find singular programs outside of Autodesk that are much better like SE is compared to Inventor. But for the driving philosophy behind what is being implemented and the future roadmap being planned there is nothing else that touches the potential of what I see unfolding today at Autodesk.

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Inventor HSM Professional Now Out

Posted on December 3, 2014 | 2 comments

Today I went by the web page for Inventor HSM http://cam.autodesk.com/inventor-hsm/ and lo and behold Inventor HSM professional is no longer grayed out. For those of you interested it is now available. I have not finished downloading it yet so obviously I have not had a chance to play with it. Other than the bells and whistles and all those things most users I bet will never use that the top-level of Inventor brings we have the top-level of HSM too. Things are still a work in progress so some of the goodies the SW side has are not here yet. Most however are and I look forward to loading this thing up. It may take some time with my internet speeds however. Autodesk has a download helper that at first looked like it was going to be quick. I average around 70 to 80 KBS on my typical downloads. The Autodesk helper was giving me up to 1MB and averages around 350KBS which is huge for my DSL. I don’t know what they are doing to make it work this way but the speeds are amazing. Still for me though the fly in the ointment was it failed three times to complete for reasons it did not specify and I am back to my download helper in Firefox which seems to be far more resistant to glitches but dog slow by comparison. Hopefully by tomorrow I will be done.

One of the things that I found of interest was on this page and it is about tool libraries. http://cam.autodesk.com/get-inventor-hsm-pro/

I like the idea of being able to import libraries from manufacturers that can be incorporated into user libraries. Now I have not talked to anyone about this yet nor have I tried it to see how well it works. I suspect though if it is in the press release it has been proven to work with libraries from companies that create them to the necessary standards required for integration. HSM is not the only company looking to do this.

I like all the methodology of tool creation or selection here, it is one of the things that caught my attention. Simple quick and easy and set up sheets are well laid out if you care to print them and send it with the file to the operator. What is even better is the data automatically generated in the post header regarding tools.
Tools in NC file

It is very nice to be able to take a last glance at tools in the carousel and check them against the order in the post file right there at the mill controller before punching start. These are the kinds of things that let me know real machinists had a part in what made it to the final product. A common sense safety check that will save you grief down the road. Gotta love it.

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Today is a New Dawn

Posted on December 1, 2014 | 2 comments

Today I become an official member of the Inventor HSM community. As everyone who knows me is aware my primary purpose in doing this is to acquire a CAM program that is straight forward and intuitive to learn and use and also has if not best in class tool paths certainly up there with the best. One that would not cripple my days with hard to implement strategies that quite frankly cost far more time than they could have ever saved me. One that worked without complications out of the box. One that generated tool paths that saved me time and money both in creation and execution on the mill.

My interest in HSM is not new and they were the ones I wanted to be integrated with SE to begin with.
https://solidedging.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/solidworks-and-hsm-works-and-why-not-hsm-edge/

I have watched in my friends shop for over three years how well HSM has worked on a tremendous variety of parts. I have watched in the last year or so with envy as I struggled with CAMWorks for SE to get much done in an expeditious way. I am tremendously happy to finally be with a program that I desired to use some time back. My big holdup had been lack of integration with SE and I was not interested in buying SW just to get HSM.

Today my values on integration have changed. I have through this most painful experience with CW4SE determined that a great CAM program that is not integrated with SE is far better than an integrated CAM program that is but does not work at all as billed. Yes I would like it if HSM was integrated with SE and it would be a near utopian scenario as far as I am concerned. I doubt highly that this will happen though and lack of integration is the least of my worries after this past year of grief with Geometric.

Geometric did a pretty good job of promising things and had a good-looking program to begin with. Since I was one of the ones really pushing to see CAM integrated with SE I was also morally obligated to support this when it did finally happen. This I did not mind since the promise for the future at that time looked pretty darned good. Alas the promise was not the same as what was delivered and I finally had all I could take of this situation.

There is a differing philosophy between HSM and Geometric. HSM has sought out real machinist input for years and actually incorporates it into the software. Oh, and they fix the problems that do on occasion arise quickly from what I have seen. Geometric on the other hand does what they want how they want and the mess they deliver has a very slight resemblance to the desires of actual machinists. Problems linger for years at Geometric and judging by what has gone on this last half-year they don’t much care if you like what they produce.

There are a lot of “I’s” in this post today. Normally I (there – go again) think it is bad form to sound like Obama and use I every other word. In this case though it is my money, my company, my bottom line and my future. So I am writing this purely from my perspective.

I am glad this Geometric chapter of my life is over and I look forward to working with people who actually care about my profitability and efficiency.

12-29-14 UPDATE
Please see 12-29-14 post for an update on this. I have pulled most of my critical comments in hopes Geometric is finally serious about fixing things. This one stays though as it reflects the differing groups these CAM prgrams are currently direct towards. CW4SE for big companies and Inventor HSM for small companies that need to do things quick and easy.

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