Tag Archives: manufacturing

People WAKE UP! The Cloud Will Kill Your Company.

Posted on November 2, 2016 | 11 comments

I am watching all the hacking going on with Crooked Hillary’s evil empire and the Washington Swamp being exposed. One would think career criminals of her stature and decades of experience would be clever enough to hide the evidence or communicate in secure ways. But this got me to thinking of other things today. Before you go further though something completely entertaining. http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/11/02/bleachbit-mocks-hillary-clintons-cloth-or-something-server-gaffe/

Data that needs to be secure can only be kept secure when it does not go online. There is no doubt about this and anyone who is serious about it knows this to be true. Yes I know the human element can steal data as an inside job but that gets to be much harder to do and the perps run serious risks. Online is a shopping cart for bad guys and I would guess most never face any jail time or risk when doing so. There are a few things I want you to Google here. Try Googling “Chinese build stealth fighter with stolen info”. Now try “Dell made in China server boards have back doors”.  Now try “Huawei backdoor proof”.  Then go to “US military bans Lenovo”.

I know you have an inquiring mind or else you would not be here reading this post. So I want you to go and do some research for yourself to the best of your ability and tell me what you come up with regarding the jeopardy of online exposure to intellectual property. That silly stuff that just happens to make your livelihood  and your companies profits possible.

I want to be on record as stating that I see no way for a company that forces you to work online with a CAD or CAM program as being interested in your security. It is impossible for them to guarantee this and indeed they will not. Read the T&C for anything that forces you online from server farms to your favorite software. Tell me what you see. Do it with your own eyes and don’t accept the words of marketing or corporate officials who have a vested interest in you not knowing how bad it really is.

If you are silly enough to be spoon fed “online is secure” falsehoods and subject your future to it you deserve what you get. For those with a bit more sense it is high time to start looking into doing things in a secure way and make the companies you deal with either keep you off the cloud to work or guarantee your safety and cover any provable damages you may well incur because of what they made you do as a condition of software usage.

If they don’t isn’t it high time you give your money and future to a company that understands your future is more valuable to you than their’s is?

 

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CAD CAM Software Subscription Only, Unforeseen Complications for YOU

Posted on October 8, 2015 | 4 comments

Recently I received an update to my HP printer. It ended up telling me that I could not run without buying more ink from HP. Now in the user manual it clearly states, that is the user manual and the conditions under which I purchased their printer to begin with, that I could run on black ink only. Furthermore there is a setting under printer properties that clearly states select grey scale to run in black ink only. So as a contract to me by virtue of the conditions I bought under and the properties which confirm the grey scale black ink only to run settings were intended I get this crap from HP. Extortion would be another way of stating this. The warning from HP I had from the printer after I installed much cheaper ink cartridges stated that any warranty would be voided by their use but did not prohibit their use. Legally I am sure they can’t since as a condition of buying this Officejet Pro 8600 I did not have to sign or commit to HP only ink.

ScreenHunter_139 Oct. 07 19.48

OK today I get this email from the ink cartridge people. HP sends you an innocent looking update which does not specify what is in there and does not allow you to select what parts of it you might want like Microsoft does. You get the whole chilona. Today I and every other HP 8600 printer buyer are being told we HAVE to do things we never signed up for and did not ask for. Arbitrarily and after the sale HP decides they want to make more money and make it in ways customers can’t run from. It is the capability to squeeze their customer base for more money that is just something no company seems to be able to resist over time no matter what the promises if they can do it. You see if you give people this kind of power over you it WILL be used sooner or later.

Is it to much of a stretch for you to see how this type of thing will come your way too if you cede the idea of permanent seats of software for rental? Where the conditions can and will change over time and there you are. Stuck with something that won’t work if you do not pay to play. All the power and might of legal hostage taking will be underlying your rental plans. When you have data created and locked under chattel securities and usable only with further payments that are subject to change with benefits to you subject to change why would you even go there? Here is one for you. You think data storage is free? You think there wont be a day where with cloud run software your stuff won’t be held to a cloud server and they wont charge you for the use of your data each month for the program and then the new server farm rental fees? Where they will force updates on you that will change the conditions to be different from when you signed up and you can blow it out your rear end if you don’t like it?

I want you to sit down and think about the ways you can come up with to screw customers over if you were in charge of a situation where where you could force pay to play. And change the rules to your benefit whenever. The company you signed up with today may well mean all the good things they say. Then like with Solid Edge the good guy leaves and utter junk takes their place. Or they get sued and now have to raise lots of cash. Or they get bought out (don’t think it can’t happen to whatever you currently use) and the new guys have saddled everything with more debt that has to be paid for. Just as soon as corporate leadership determines they need to change how they deal with you and in direct proportion to how much power you have given them over you, you are their hostage with no recourse. Except to leave entirely and if you have years of data locked up with these mercenary companies will you ever be able to?

Gee Dave it’s just printer ink don’t blow it all so far out of proportion. I mean after all no software company will EVER change the rules on you like HP did.

Isn’t it just peachy that software companies are doing this to secure their stable future? Without regard to your future or care for your expenses or profitability or your secure stable future? Where you better pay them before you pay your light bill or lose accumulated years of work and the ability to use that work? Am I wrong about this? Can you prove me wrong about this?

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Value Is Where You Find It

Posted on August 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

Received my final renewal notice for Solid Edge yesterday. In June I had my last one for CAMWorks for Solid Edge. It is with some very fond memories and some really ugly ones that run through my mind as I ponder the idea of corporate intent and regard for customers. CW4SE of course never had a chance with me again after the debacle of software failure endured at this end from them. They have considerably improved their time frame for releases with ST8 being done a little over a month after release. Technically I could have expected a license for this since the cut off date was 6-15 and my license was good until 6-30 but why ask when I would not use it?

I had a little time under my belt with the ST7 SP1 CW4SE release which appeared to be as good as anything they had produced since the integration with SE. But I was struck at that time with just how cumbersome and time consuming CW4SE was compared to IP HSM and never cut another part with it again. Why take a chance on these guys again when their forums on the SW side are littered with long time problems, like the Tech Data Base which is fundamental to making CW4SE work like promised, that don’t seem to be well resolved since Geometric bought Pro CAM in 2008. When the time to complete a CAM plan took so much longer and was far more complicated than IP HSM.

Solid Edge is of course my favorite design program. Inventor is clunky to me and while part of it is being new to it part of it is inherent direct editing and importing deficiencies. I deal with a lot of imported parts and SE allows me to do what I want right away and quicker than the original authors could in the native program. The direct editing capabilities are far better at this time in SE and this is how I have worked for seven years now. The pace of improvements for SE has dropped off the chart though and the single biggest thing touted this year appears to be the ability to work with Surface Pro’s. Pure window dressing and the equivalent of SW offering two rendering programs at the same time a couple of years ago rather than digging in deep and providing meaningful new functions for CAD creation. It is what companies do when the desire to improve a product goes away for whatever reason and they want to leave it on autopilot because it does still represent income. Plus who could you sell it off to anyway?

The grand total of the maintenance for SE and CW4SE for one year would have been $4,000.00. For a combination of a design program that seems to have peaked and a CAM program that only masochistic people would inflict upon themselves while eagerly waiting for today’s problems to inflict pain on them.

http://descriptive.link/siemens-product-news-sans-solid-edge will take you to Siemens new products page. An industry news letter that talks about software they have. I see interesting things for the high dollar stuff but for SE there is just a silly rendering contest. Why nothing about what SE designs and the cool stuff made with it and case studies utilizing it? Because Siemens does not care to sell or promote SE. The corporate regard for SE shows in examples like this where Marketing and Publicity for Siemens chooses the topic. It could also just be laziness on the part of Siemens Marketing and Publicity where a whole group of people who must have had talent at some time are employed. But Siemens has a culture where if nothing is done and you can pass the buck for another day and not make a decision but show you had meetings you get this big fat paycheck so why work? Why be productive and make decisions that may come back and haunt you?

If I was a stock analyst and I knew how much time and potential was being wasted through this smothering bureacracy Siemens has allowed to develop I would dump my stock TODAY. It is no wonder their profits are down with the massive amount of unproductive overhead they have. I figure the Mr Big over Siemens bought UGS in an effort to make Siemens manufacturing more efficient. Sadly now the short term effects of buying efficiencies have been subsumed into the belly of the beast and the do nothing think nothing make no waves culture reigns supreme. Now put SE into these hands that not only can’t run what they have well but have genuine animosity as the UGS people do towards SE and tell me how bright the future is. Siemens admits they are not as productive as their main competitors and they are going to have to suffer real financial pain before changes are made. I have no idea how you would turn something like this around though when you have trained your workforce to be unproductve and have paid them handsomely to be so. They think it is what you want and the paychecks are proof of it.

I refuse to fund the people who have ruined SE’s future and have deliberately choked off funds to develop it with.

Here is the starkest contrast I can think of between Siemens SE and Autodesk’s Inventor. On one hand we have Mr Big Carl Bass who owns serious manufacturing equipment and has it in his personal shop. He writes CAM programs for parts his two hands and mind produces with this equipment. He is all the time making an effort to be in places that revolve around manufacturing and education for manufacturing. As far as I can tell not only is he in charge but he is committed to the idea that what he does is important not only to Autodesk’s future but Americas as a manufacturing giant. He is a maker of things with his own hands and he gets it.

Siemens has a guy over SE named John Miller that no one sees. No one hears from him and he has absolutely no desire to make chips or promote manufacturing or SE. Unlike Karsten Newbury who while he did not personally cut parts had a manufacturing degree and DID get the idea. Siemens ran him off and replaced him with a mindless drone place holder. This then is the measure of what these two companies believe and think of you the customer. Remember you make a living based upon the software you use and you better think hard about what regard the authoring company has for you. If I was an SE VAR I would be seriously concerned since it is clear Siemens does not worry about the future with anything SE.

So on one hand we have Inventor Pro HSM everything Autodesk has to offer for $10,000.00 and $1,500.00 per year. Over there we have SE + CW4SE at $20,000.00+ and at least $4,000.00 per year and this is far from everything there is to offer. You stick in 5 axis for CW4SE and you are probably up to nosebleed heigths. On one side we have a software company that believes in manufacturing and has spent money to buy the tools to make economical best in class manufacturing a reality if not now in the near future. They make their living off of software and it has to be right or they won’t thrive. On the other we have an ossified manufacturing concern where the software they purchased represents a tiny fraction of their gross and they quite frankly don’t care about you. They bought the software to improve their internal efficiencies. At one time I thought this was a good thing but now conclude for SE users it was not. A program on autopilot in a company that could care less about you is not good.

On one hand we have a company that offers free software to startups and free two axis machining to SW and Inventor users. They desire to be your partner. On the other hand we have, well we have Siemens SE. Run by what’s his face and stifled by UGS hatchet men in combination with Geometric who evidently only cares about your results when the heat is on. Oh, and two axis milling for SW and SE users is $4,500.00. People who like your money but don’t see things as a two way street where the benefits must accrue to both sides of the equation.

I have not made up my mind about SE in the title of this blog. I still really like the program and the Siemens UGS people can’t kill the productivity already there they can only limit it’s future development. I sit here with fond memories and a program that is still my principle modeler. It feels more and more though like Solid Edge belongs in the title of this blog as a memorial to what was and not what will be. Sure do miss you Karsten and what you represented that is no longer here.

Are Marketing and Publicity People really Aliens?

As an aside here. What is it with marketing people? Does their designer bottled water they must consume before any planning is done contain serious sedatives? I am seeing the same thing with Autodesk as I did with Siemens although not as bad. There are lots of things to talk about regarding events and activities already paid for or done. Human interest stories that revolve around software use or the educational field and you don’t see squat. I don’t know who is in charge of Autodesks marketing but the same disconnect as Siemens is there. Why is it so hard for these people to talk about what is here and present and relevant to existing and potential users?

I was told about a Walter cutting competition in Germany I believe it was. Where HSM did really well and the only negative thing was the endmills did not last quite as long time wise as they did in Volumill. Well the physics of cubic inch metal removal rates being what it is I imagine they did not. But when you are cutting parts in less time I know what I want and it is the most metal gone per minute and HSM won that. It would have been interesting to see the total cubic inches removed per tool to. So why has marketing not talked about this and why can’t I get this information to blog about? I have asked and nothing although admitedly I have not asked marketing people for this I have asked others within Autodesk.

Carl Bass was on sabbatical recently but he made time to go by an educators conference and talk about software I presume. He does not need a prompter or a script. He has a passion for this and I hear it was very well received. Is this not a relevant human interest story to CAD and CAM users? Somewhere buried in the files of things good to talk about and already paid for that Marketing and Publicity is so clueless about this too dwells. I would really like to be in the mind of a marketing dude for one day just to see how they figure out what is important and what to talk about. The public face that is the result of their efforts is so alien to me and so lacking for content readily available that I just can’t figure out what makes them tick.

But then I drink spring water and not “designer” water so perhaps I never will understand.

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Inventor Pro HSM Six Months In

Posted on June 25, 2015 | Leave a comment

Sometimes as a blogger there can be a compulsion to do SOMETHING all the time. If you happen to have to earn a living outside of blogging though time does get away from you. Sitting here this morning reflecting on various things and it dawned on me that day by day I have been using a new program for a while now and how remarkably trouble-free it has been. The trauma of CAMWorks for Solid Edge fades into the back ground as time passes and getting caught up in finally starting on my own line of manufactured equipment it’s easy to forget just how fundamentally life has been changed for the better here this past half year.

HSM has been a bit slow in development in some people’s eyes, notably SW users in the pace of improvements. These HSM guys have had a huge job on their plates the last two + years and have done well considering the numbers of people they have to dedicate to it. Speaking of which Autodesk has and is hiring new CAM people and while it will take a bit to get them up to speed these are additional resources being employed to speed the process up. Later this year the move over to some significant new logic in HSM should be done. One can go to the Autodesk CAM forums and read the gripes but I just sit there and think about where I came from and just how bad it really could be for these guys. Familiarity breeds contempt as the saying goes. I just use HSM and enjoy the rapid deployment of CAM plans and go on.

HSM has just plain worked here without any real complications and this is a problem. For a blogger that is. Unlike CAMWorks for SE where there are a ton of things you have to do (And extraordinary program coding complexities that can and do fail on you which is another topic I am happy to not have to rant about anymore) all the time. Or a labyrinth to wander through which can yield a ton of how to or commentary videos and articles. HSM is straight forward and quite simple in comparison. I did a video a while back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lW6GfkmdSo Considering it this morning and how quick and easy it was to go from A to Z on a basic part and how do you follow that up?

There are other things as you get further into the program for sure but the basics of how to from zero setting to code posting is so simple. That perhaps is the biggest part of the genius behind HSM. Why make things overly complicated so you can try to fit every possible variable known to man? This kind of complexity takes time to use and set up and in the end unless you are going to cut tons of those parts does not benefit you time wise. Most of us would rather be able to knock out a CAM plan quickly with good to great tool paths and be done with it. Do most of us really want to spend hours trying to eke out that last millisecond of cut time? To take the same amount of time that in HSM does a number of parts for oneseys and twoseys or a handful as is typical for most of us?

Templates is something I am slowly learning about. There is not a lot of information out there and this surprises me. It is the way to go compared to trying to shoehorn tools, procedures and strategies into a Tech Data Base strategy which introduces so much complexity to code that it is impossible to do well. HSM is working on Templates and indeed already has more than I thought. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhITd_sAbdk will take you to a most excellent video that talks about setting default behavior and templates. I guess I am like most of us and I learn just enough to get out of the fire but not into the lake. Somewhere in the how too’s and literature I missed this default setting stuff and in combination with setting up templates I can see utilizing this a lot in days to come. It is nice to discover new good things today. I remember dreading every day in CW4SE and wondering what would go wrong now.

HSM is the primary reason I came to Inventor Pro HSM. I have recently started to create my parts in Inventor and as always the new program just does not do it as well as the one you have been using for years. You know, the one you have taken the time to learn. So the new kid gets beaten up on until you take the time to learn it to. Some of the logic behind the Inventor GUI is under my belt now and it is not bad just different. Since integrated CAD CAM is so much more efficient where it is possible the migration to Inventor has begun from SE. I can’t see that there is anything as powerful as Synchronous Tech in Inventor and working with imported parts is nowhere near as efficient in Inventor. How much of this is newby problems on my end and how much is reality I don’t know. For now though I am going to say SE is better by a wide margin in these two areas. The ability to use integration though means more and more all my new parts will be created in Inventor and the end for much work now done in SE is in sight. I am becoming more impressed with Inventor as time goes on.

Six months in to the belly of the beast is a time to reflect upon the philosophy of the company whose products you have bought into. Siemens has basically killed the public face of Solid Edge. I noticed today that even the once super active SE BBS has dropped of a lot in posting. Is it any wonder that people over time respond to what is put before them? 600,000+ posts at the Inventor forum and 60,000+ for SE was pretty shocking the first time I saw the numbers and it kind of put some things in perspective. The larger trained user base and potential for peer work relationships clearly belongs to Autodesk. They have worked for a long time to get here and you benefit from this. I now benefit from this and actually have files sent to me now by people using the same program for the first time in seven years. While I have been sent files from SE users for a variety of reasons they have never resulted in paying work. The closest I ever came to that was last fall and the problems with CW4SE shot that down because I could not guarantee parts delivery with all the problems going on with CW4SE. Let me restate that. I did not even quote the work because who knew when and if I could even do it?

Autodesk is doing everything right as far as I am concerned regarding making a software suite for people to make things by. The only fly in the ointment is this stupid insistence upon no more permanent licenses issued past this coming February. Now I am covered since I do have one and they are not going to stop updates to these as long as you remain current. And whatever you get will be permanent at that point in time if you ever do drop off. The price is right as the industries best bargain for what you get in Inventor Pro HSM or Inventor HSM. I can’t even buy worthwhile CAM alone from Autodesk’s competitors much less have it all from soup to nuts like I now have. Six months in and the value of this over anything else out there for what I do is proven every week.

I have to admit that the idea of no more permanent seats disgusts me. I also have to admit that after the debacle with CW4SE that I am tired of fighting stupidity or corporate arrogance and dismissal of customer concerns. I just want something that works and does so competently and for my days to be as painless as possible. I live in that world now. I have also taken care of my future concerns about stupid rental only data hostage taking. Hey, that’s what it is when you take idiot marketing cubical automatons cutesy verbal slants on reality away from the situation. What do they do when they train marketing people anyway? Do they teach them that by calling the foetid stench from a pig sty Organic Floral Essence somehow changes reality and their clever words really hide things from us? I don’t know about you but it insults me every time these people speak down to me and it seems like every one of these companies hire these goofs. I would rather they just be honest and say something like “at this time we will move to subscription only for new customers in the future. We want to preserve cash flow in the future because we think the world is heading into troubled times and we figure it is better for us and you the customer to make sure we survive long-term.” This is the only true benefit to Autodesk customers I can see out of this whole paradigm as in the end somehow being chattel always costs more and in ways not yet fully apparent.

People you are being warned ahead of time this may happen. Autodesk may not do this at all or for long if the response is bad. I happen to think it will be. Think Space Claim here. The reality is though once you get past corporate babblespeak PR stupidity Inventor Pro HSM is the best buy and getting your permanent seat before February if you are shopping for something new would be prudent. Do I think this data hostage thing is reason to stay away? No. It is reason to however make your move before it is too late and avoid the mess to begin with. There are so many compelling reasons to own this program that along with the price it mystifies me why this is even going to happen. It is the only thing Autodesk has done or is going to do that goes against the idea of value for money and selling new and existing customers on the merits of the program and ecosystem rather than just saying pay up or else. Personally speaking the old-fashioned way of earning my loyalty with value was what brought me here. Were I new and confronted with subscription only I would have walked on by. Time will tell how it all goes but don’t expect me to get to excited or say a whole lot about this. My life raft is in place and I like where I live today.

I can honestly say that today it is fun to work again. Well not when it is 95 and humid but you know what I mean. I don’t know how to calculate the true value of trouble-free productive days. All I can say is that I know I make more money and my wife really likes it when software is not putting me in a foul mood all the time. I happen to like not being in a foul mood to. Make chips, smile, go to the bank and come home to domestic bliss. What a deal.

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Inventor HSM Pro and Quality Control

Posted on March 11, 2015 | 5 comments

This won’t be a long post today but it will be one I have wanted to make for a couple of months now. It revolves around a topic dear to me and that is just how does your software supplier of choice vet what he does before you see it. Privileged information will drive you nuts sometimes as there are cool things you know but have been asked to not talk about. It is the price you pay to be taken into confidence.

Autodesk is a paradox to me in this regard. They are an odd mix of things to talk about and then not doing so. One of these is just how do they determine that the code for HSM is improving and worthwhile? I don’t know how many actual chip cutting users they keep in contact with who do testing and then report back. On the Inventor side of things it is a bit fledgling so the community in all it’s aspects is not quite in place yet. I believe that in the next few months it will be so up to and including the regular almost weekly at times updates the SW HSM guys have been getting for years now. And I expect the increasing participation of users in the soon to be regularly scheduled beta releases and in feedback from actual achieved results in the field.

I am fascinated with the concept of High Speed Machining. Even though it has been in use here for over a year it still seems a bit magical when it is set up and cut loose. Things have to be right though when doing this because at these speeds and feeds every problem from eccentric tool holding and unbalanced tool holders to software algorithms is amplified and proper conditions make the difference between success and failure. Since Al W was so kind as to mention “The Spike” in the following video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJnusVpKip4 I figure I can talk about one of the tools used by HSM and Autodesk to verify the validity of what they are doing with the Adaptive and other I assume tool paths in HSM. Information on the spike is found at http://www.pro-micron.de/en/products/sensory-tool-holder-spike/ I would have to think there must be some equipment somewhere they might be using this Spike on to so I would conjecture a machine lab of some sort or at the least access to machines somewhere here in the states where they verify the software with chips.

If what I have observed in person in my shop is any indication, and I have both current versions of Volumill and HSM to play with so I can form a pretty good idea of real results, HSM is winning the high speed machining AND the ease of use war. These people are serious about what they do and make real efforts to put field tested productive tools into your hands.

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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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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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Solid Edge, Siemens/UGS and the Inevitable Consequences

Posted on October 20, 2014 | 6 comments

So today I read that Karsten Newbury has left Siemens.

Well first off I want to say that there are two people who I hold most responsible for the brief renaissance of SE and a period of time for hope for bigger and better things. Now Dan Staples is high on my list too but for technical reasons and not as a spark plug for serious growth in numbers and community for Solid Edge. Dan is perhaps more than anyone else the reason Don and Karsten had something truly great to sell to the world. But with Don and Karsten was hope for better things personified and moving forward in tangible ways that could be seen and touched.

I remember getting a call from Don about five years ago when I was expressing frustration in public with Siemens who seemed dead set on hiding SE under a rock and keeping it there. He told me he had a guy who was going to call me that I would find of interest. Karsten called shortly after and told me what his plans and goals were and we basically wanted the same thing. SE to take its place as its capabilities deserved as the company that would overtake SW. This began a five-year journey where at times it was kind of surreal. I mean just how in the world a single man shop ends up helping to influence the outcome of the software he uses is still something that surprises me. I guess I was a pretty good litmus test for how users felt about things and so off we went.

I can say as a guy that had a peek way behind the scenes of SE that neither Don or Karsten ever said they would do something and then not do it. They had a vision and goals and were steadfast to both SE and it’s customers as tireless advocates for the product and it’s users. They were serious about SE and us.

While I have fallen out of the “inner circle” so to speak of SE and Siemens and don’t have much contact with anyone there any more I do wish to say this. I have nothing but admiration for Dan and Karsten both as corporate figures and personally. They both had correct visions of how things should be and could be and eminently qualified plans on how to get there. Over the last year and a half though it became clear to me that they were being hampered in their efforts by Siemens.

I knew these guys and their goals and it was clear people above and around them did not share the same vision. Primarily North American UGS guys who had convinced Siemens that SE was a threat to NX. I think they were becoming quite alarmed at how good SE was becoming and the true potential that SE under Don and Karsten represented in possible sales. I consider Siemens to be quite anal and navel gazers to boot who sadly are stupid enough to believe these UGS guys, some of who have had a real hatred of SE that surpasses mere protection of NX sales. They have deliberately starved SE of funds and permission to market themselves adequately and the really sad thing is that this was with the very money SE had earned for itself. It is so pathetic that the public face of SE through the website had an $80,000.00 a YEAR budget and thought control police who hated SE making sure nothing right or wonderful could ever happen there.   Matt Lombard with a following that was staggering at one time was brought in by Don and Karsten as part of a master plan to eat up SW. Right off the bat Matt was shoved of to the side and deliberately throttled and his value to SE killed.

So in my opinion to protect a few lousy seats of their precious NX they sacrifice tens of thousands of SW conversions and increased overall profit for Siemens. And sadly really talented guys like Don and Karsten who are not going to work for people like this forever. Can you imagine being in charge of something as wonderful as SE and then have board room politics by simple-minded venal corporate turf protecting back stabbers shooting you down? Would you stay under those conditions? So the Siemens quality filter works and good people leave and the bad ones stay and now the whole future of SE looks bleak. Yeah, SE is not going away but until there is a shakeup of upper level management SE is doomed. It going to become like one of those little orange and black spotted Salamanders. They are around but you have to turn over rocks to find them. We have now gone full circle and the bad guys have run off the good guys and SE will once again take its rightful place as the best software you won’t hear about. It is clear to me the Siemens/UGS people who hold SE in contempt have won and will win for some time to come.

I would say that it is Don and Karstens gain and Siemens loss but that presumes Siemens even has the corporate mental capabilities to understand that losing a right hand is not a good thing. They can have a bunch of meetings and talk about all this while they try to figure out if losing body parts is good or bad. I guess the old adage about body parts and who really runs things at Siemens is true. The brain says it is in charge of things and other body parts chime in with why they are the most important. But the winning body part of this debate is the North American UGS a– hole that says if I close myself off none of the rest of you are going to work.

Guys, best of luck in your new jobs and I sincerely hope you both prosper at whatever you do. Your abilities and dedication deserve to be rewarded by someone who judges on merits and not short-sighted little boardroom weasels with axes to grind.

An additional comment.

Sometimes the sublime humor in life comes from strange places. Perhaps there is also more than a little bit of truth to saying like what goes around comes around. Just for the heck of it this evening I went to read the spam posts that accumulate with the filter WordPress provides. The post most frequently generating spam mail is, are you ready for this, “The Destructive Siemens Corporate Mindset”.  Uhh well lets see. Brilliant minds think alike,  birds of a feather flock together. Just some amusing thoughts going through my mind right now. Feel free to post any witticisms you might have in regards to this to dear readers.

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Celebrate Fireworks Free July 4TH with Siemens SE Sales Supression Team

Posted on July 4, 2014 | 4 comments

I had a young lad from my church stop by Thursday. Like many he has graduated from a two-year community college with an Autodesk oriented study mainly Revit and architectural stuff. He also claimed to have six months of Inventor and some SW under his belt. He was curious to see SE though and I always make time to show anyone who is interested. He has been working sweating copper for an HVAC company doing installs for Walmarts. He decided that he did not like the boss though and quit. Now in this retarded Obama economy he is finding out that work is hard to come by and he stopped in to see what I am doing and to see SE.

So I run through some SE stuff for a while and listen to the oohs and aahs that you hear from Inventor types and SW types when you start in on the direct editing goodies. And I get to sit there and grin when he says how long it would take to do these things in SW or Inventor. But then we get into the serious life questions that revolve around this kid getting work and a future. And we get into the serious questions of a potential employer not being able to find the skills he needs in potential employees.

Of course the local college is teaching Autodesk and SW. They all do don’t they? Now this did not happen by accident it was by design with companies that have the ability to be forward-looking and to plan a market conquest based upon creating a need and a labor resource to fill the need. It is called smart business and planning and laying a foundation for the future. Of course this is something the overlords of SE have never done from Integraph until today where Siemens with huge financial power continues this legacy of ignoring the best mid range MCAD program out there. So I sit here with this young lad and ponder this situation that bugs the heck out of me. Namely the idea that Siemens SHOULD be seeking larger market share for the benefit of all involved with SE. But oblivious to things that would benefit their customers and drive more sales for them we see nothing. Again and still and apparently forever.

I look at yet another prospective employee that has no skills I can use unless I am willing to teach him SE. And I would have to be the one to do it because it is not taught by any school I know of closer than a 75 mile drive for him each way to UAH in Huntsville. And even then the instructors in Huntsville are stuck on lazy and do not teach anything about SE ST SIX YEARS AFTER IT’S RELEASE. I figure it is because they might have to be bothered to learn something new before they can teach it. Yes you heard this right, they only can be bothered to teach ordered. And yes Siemens does not police what is done with contributions here so these students never see the most powerful part of SE. It’s no wonder why the adoption rate of ST is so darned low. How are people supposed to know about and be inspired about ST if Siemens can’t be bothered to get behind SE and push this technology? Osmosis? Siemens is truly anal and retarded about this and it just furthers the idea in my mind that they bought SE by design for internal use only. Buy SE because it works for you not because Siemens will work for you. If you are looking to buy SE you better think hard about this. This kid CAN however go five miles each way to Columbia Community College and be taught SW and Autodesk stuff. By design and by plan there is work out there for people trained in virtually everything but SE.

I find myself in a sad position with people and SE nowadays because what I say can influence life changing decisions. I do not try to talk people into buying or using SE anymore because there is just no work out there for them anywhere close to where I live and after five years I have given up on Siemens trying to change this situation for the better. I do highly recommend SE under these two following narrow sets of circumstances. If you are like me and you do design build under your own roof and are basically a closed complete manufacturing entity you absolutely can not beat the power of SE. Bring in your customers files or do your own and then make the designs become reality better and faster than any other way. The second is that I recommend for those shops that have multiples of seats to get at least one seat of SE to deal with imported files and editing quickly internal files that would otherwise consume whole days to fix with SW or Inventor. But your primary customers will in all likely hood be using SW or Inventor and they will expect you to do the same. Refer back to the shrewd planning idea that the masters of SE have been bereft of since the very beginning.

My advice to this kid was I will teach you how to tig weld. There are ads in the paper for welders. I was not going to waste his time and mine teaching him SE when I know he can’t find any work with it. Once again I come face to face with eventually having to train someone how to use SE if I ever hire a designer. Or buying a seat of Inventor or SW and bypassing the training hassle. I hate to say it but my up front costs as an employer will be far cheaper with software I can get trained users for. This is the reality of the world that has been inflicted upon SE by idiots like Siemens German Management Experts. At least they do meetings well and the meetings to plan further meetings bit to.

I am getting really soured on the SE ecosystem. It seems like every time I turn around there are roadblocks placed before the usefulness of SE to me as a company if I step outside of the narrow range of design build under my own roof with just myself. SE does not get me a single bit of work because I have customers that use it. At this time not one does. SE does not provide me with a potential trained work force because students choose to learn SE based upon the idea they will be employed using it. Students just 75 miles north of the SE headquarters have never even heard of SE and when they and the colleges look at help wanted boards SE is absent there to. So just why should the colleges and students be interested in something that will gain them no work? Answer, they aren’t. So we have these inflicted wounds upon the body of SE that have no relationship to the outright capabilities of SE but have as its sole source owners of SE stabbing SE in the back. Time and time again and year after year they inflict these wounds upon SE.

For five years now I have fought to change this and I have just given up. These Siemens people are truly terminal adding to the long list of idiot owners where SE is concerned and who do not care. I have nothing but the highest regard for Karsten Newbury and I know he gets all the right things and wants the right things to happen. Siemens shoots him down all the time. I am only going to say this one time but I mean it. Karsten, if this is the way Siemens is going to do you why stay? Why not join the others who are leaving because Siemens is NOT going to ever get behind SE as far as I can see and you can do far better than this for yourself. Siemens is not going to give you the support required to make SE #1 and in truth they could care less about that whole idea anyway. So where does that leave you? I don’t know how much time you might spend thinking about this but I do and I wonder where it leaves me as a small business owner. Artificially crippled by idiots in Siemens Germany Muckymuck land is what I am thinking. The dead and utter silence since SEU 2014 does nothing but confirm this to me. Not a word about the Summits this year and just space-filling SEU2014 junk on the official blogs. The CADCAM blogosphere seemingly could care less and has nothing much to say about the best software no one has ever heard of. Every day I can read a lot of stuff from individuals and companies about Autodesk and SW but not SE. I don’t have to be there to know that Siemens has cut the purse strings to SE and that they do not care what happens to SE nor do they care what their existing customers think of all this. I can look around me and see what is being done and make this most accurate judgement based upon what I see in the real world. Quite frankly I doubt entirely the idea that SE is #2 in midrange MCAD and I figure it is another thing pulled out of some marketing guys rear end. No provable numbers and no corporate office that cares and you can’t be #2 under this kind of environment. But you can however put a smiley face on this mess because smiley faces are free and within the Siemens authorized budget for SE.

The only hope for SE as far as I can tell are right minded VAR’s and they are the only ones doing good work and trying to get the word out there. They appear to be the only ones who really care about the future of SE. I think of my VAR which is Ally PLM. They do a superb job of support for SE as a product and me as a customer. They care in all the important ways that the Siemens Overlords do not. Heaven help SE if these VAR’s ever get tired of all this.

So Happy Fireworks Free 4Th to you all at Siemens and may you enjoy contemplating the environment of externally imposed failure you have created for SE.

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Siemens Marketing and Publicity Update 5-27-14

Posted on May 27, 2014 | 6 comments

You can blame Ralph for this post as my jaw dropped when I read the following in his latest ezine. But before we start in here is a picture from a secret spy camera somewhere in a Siemens parking lot as a Marketing or PR guy is driving in. It is kind of hard to tell which department he belonged to as they all look the same.

marketing guy arriving at work

Here is Ralph’s latest. A great read all the time on many topics and you should subscribe.
http://www.upfrontezine.com/2014/upf-820.htm.

“Re: What I Learned at Solid Edge University 2014
Thanks for attending Solid Edge University and publishing your article in upfront.eZine #819. I work in marketing for Solid Edge and just a couple of comments from me that may be of interest to your readers:

The Solid Edge Apps web page that you refer to is a new resource to help our customers find the most commonly used Apps by category (Analysis, Manufacturing, Standard Parts etc.). We are adding the most popular apps into this area right now and you are correct that there are just 30 or so listed here right now. At the bottom of the page is a link to “All Solid Edge Partners” and it is here that you can search on the 500+ technology partners whose software works with Solid Edge.

Great that you were impressed by the Create Sheet Metal from 3D Part capability, and we would agree we should have featured this more prominently in our marketing materials for Solid Edge ST7. It is featured in the “Fast and Flexible Part Modeling” video on our Solid Edge ST7 web page.
– David Chadwick, mainstream eng global product marketing
Siemens Industry Software Limited”

SO Dave, this Dave the user and not the marketing whiz-bang, what did you learn today reading the above quote from the esteemed Mr Chadwick? What I learn is that once again these people can’t be bothered to do their jobs. There are a number of reasons for this which I know but will not go into at this time. Any one of these, or all of these or maybe even some new monumentally idiotic reasons I may not be aware of apply here.

Suffice it to say that once again with a known convention date that presents a once a year opportunity better than any other by far to promote SE these guys fail to fix yet another website problem. LOOK HERE at all of our partners, 500+ of them!! Don’t you love it when you go there as Ralph did and see 30 some listed right now? And of course right now is heading into two weeks after what should have been a hard must make it deadline. I wonder how many of these are here from last year first off and secondly if they were at all worried about this there would have been more than 30+ even if they could not get them all in there. AND that number would grow rapidly each week until they were all there. Of course I digress because that happens elsewhere and not here in the land of never-ending meetings to decide web page colors. Clearly Mr Chadwick was not worried enough about this to do it in a timely fashion so the year’s best opportunity squandered again. For crying out loud my church just finished a web site and the links work and it is populated quite well and one person did it with a part-time effort in a few weeks. How is it that when Siemens M&PR get ahold of these simple things they never see the light of day?

You guys better wake up and realize that the brand you are making for yourself in the public eye is one of superior product and bungling navel gazing M&PR. Also known as the best software you’ve never heard of. Look people I have a serious question for you. How many times do you have to walk face first into closed doors before you begin to realize that opening the door first gets you farther faster and in much better shape? It will also allow you to take that big red clown ball off of your noses which is another great benefit.

OK I know this is hard for you all to understand but let me spell out why this is important to users who BUY your product. The larger the market share SE has the more we as buyers benefit from increased work that will come our way as a natural and inevitable consequence of growing market share. I said this FIVE YEARS ago and find it nearly impossible to believe I am STILL saying it to people who STILL don’t understand this. Oh, and you guys as a company will make more money too although I guess this must not be too important or else Siemens would be cleaning its dead wood out left and right.

Would one of you with some gonads please reply to this post and explain this situation to me? I want to try to understand this continuation of absolute and I fear deliberate evasion of duty to your customers and corporation to do what they and we have hired you to do. Really, I want to know.

From yet another secret spy camera purportedly in a Siemens M&PR meeting room where important decisions are made.

marketing decision process

A rather simple and elegant answer to determining what gets done. The Siemens gray color-neutral darts are labeled with cool to do M&PR stuff and the blindfolded guy whips it to the dart board which is invariably in the upper left quadrant of the selected wall as you face it. The tally guy writes down what makes it according to the points each dart gathers and this sets the agenda for the next meeting where highest scoring dart gets forwarded to a subcommittee for further study. This happens again for all the other darts until they all make it through the vetting process. Any darts that miss completely are discussed in another series of scheduled meetings where darts are labeled accordingly and launched with great hopes and expectations that these will graduate to the points category thus proving to themselves the great progress being made.

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