Tag Archives: Solid Edge ST8

The End Of The Road In Sight

Posted on February 14, 2017 | 6 comments

For those of you who have followed me for some years now here is an update on the future of this blog.

I received the two final codes today on my Hass VF4 and TL-2. Paid them off early and will type in the final numbers today when I finish this post.

The frequency of posts has dwindled significantly over the last year. Good things to talk about are far outweighed by the bad these last few years. HSM was the ray of light in a world getting darker until I decided it too was going to become a victim of corporate suit types whose interests differ from what I as a customer expect.

Bear with me here as these seemingly disjointed comments will lead somewhere.

I will be going to Dayton Ohio for a short job soon and hope to visit one of the old time SE users. He has been using Solid Edge 20 since it came out nine or ten years ago and has not felt compelled to move forwards. The shop has current technology CNC Laser and bending capabilities and they do just fine with software this old. They did not move forward because what they needed was not being incorporated into SE.  Now I don’t know exactly why but this guy is a sheet metal wizard so there are reasons. Personally I think the pinnacle of rapid improvement in SE was achieved at ST6 or 7 but then I am a complete direct editing guy and still to this day SE can’t do in Synchronous Sheet Metal all the things the Parametric side can.

So whats your point Dave? It simply is this. When you reach a certain level of competency in your software and when you have certain levels of capabilities locked into your physical plant what more do you need to function for many years?

HSM brought Adaptive to the world as the best then and now high speed tool path. I bought my mill with this in mind. It was the most profound advancement in milling since I have been cutting chips some fifteen years ago. But I do not see anything coming down the pike like this anytime soon. Nor do I need to acquire a faster spindle or IPM cut speed considering the cost to do so. Like many shops Fieldweld is not a production facility where the very last second saved is critical. So truthfully I can cut with current permanent seat software that will push my machinery to it’s fullest capabilities and never spend another dime.

Unlike subscription fools I can do this for the next ten years or so and NOT SPEND ANOTHER DIME. I can’t be made into a hostage nor can I be forced to work online. I have all I need.

Now this of course gripes the heck out of software companies like Solid Edge and Autodesk. Where for some reason I am to give money to them each year just because they have bills to pay. Where in Autodesk’s case they now want it to be involuntary and forced forever if you foolishly go there. The problem for both companies begins with the lack of desire to hire and fund enough quality coding to advance the product in ways that benefit customers enough so they WANT to spend more money with them. SE still offers permanent seats but incremental improvements and not ground breaking ones. I still recommend you get SE if you don’t have it. For those who have been here for some time though where is the new cheese?

Why should I pay for software that does not bring improvements to MY bottom line. I don’t give a rats hooty about SE or Autodesk’s bottom line. I care that what they have to sell benefits ME and compels me to spend money with them because my profits will increase doing so. These days appear to be over and I don’t expect Autodesk to do anything with HSM this year that will compel me to renew next year. I wish they would but don’t think it will happen.

As far as I am concerned if these software companies stop bringing new benefits to the table I need I don’t care if they survive or not. The answer to future innovation in Autodesk’s case seems to be to do away with big chunks of it by the creation of a chattel subscription model which I most earnestly hope fails in a spectacular way. It is a rotten and evil way to make money.

So, I think about all this and think about what I need and what interests me. Do I want to blog about companies that offend me with bad business models and a dearth of interesting innovations to talk about? Do I want to make videos that demonstrate software I no longer support financially for good reasons? The departure of Carl Bass from Autodesk does not help either and I think it is bad news.

Is it any wonder why private CAD and CAM bloggers have dropped like flies these last five years or so? We do this because we like the software and want to talk about it and the world it works in. A form of insanity I suppose to get this wrapped up in a tool but many of us chose to do so in years gone by. One can be offended for only so long before the love of the tool goes away and that is where I find myself today. In complete agreement with the many bloggers I used to read who quit blogging because they got tired of being offended and wondering when my time will come to. At this rate it won’t be to much longer.

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IMTS And Autodesk CAM

Posted on August 2, 2016 | Leave a comment

I have been invited to attend an Autodesk Cam Customer Advisory Meeting  at IMTS this year. Before I get into that though just some reflections on events of the past few years.

Dealing with different companies is an interesting thing and how they interact with customers varies wildly. I remember the days of Solid Edge where bloggers and those fellow travelers of SE who were fans of the product were pretty well ignored. Now I don’t mean important people did not listen and do the right things I mean the corporate money never reached out past the SEU events to the outside world.

After each SE University in years gone by when Karsten was in charge there was a by invite only meeting after all the official events were over. He collected important users to sit in a round table and talk about what was most important with the community and as users regarding the state of the software namely SE.

To the best of my knowledge there was never any aid provided to any SE bloggers to be there although one year a couple of SW bloggers were there with some pretty sad results. And of course people like Ralph Grabowski as industry analysts and commentators were assisted in being there. People who agreed to run a session and after being approved to do so were given a free pass to the University but I don’t know if anything else was covered.

I remember sitting in Kris Kasperzak’s office one day  in Huntsville before he moved on to the NX darkside. I was trying to get him to see the logic in paying the way for friendly voices from the user/blogger community to have their expenses covered if they wished to go. It was not for me as I was paying my own way but it was to try to open the door for others who would presumably write favorable things about SE. I knew some that I had in mind who would have.

Kris was a good litmus test for prevailing mindset and thoughts of Siemens type corporate management. His reply after politely listening was that it was just to expensive to do that. Now I figure by that point in time I had hundreds of hours into promoting SE and the community for which I had never received a penny. I worked out a deal for SE before I was a blogger and paid for it all along out of my pocket. I paid my way to the SEU’s where I spent the majority of my time talking to these industry analyst reporter types and meeting with SE people. I might get to three or four sessions. I did it because I believed in SE and wanted to see it take its proper place in the scheme of things.

His reply was pretty humorous to me later that same year as I find out that out of approximately 500 people who showed up only 174, if I remember right, were actual SE users. The rest were mostly Siemens employees who did nothing and were going to do nothing to promote SE and they did not use the program to earn a living. You SE programmers in Huntsville know I am not talking about you guys. I am not talking about direct SE employees who had a future in part staked out on the success of SE. I am talking about purely wasted dollars spent on Siemens people who were paid to have a good time to fill a room up for publicity purposes. That must have been what the Kasperzak etal mindset considered a wise use of funds.

Perhaps it is a form of benign insanity to do such a thankless thing as blogging out of loyalty and regard for a software program. For some reason CAD CAM software excites people and creates followers and many of us each year look with anticipation to see and use what is new. Some companies get that and others don’t. I do know that over the last five years most bloggers that did so out of their own pockets in regard for a product are gone. Today the vast majority, I mean like 95%+ as far as I can tell, are VAR or software authoring company employees. This result directly parallels the perceived and actual regard software authoring companies have for their users is my guess.

 

IMTS Meeting

I have no idea what to expect here nor what the potential results may be. I don’t know how assiduously Autodesk pursues responding to customer opinions. For instance the subscription policy now in place is a direct slap in the face of users first, customers first and they choose what they want. It is a repudiation of the idea that quality should sell your product and the installation of a top down CPA MBA dictatorship meant solely to increase unavoidable costs to all who enter into this dark world. It has no regard for users other than as ATM’s.

So it is with some surprise I receive an invite and expenses covered and find out that there are those from as far away as Denmark with the same invite. Apparently someone is serious about finding out what CAM users think. I know some of the invitees and they are loyal users with however some unpleasant things to say. Kind of like me.

I don’t know how successful this subs paradigm is working out for Autodesk and we will never know until time reveals their reported income and from whence it was derived. Of course manipulative CPA MBA dollar experts would never put a spin on anything don’t you know but still truth will eke out.

At the very least I can say that Autodesk CAM is willing to listen and pay to listen to customers. SE would listen but only if you were willing to pay to be listened to.

Hoping for the best and that this is a harbinger of good things to come.

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Inventor Pro HSM 2D Chamfer Milling, Tips and Tricks and some Commentary

Posted on July 11, 2016 | Leave a comment

Before I begin just some thoughts. It is getting harder and harder to find the desire to write about CAD and CAM software. As I become more convinced over time users are in corporate eyes just a necessary evil that must be forced into accepting ever dwindling software improvements and or subscription rake you over the coals gouging and extortion. That we must become subservient to their financial needs first and foremost and what we want is not relevant. The philosophy that good products sell themselves based upon merit and improvements is history with Autodesk now as they move to subscription only where any who enter in give up all control over their future and improvements will dwindle and costs will skyrocket.

OK Fusion 360 is cheap right now but do you honestly think it will stay that way? That Autodesk would set up a direct competitor to expensive programs like Inventor Pro HSM at a fraction of the cost and keep it that way forever? I remember iPhones and unlimited data when they first came out to get users in. Could you perhaps tell me the current status of unlimited data on your iPhone and what that might cost? ATT is $10.00 PER GB for overage. Solid Edge is in corporate Hell imposed upon them by a cadre of NX UGS backstabbers and is in terminal holding pattern like SW is until the overlords can figure out what to do. The days of rapid and profound meaningful improvements appear to be over and what is being done is in many cases window dressing or rolled out with drum and fife but not complete. (Will it EVER be complete?) More and more I think of alternatives like Ironcad for design as there is being created a great void of customer regard by the majors and surely someone like Ironcad will step up to the bat and find much greater usage.

Anyway lets move on with Inventor Pro HSM 2017 specific topics.

There are some good things in Inventor Pro HSM 2017 and some oddly half done things. One of them is the 2D Chamfer tool path. The 2D Chamfer tool path will not work with chamfered edges on a solid model. It works only with corners/edges without those features. If you want to machine the part just as it is in real life use 2D Contour. 2D Chamfer is great on raw edges and also has collision avoidance built-in but it is however a promise of things to come yet not here. To many limitations on its use to recommend as your primary Chamfer tool path creator at this time. Personally speaking it is wise to avoid having to edit  solid models just as used in your assemblies or parts files just to cut a part. Why double your file requirements when properly done CAM paths should recognize the part as it is in real life?

Another feature I had REALLY looked forward to was probing. Based upon what had been shown to me regarding feature probing on parts and the idea of incorporating it directly into your HSM tool path it was exciting to see. However the reality is that what is there right now is pretty well useless. It is limited to recognizing a corner be it part or stock only.  Further it will not recognize your stock block unless you create an additional “stock” part. The correct way to do this is to recognize the stock you create for the CAM plan as the program already has to recognize a shape to work after all but such was not to be. They are working on this but I find it really silly this was not done before any official release user ever had a chance to use it.  In any case in its current state how would it know where to find your desired setup block corner anyway? It is too quick and easy to use  your Renishaw probing routines built into the Haas control to do this. The probing icon is merely a promise that someday something good will appear but not today. Probing as it is in today’s HSM will not be in any use in this shop.

Thus 2D Chamfer and Probing both fall into a problem that seems to be growing with HSM. Add to this the really slow development of Turning and you wonder why they talk about something and release it with so many shortcomings. It would be better for them to knock off promises and concentrate on FINISHING something and then moving on to another item. It is like the problem of lack of user manuals to go with HSM. You wont find documentation for the tips I give below. Tips that can save you lots of time and grief. They have finally hired someone to do this but how urgent is the desire to see it completed I wonder? It is like a group of well-meaning programmers with great ideas and visions somehow get bogged down in the day-to-day world and all the promises and problems get worked on but few actually and truly finished. Start with A guys and work to Z but don’t go to B until you are done with A.

These are gripes I have but the core product of HSM has given me many trouble-free days of production and I don’t regret being here at all. I just don’t understand the rather disjointed development of HSM. I however use it for a living and programmers live in another world and get paid irregardless of what goes out the door to the customer so our goals probably wildly differ. I want to finish something so I can be paid and they see it as a work in progress where years passing before completion is OK and the paychecks come no matter what is not done.

As always now since Autodesk has gone gouge your wallet subscription only there is a caveat to HSM. If I did not like HSM I would not write about it. I do however despise the sales model it now resides in and you need to know upfront the price of admission here now has very onerous conditions. You have to wonder if subs only is partly responsible for the slow down in the actual finishing of features in HSM since the forever pay to play subs ecosystem means they don’t have to improve much anymore to keep getting dollars from their newfound captive audience. Improvements and actually finishing improvements can easily become avoidable expenses in this corporate model especially with corporate investment sharks now having a presence on the Autodesk board. It is going to be a very interesting year ahead for Autodesk product users as we see how all this shakes out.

How do you find information for many hidden nuggets of HSM CAM cooking gold right now? Well you often need to find someone who can fill you in because many key tricks and tips are not documented. However HSM has just hired a person to create documentation so this really problematical lack is perhaps now being worked on.

Now Onto The Good Stuff

I spent the better part of a day recently trying to figure out why I could not consistently create results on a simple part. Admit it you have too and it is quite frustrating is it not? Fortunately courtesy of tech help from the hidden HSM bunker I have some answers for you and I. Thanks Tim!

I have some of the tips below but the video will go further into how to use them. In general though I think it would behoove most of us to take the time one day to right mouse click everything as we go through a CAM plan and see what shows in the pop up menus and what these things do.

For instance you can right-click on a setup and select “default folder” option to make that setup the one you are working on. If you have noticed with more than one setup your default setup “work folder” is the last numerical one in the list. You go back to set up 3 out of five and you know you are there but unless you clicked “default folder”on that setup before you pick a CAM path for setup 3 it will default to the last folder where you have to remove and start over and ask yourself just how many more times will you do this?

I can’t say how many of these hidden nuggets are in HSM because like most of us I get to where I can make a CAM plan and make it work to my satisfaction and stop right there. After today I am convinced this is a big mistake and intend to look deeper in my spare time. Part of the reason I stop looking sometimes is the hope I can blunder through it faster than I could dig and dig and dig for answers that may take a lot of time to find. I really look forward to the upcoming new help goodies in hopes this will be a central clearing area for this kind of information.

Even a searchable tips and tricks section on the HSM CAM forum would be of help. Here are some chamfering tips that may help you.

For 2D Contour using chamfer mill and corner round mill contour click and hold Alt key and left click lines and pick lines just like you were climb milling starting at one end of chain if this is what you want and pick each line. On a part with chamfer features or corner round already on part click lower line(S)

Press and hold ctrl key and left mouse click to remove lines from selection.

2D Chamfer tool path will not work with chamfered edges on a solid model. It works only with corners/edges without those features. If you want to machine the part just as it is in real life use 2D Contour. Chamfer only at this time and corner round tools do not have a dedicated tool path like “2D Corner Round” yet
Here is the video.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Haas Demo Day, Another Worthwhile Autodesk CAM Var and Random Thoughts

Posted on June 10, 2016 | Leave a comment

I think with the advent of CPA and Investor fund run corporations distorting much of manufacturing in America that Haas is a perfect example of the opposite. Of course they will have to some day leave the Communist Republic of Mexifornia to become what they fully could be but that is another story. I believe in Haas and yes I am sure you can buy better iron and spend a whole lot more doing so. Around here in Southern middle Tennessee Haas is by far the leading chip maker and machines just go year after year. I hear just as many complaints about problems from the guys who spent a whole lot more on foreign iron. They however get to spend twice as much for repairs, wait far longer to get them done and I think in general pay more per part to make a living with them. The debate rages on and you can find detractors as often as praisers for Haas online. Talking to small and medium size shops around here and elsewhere and they continue to buy Haas over everything else and smile to the bank. I hire my neighbor and do so economically while making parts that satisfy my customers and earn a living to boot.

Haas has a demo day once a year and next 6-14-16 is the day. Twenty three of the Haas outlets in the USA will have Autodesk HSM (Inventor HSM, HSMWorks and Fusion 360)as their guest machining program demonstrator there and will be cutting parts with it and answering questions. http://cam.autodesk.com/haas-demo-day/ for locations. Selway Machine Tool who is one of only three (see below) VAR’s I would currently recommend for HSM CAM at this time is one of the Demo Day sponsors for both machines and CAM. Of all Autodesk CAM vendors they are they only one I know of with this exact mix as a company.

One of the unexpected benefits of Hagerman behaving poorly with me on support was making me research just who is a worthwhile VAR for a small shop, heck any size shop where CAM is what makes the bread and butter. I had an unsolicited offer of support from another VAR and I do believe the guy means it. Not just for me as a blogger where notoriety can open doors that normal customers can’t get opened but for anyone who is one of their customers. Yeah Fieldweld is not one so the offer was probably not something available to most non-customers but here is another prime candidate for someone who is using HSM and needs a good VAR to switch to. http://ecadinc.com/ is the VAR and Steven Duke is their CAM support guy. I mean this is all he does and he was a shop owner himself for five years making chips so he gets the idea that you NEED to make your machine run. So we have Selway and now ECAD Inc with dedicated and serious about you the machine owner VARs to pick from. There is also NexGenCam http://nexgencam.com/ who is a CAMcentric Autodesk VAR that will give you better service to. You intend or make chips with HSM check them out.

It continues to horrify me a bit how much my old ZW3D posts still draw traffic in comparison to the old Solid Edge posts. I can’t fathom such a fine bit of software like SE was and still is to be relegated to almost the same status as ZW3D in searches that arrive at my blog. Congrats you UGS people your magic is working. One of the top stories for SE’s ST9 recent release is “Cloud-enabled Design on Your Terms”. Just like the Surface Pro thingy last year someone has done research internally and they have arrived at some conclusions about future customers. Or at least the ones coming out of school they hope to make into future customers. Basically if you will allow me to paraphrase what they concluded in my own words it is that younger people do not care about security and are used to just throwing it all out there in cyberspace for whomever to harvest. They like cool and don’t care too much to think of ramifications because forethought interferes with cool.

Being the curmudgeon that I am and still thinking that security means something and so does privacy for that matter it horrifies me by how little what ever the heck they call themselves today worry about repercussions of actions. I have written about the cloud for years and nothing has happened to change my opinion of how dangerous it is especially for the intellectual property of manufacturing and design companies. Where if hacked unlike a bank account where you know monthly where you stand IP can go away and the Chinese can be making knock offs before you even get to market. It can be so bad that you look on a store shelf one day and see your own product but you did not authorize its manufacture and THEY made all the money off your back. You best fight this by not giving people an electronic shopping cart to fill with your goodies.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/07/android_keyboard_needs_to_see_camera_and_log_files/ and http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/29/security_year_in_review/ are just two articles perused by me in the last week at the Register web site. There are some like this all the time and have been for years. Sad thing is that unlike financial institutions that will reimburse you for on-line theft if you report it in time your IP is just gone. Not one software authoring company that makes or entices you to the Cloud will stand behind you here but they will happily sell you the software that can gut your company’s future. Read the fine print people. In the EULAs we have to sign to use the software and see it for yourself. If these authoring company lawyers are worried about it shouldn’t we be to??? What SE is doing now with new “major” features is making the equivalent of more rendering programs available to SW users a few years ago. Where major new innovations to pure CAD creation were too hard to come up with so other things take their place.

When at the top of the new list of features is this cloud stuff you might suspect the people who put it there consider it to be the prime achievement of the new release. Wouldn’t you put the best first since that is what people will first see? https://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/solid-edge/st9/ A true indicator of things going wrong. In my dreams I would see Solid Edge under people who cared and aggressively pursued design excellence in combination with HSM for a complete manufacturing ecosystem. Freed from the shackles of subscription placed on HSM by Autodesk and those inside of Siemens who don’t want SE to succeed. I intend to write more soon on HSM as I do intend to talk about my favorite machining program and what it so admirably does. I just can’t find it in my heart to recommend it like I used to because subscription only goes against everything I believe. In this day and time we should have a choice between subs and seats.

I find it disturbing that some of the major growth companies seem to be Check into Cash and Title loans and Bail Bond outfits. It seems like wherever I drive from Kansas City MO to Orlando FL and Washington DC these past few years these things sprout faster than mushrooms. Where people who have been smothered by this multi-year economic drubbing Obama and his fellow travelers have spawned pay more and get less and can’t afford to buy or borrow at reasonable rates and costs. Subs are the same predatory corporate paradigm except what makes it even worse it that people who can afford it are now told no more seats. It’s like a screw you no matter what your financial circumstance is we want you to pay like the Check into Cash people do and never stop. And pay a whole lot more for the same thing.

Anyway the drag races, don’t get excited you Obamaites I am talk cars here not weirdos, are coming up this weekend and I think I will see what superior design, machining and fabrication can do at the strip from people who actually put their hands-on expertise on the line. Funny isn’t it how once you get away from public schools and today’s universities the only thing that counts in so many ways is the ability to win

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Solid Edge ST9 Released With A Whimper

Posted on June 8, 2016 | 4 comments

Did you know ST9 was released? I stumbled across this today much to my amazement. No industry whoopla, no promotions no industry buzz no nothing. Hidden in the dark corner recesses of another PLM World event where no SE users attend ST9 is released. Courtesy of Kill SE Jim Miller officiating the demise of SE for Siemens.
https://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/products/solid-edge/st9/

Pablum from industry “experts” who do not use SE for a living.
https://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Blog/Industry-experts-give-their-views-on-Solid-Edge-ST9/ba-p/349551

And finally a trial download link.
http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/plmapp/se/en_US/online/Shop?ACTION=trial#ACTION=trial

Had a look and to say it was underwhelming would be an understatement. More cloud crap big deal. Pack and Go which should have been there ages ago and was available for free from a German company for years before Siemens SE ever got around to incorporating it. Perused through the short list of things and remember years gone by where really powerful new stuff was introduced and not this window dressing tinkering around the edges type of action in ST9. The wisdom of my stepping off the pay the same for less each year paradigm which apparently is now the future for SE is proven with this release.

Now admittedly my impressions are just that and I have not downloaded and played with the program to see if there is anything exciting in there for me. Quite frankly don’t expect to do so either since the bragging points in the official, such as they were, release literature hardly inspire desire on my end. You see when the decision was made to drop SE in ST8 after just squeaking by into it with my last years maintenance because there were no new features of worth to ME I had determined the future was bleak. ST7 was the peak year and last year of note and worthy of renewal dollars coming from me. Even had a discussion with Ally PLM about renewing at 50% off or not at all since there was nothing new for me I needed in ST8 and of course they refused and so did I. It is my money after all and why pay for nothing was my thought. ST7 had all the tools needed in admirable array and ST8 added a little to it but not much so I did move to it but was not going to pay any more money for it.

ST9 looks like nothing but confirmation that the serious removal of quality programmer talent from SE to primarily NX related things must be continuing unabated. Hate to say this since I am and was such a fan of SE. Still in daily use for virtually all my modeling and intend to do so for some time since I do have a permanent seat. It beats the pants off Inventor for instance. I have had a current permanent seat of Inventor Pro for two years and still have yet to make serious time to try to learn it. It is just clunky to use compared to SE so why bother going there until I absolutely have to. It is attached to HSM which is really awesome so I have it anyway. And at this time you can still get permanent seats with SE which IS a big deal. I will say once again if you are not a user of SE or have never been it is worthwhile for you to look into it. For you these tools will be fresh and powerful and a real aid in CAD productivity. But once you get your permanent seat and get up to speed with your user ability if things do not improve just step off the money merry-go-round. I don’t expect them to improve either and with the absolute animosity the UGS people have towards SE it is certainly at best in a stagnant holding pattern for an unknown period of time and perhaps forever. Until they can figure out what to do with this program they really don’t want and can’t sell. Chuck Grindstaff is a big UGS guy and Jim Miller is his boy from years ago and there for a reason. Make sure SE never has a chance to thrive again.

These top flight people with SE I have met over the years in Huntsville are being sold down the river along with customers who are getting less and less for their money. While I have promised an individual I will not write about Ironcad for a fixed period of time let me say this. Spent some time last week with a support guy from Ironcad and left wondering why the heck this program was not in far greater use. I will have more to say in the future but I can certainly say if you are not a customer of SE and you are looking for a good direct editing program you need to have a look. If you are a small design build house where you consume your own data for manufacturing and do not have to have a particular program just because your biggy customer demands so you really need to look. More to say later.

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Inventor Pro HSM 2016 Users Can Now Check Out Most New 2017 Goodies

Posted on April 29, 2016 | Leave a comment

OK everyone, at http://cam.autodesk.com/inventor-hsm-experimental/ you can download the latest developmental version. This one will work with Inventor Pro 2017 and 2016 and since 2017 serials have not been released this is the only way to get a glimpse under the hood before the official release. My guess would be within days for that since this has been posted.

4-28 16 Inventor Pro HSM dev build

If the first two items do not inspire you to get this you certainly have not been waiting like I have with anticipation. THANKS guys for letting us get our hands on something without waiting to the very last moment. I don’t know what all is in there but I can tell you that the basic program download size has grown about 100MB so tons of new code has been added.

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Is There Hope? Solid Edge User Community Update

Posted on April 25, 2016 | Leave a comment

This has been a bit of a pleasant surprise lately for this author to see the many year running poorly designed web site and user group activity surrounding SE take a turn for the better. I don’t know what is going on over there and I hope someone with over-riding authority has recognized the value Solid Edge could have to them if they would just treat it right. Someone who can see past the UGS hate SE team of saboteurs and see the remarkable value SE brings to the table for mid range MCAD. Especially with Autodesk now shooting themselves in the foot with subscription only for Inventor I think SE has been given yet another chance to pick up market share. They failed to capitalize on Dassaults inept handling of SW. Will they do so with Inventors upcoming subscription rebellion remains to be seen. Opportunities to acquire customers from the competition are hard to come by and opportunities where your competitor shoots their own feet are even rarer.

In any case http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-Blog/Cleveland-Getting-an-EdgeGroup-on-June-8/ba-p/343841 will take you to an article referencing a brand new SE user group in Cleveland Ohio on June 8th. I highly recommend any SE user in the area consider attending. You do not understand the value of face to face interaction until that first time you get bailed out of a jam with experienced user help or get that new bit of work that comes from in person interactive networking. Read about it and if you are in the area DO something about it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the decision had been made somewhere in the Siemens mega bureaucratic behemoth to actually throw a bit of love and attention SE’s way?

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Geometric The CAMWorks Author Bought Out By HCL Technologies Ltd

Posted on April 13, 2016 | Leave a comment

For what it is worth http://schnitgercorp.com/2016/04/04/geometric-acquired-hcl/ will take you to information regarding this. What ramifications this will have for Solid Edge integrated users in particular I don’t know. I suspect the uptake of CW4SE (CAMWorks for Solid Edge) has been very poor for obvious and well documented reasons. Whether the new bosses will consider this market to be worth pursuing any more may well be in doubt. Will new owners change old rules? Are the obligations between Siemens and Geometric/CW4SE binding after the buyout? Would Siemens actually even care if Geometric walks away from this anyway since it takes potential sales of Cam Express away from the UGS remnants inside of the corporate beast?

I have mixed feelings over this. CAMWorks if it could actually implement the underlying premise of its program to be usable without consuming vast quantities of it’s customers time just to set it up and keep it running right each year could have been really revolutionary in it’s power to streamline the effort to create CAM programs. Whether this is even possible to do today with existing math skills available to Geometric I don’t know. It has not been to date. The program as it exists if you try to use it without setting up the Tech Data Base takes far more effort than should be just to get a plan out the door. Either case means huge amounts of time wasted in the end to do the same things as HSM with Autodesk takes to do and time is money.

The parsimonious behavior of the Geometric people I have had to deal with makes me wonder though if a new owner/boss could change things. Is it possible that HCL would be willing to put serious money into making CAMWorks truly be what the glossy promos say it is in reality? Time will tell. It would be nice if this new arrangement would end silly things like provable user problems being dismissed as “being done by design” and “improper cad files creation by users” when it is supposed to be integrated with a program like Solid Edge. Which by design frees you from having to do things a certain way and just right to arrive at a correct and definitive end result. Improper cad design never was defined for us by the way but it was a good alibi. With a new source of potential money comes a new source of potential commitment to acquire the right talent to solve CAMWorks problems if they desire to do so.

The track record of buyouts results for companies I have had to deal with generally have not been good. UGS buys out Sold Edge and the step child thing goes into full swing. Siemens buys out UGS and then after a period of hope the step child thing goes on and in addition to that the gutting of SE developer talent then goes into full swing. Not good for SE users. HSM and Delcam are acquired by Autodesk which I thought was a real part of a master plan to conquer the market for mid range MCAD to be combined with manufacturing in a way no one else was doing. Then come the onerous burden of subscription only for all new customers chattel mindset. VX now ZW3D was bought by the Chinese and has pretty well not advanced much beyond what it was five years ago and indeed compared to it’s competitors is slowly falling behind.

Of course I no longer use CW4SE but I still would like to see it live up to it’s promises as I would like to see any program I have had to deal with achieve. First and foremost I am an end user and what I talk about are things that I have to deal with personally and each affects my bottom line. Unlike 90%+ of all blogs out there with CAD and CAM as a main topic I am not employed or paid by anyone but myself so I am free to write as things unfold in the real world in my shop.

It would be nice to see HCL get behind Geometric and fix both flavors of CAMWorks. I have become very cynical about the trends that software companies are taking towards users though so I doubt much will change. I can see a huge percentage of small and medium size shops soon deciding to just step off the pay each year bandwagon for things that just are not bringing new features that are worth it. Most certainly these permanent seat holders which are I bet 95%+ of existing users are not going to go subscription either. So just like many shops around here we can and will work just fine for the next five years or more and give none of them any more when these companies offend us enough. Unlike Autodesk, Siemens, Dassault and ZW3d most small to medium size businesses can do fine without having to pay anymore to them for some time. I wonder if they can however thrive if WE don’t send them the money they have been accustomed to receiving.

Treat your customers like crap long enough and in time someone a bit wiser will seek them out and take them from you and once gone wont be back.

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Solid Edge and Inventor Pro HSM 2017 User Groups

Posted on April 4, 2016 | 8 comments

Much to my amazement today I go to the Solid Edge Siemens forum and for the first time ever see a professional looking page. http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Solid-Edge-User-Community/ct-p/solid-edge takes you there. My main reason for going there however was to promote the upcoming first ever Cincinnati user group for Solid Edge. I happen to think that user groups are a value to local users in many ways. Unfortunately the promises made by John Miller at SEU 2015 do not appear to have any support to speak of from official Siemens auspices and it looks like it is primarily a local VAR and user interest entity. I have waited for some official information to be forwarded to me and none has arrived so today I will give the link to the group and talk about why you should go. First off though http://community.plm.automation.siemens.com/t5/Cincinnati-EdgeGroup/gp-p/CincinnatiEdgeGroup is the site to the group.

I have always felt that user groups benefit primarily users in the beginning. They can network to find mentors and talent for hire and work for hire among local people and businesses. Your peers will be a real source of help and information and contacts that VAR’s and Siemens and SE will never be. Forward looking companies like Solid Works used to be before the corporate Francophile era began realized this and built a user group network that helped in serious ways to gain them the #1 spot in mid range MCAD. Over time sellers of software benefit from user associations and SW is proof of this. Today it would be harder to benefit from this compared to years ago due to resistance to having to change software of use. With a much more mature market it now boils down to who can you steal existing users from not how do you find vast new sources of new users. In this regard I am sad to say that SE is losing this race based on users in the existing Huntsville user group for SE. Ashland Hot Water heaters and Hyco Hydraulics are two companies that used to use SE who have been bought out and the new owners use SW. The power of an established user network and base once again proving it’s effectiveness against those who do not subscribe to this paradigm. These two companies were a fair percentage of the SE users that showed up to the Huntsville group and they were interested and supportive and now no more.

It is a thankless task for an individual to be a leader of a user group in many ways. Perhaps the worst single thing is to be one and work to get people there and very few show up. It kills enthusiasm quickly for something that should be common sense for local users but alas is not. SO I urge you local users get behind this effort and be there. It will benefit you.

One of the reasons I switched to Hagerman for Inventor was the the idea of local physical support if needed and local user groups sponsored by the same. I must admit to being a bit saddened by what I see so far here and even though I have offered to work with forming an HSM local user group to date there is nothing much to speak of. After dealing with Siemens I have determined that I am not going to beg for these user things to happen any more. Either the VAR will or wont and it is not my job to pursue them and cajole or shame them into doing something. I have some sympathy for VARS in this area though and cant blame them as much as I blame the software authoring companies for user groups demise. In the case of Siemens they do not care if SE goes right straight to you know where. It has been proven that if you care and want SE to succeed you will be run off. So I suspect affiliated VAR’s who are not stupid see the handwriting on the wall and refuse to spend money and time that will not yield positive results. I predict the Cincinnati user group will be the only new one this year and if this nonsense keeps up may be the last ever and it being some what short lived. User group networks can’t survive or even begin if the corporate sponsors do not pursue it.

The Autodesk VAR’s are faced with another big problem and if it has not dawned on them yet it will soon. How does a software company like Autodesk or Dassault eliminate a huge demand upon their profits? Well I think the decision has been made in these two places to jettison the whole or much of the VAR network over time and replace it with subscription based markets. IF they can which I hope not. If enough people buy into this subscription thing and become captive, support entities like VAR’s are no longer needed. Users cant leave and so you can degrade support as an un-needed expense and replace it all with on line forums where many are growing accustomed to going for answers anyway. So for these Autodesk VAR’s like Hagerman who have had a past record of community involvement begin to back off and I can’t blame them. Now mind you all this is just common sense as I see it and I have no real knowledge of corporate decisions made in this area. But I can see results and project forward. Just like manufacturing will never employ as much as it used to even if it pumps out ten time the products because of automation. Subscription is the robot that will get rid of overhead in the software world as over time VAR’s would be relegated to far lesser importance in this world. Something that oh say Piranha hostile investor groups would like to see to enhance short term profitability. Once these things are started it will be hard to reverse even when the Piranhas have left.

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Siemens And John Miller Fail Loyal Solid Edge Users

Posted on March 16, 2016 | 6 comments

For those of you who have followed me over the years regarding Solid Edge you know I believe in the product. I believe also that there is a deliberate policy by the UGS people before and after being subsumed by the Siemens bureaucracy to stifle SE because they fear competition for NX.

Solid Edge has had the misfortune of bouncing from place to place and never getting a real chance. Venture capitalists never cared about it and SE went through two versions of this mess. UGS bought SE just to get their hands on Synchronous tech which their talented developmental staff could not create. Of course after purchase there is still a red-headed step child to deal with. Now just what is the classic way of doing so you might ask? That’s right, when company comes over you hide him in the spare room with admonishments to never dare show his face. In public where you must on occasion be seen with this embarrassment make sure he never talks and walks at least five feet behind you.

The moment of hope for SE was under people like Newbury and Cooper who took it serious and they have been forced to leave. The replacement was John Miller. In the almost two years he has been token place holder he has hardly bothered to even convince people he is gainfully employed as head of SE. The stealth manager never communicates with users. Never asks them what they need or want meaning it in sincerity.

Six months have come and gone since SEU 2015. There was a brief flicker of hope by those who attended this event when Miller said the right things and went to the right places and made the right forward-looking promises of greater things to come and we are listening and bigger better community blah blah blah.

I see that there is a tiny user group effort started. Recently a meeting in Huntsville at a group I helped start that was done in spite of silly things from PLM World. There is also a first time ever user group being started in Cincinnati and hosted by Matt Johnson who is a super fan of and a super user of SE. There are promises of more to come. But can I ask this question?

The talk in SEU2015 was all so promising but it became clear month after month that no plans had been laid. Miller must have a mountain of time on his hands because he darned sure spends none with users or publicity or any other thing anyone can identify. He just is and no one seems to be able to tell me just what he is doing to earn his wages. So big ol Siemens and Miller’s stellar proactive user commitments have produced precisely ONE new user group in six months.

Of course with the incredible productivity black hole Siemens is perhaps by their metrics one new group every six months is blazing speed. I can see that even if Miller actually did care it can take twenty meetings just to be able to derive a date for the first initial user group planning meeting. Probably sixty past that to figure out what city to pick next. Combine having a leader that does not want to be there and the stultifying environment Siemens forces decent productive individuals to labor under and you get precisely what we SE users have now. Basically nothing once again and forever. Remember that the touted SE numbers I see most often are claims of around 500,000 users and squat for interactive behavior from Siemens to them.

All talk and no walk Miller. The pace of improvements has dramatically slowed also and while I have no idea what they are going to do for ST9 I suspect the major things will be more “Surface Pro” window dressing and no fundamental serious improvements to the program itself in ways that really matter to CAD output. (SE has been losing some of their top developers to NX for three years now and I doubt highly they are replaced with equal talent.) This is why I stopped my maintenance by the way. I offered to pay what another year was worth to me since I call for support maybe once a year. Ally PLM laughed at me when I said $750.00 and asked how were they supposed to make a living off that. My question was since it is MY money you want and I have to make a living off of it what are you going to do for me since I don’t need support and Siemens is doing nothing of real merit to the product? Funny how their income as a company trumps (Go Trump) my desire to control outgo to worthwhile productive things as a company. Ally figures their position is fiscal reality and mine as a company is not.

No joy or future in SE ville beyond the red heads place in the closet. Once again I will recommend SE to you if you do not already have it. Get it for a year or two and drop it. Use it for the next four or five years or more as I intend to and you will do just fine. (Something Dassault has shown the world with SW when they pissed their users off. Tons of them are making a living with versions years old.) A real big plus besides the inherent power of Synchronous is that as of right now they have no intention of doing the stupid subscription only thing Autodesk has sadly begun.

People if you go for this subscription model for your core design/machine seats you are a fool who will soon discover the joys of larger expenses. Expenses that will never end and can’t be contained because you gave up the only method of containment which is permanent seats. Inventor Pro HSM is the best all round CAD CAM value only if permanent licenses can be acquired. 2015 was not a good year for this user as SE went full red headed step child mode again and Autodesk went subscription only. Both show contempt for users of their products and it saddens me. Talking with a prominent blogger last week and he was of the opinion that he and I grew up in the golden age of CAD CAM and the best user days are gone. I tend to agree

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