Mastercam Software: Looking for users and references.
Mastercam Software: Looking for users and references.
(OP)
We are currently using AutoCAD 2000 and a CAM software, which has become obsolete, for generating our CNC programs for our machining centers. We are considering Mastercam software as a replacement CAM program. What experience has anyone had with this software, i.e. issues to look out for, importing AutoCAD conversions, etc.?






RE: Mastercam Software: Looking for users and references.
Its one of these 'tick the box' type CAM packages, where you choose the area you want to machine, and then choose from a huge series of options to machine the part the way you want. You can also get third party plugins (C-hooks) to give you extra functionalitly, or write your own.
It works fine with Acad, though the converter is an additional extra. We havn't lost any data in the conversion yet.
It has a rather basic verification program, which isn't a patch on something like Vericut, but it is quite handy and fast. Customer support is great...we've run into a few minor bugs, (doing what we do, we tend to push CAM programs to the wall) and they've been dealt with quickly. They are also open to suggestions for the program to be improved.
We looked at about 25 CAM packages for our work, and this is the one we chose.
RE: Mastercam Software: Looking for users and references.
Error rates in CNC coding are extremely low to the point of neglible and the Mastercam program is very stable. We have written and coded more than 3000 programs with with up to 5 meg without problems for the last four years.
As we are not using the newest Mastercam version I cannot comment effectivly on every use you may have. When transferring graphics (.dwg) we are very careful to purge excess blocks, layers and linetypes. We found IGIS files to be be very cumbersome since so much history data would appear from previous part versions. If we had a very strict internal drawing system we could have avoided this but we have used autocad since 1987 and everything is a compromise seemingly.