Help needed in persuading boss to upgrade from V18
Help needed in persuading boss to upgrade from V18
(OP)
Hi, All
Could really do with some help. I’ve been working in the DO for an Engineering company for the last few years. We have relatively old hardware and really struggle on some of our 3D assemblies and intricate components. We are using V18 of Unigraphics and in my opinion need to update hardware and migrate to NX3-4.
I am set with the task of persuading our management to spend some money but need to go to them with some REAL benefits to changing to a newer version (which we would need a hardware upgrade).
Any suggestions/comments/opinions very much appreciated
Could really do with some help. I’ve been working in the DO for an Engineering company for the last few years. We have relatively old hardware and really struggle on some of our 3D assemblies and intricate components. We are using V18 of Unigraphics and in my opinion need to update hardware and migrate to NX3-4.
I am set with the task of persuading our management to spend some money but need to go to them with some REAL benefits to changing to a newer version (which we would need a hardware upgrade).
Any suggestions/comments/opinions very much appreciated





RE: Help needed in persuading boss to upgrade from V18
Look at the change in hardware for productivity gains as well as the software. 1Ghz vs 3Ghz CPU speed will not be 3:1 increase, but it does help significantly.
Do you use UG for CAM as well as CAD? There have been a lot of advances that would make NX3 more productive than V18.
The ease of drawing templates in NX is nice.
Good Luck.
"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
"Fixed in the next release" should replace "Product First" as the PTC slogan.
Ben Loosli
CAD/CAM System Analyst
Ingersoll-Rand
RE: Help needed in persuading boss to upgrade from V18
They want to purchase a few machines at a time but thats not much use as we all need to be on NX :(
We do use CAM so it'll be interesting to see whats changed.
Kind regards
RE: Help needed in persuading boss to upgrade from V18
7 year old hardware, my condolences.What are they, 300mhz CPU's with 512 mb of ram? A new 3Ghz machine with the latest graphics, Nvidia FX3400, and 2GB of ram will scream compared to the old machines. Get a hardware vendor to loan you a machine for performance benchmarking. Just run V18 on the new hardware and compare the times. The justification should then be obvious.
"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
"Fixed in the next release" should replace "Product First" as the PTC slogan.
Ben Loosli
CAD/CAM System Analyst
Ingersoll-Rand
RE: Help needed in persuading boss to upgrade from V18
Look into Windows machines....preferably 64 bit. That's where everything is going. You can get really nice dual processor workstations starting at about $6k that will blow the doors off a unix box....I'm assuming that's what you're on if your hardware is 7 years old.
Take care...
RE: Help needed in persuading boss to upgrade from V18
My condolences as well to your hardware prediciment. I was in the same position last year as an NC programmer using UG 18. My employer decided to use cracked licenses to "upgrade" to NX for the company - so I quit. Strangly, I reported them to the BSA. (Does that make me a bad person?...) They are still using the cracks...
Anyway...
Since you're going to have to negociate from scratch on licenses - I would go so far as to say start upgrading the hardware first. The productivity gains will be far more on the hardware than upgrading the software. V18 is sweet on a fast box. It will be like upgrading your software!
NX2 is not hugely different from v18 on most levels. NX3 the icons are crazy (IMHO). The toolpath play buttons have been reversed from v18. Drafting has changed a lot mostly for the better They've moved a lot of the standard features around on the menus. But like I said, I was looking at cracked versions so perhaps the legal release is much different.
Go for the hardware first. Heck, for the price of one full manufacturing license you can get 6 awesome computers!
Good luck
--
Bill
RE: Help needed in persuading boss to upgrade from V18
Take care....
RE: Help needed in persuading boss to upgrade from V18
Thanks for the info on NX3. I would not say cam "sucked" prior to NX though...<g>
I've been using Vericut for so long that I rarely define the workpiece except for CavityMill. Usually we import stl from Vericut if we need an inprocess model. Not really an extra step as one must save the inprocess model in UG as well. The models are smaller in UG though. I like to have various points of inprocess models to go to when programming. That's where UG is still behind. It gets confusing to have mulitple stages of cut stock strewn across various layers in UG. For me, it's very easy in Vericut. Much more thorogh interigation of the cut model as well. Xcaliper is still top dog there. That said, with a few improvements - such as a standalone UG verifier - many shops will be able to drop Vericut.
As far as Postbuilder: Has it changed since NX2? I made a couple 3ax and one 5ax post with it. The docs for it were very sketchy especially covering tcl. I just wish they would get on the bus and give us a few more samples of common machines and controls. Most the other cam vendors do. Most of the aerospace shops I've been to are either using the old GPM or a third party such as ICAM, or Postworks with cls output. It's hard for a long standing shop to change its post setups.
Btw, I missed the part where the OP stated he did have maintenance. By all means he should upgrade UG!
--
Bill
RE: Help needed in persuading boss to upgrade from V18
RE: Help needed in persuading boss to upgrade from V18
To be honest with you I can't remember for sure which release it was where I had to redo my posts. It came along with the Postbuilder change though....when they introduced the pretty user interface. I thought that was NX1 but I may be wrong....it could have been 3....I can't remember when I re-did those...lol.
Take care....
RE: Help needed in persuading boss to upgrade from V18
Take care...