best CAM software for SolidWorks

[cmm]

I am CAM-ignorant and shopping for CAM. I am leaning toward SurfCam mainly because it has a forum on eng-tips. I have no better information to base my decision on. Has anyone been exposed to multiple CAM packages and have a preference?

Chris Montgomery
Mechanical Engineer

 

[ctopher]

Do a search in this forum for "cam". A lot of discussions.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP3.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site (updated 06-21-05)
FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

 

[Heckler]

CMM,

Here are a couple of threads worth reading thread559-115345 & thread559-90593. A piece of software should not be judge by it having a fora....it just means that MasterCAM and CAMWorks people are busy producing code while SurfCAM guys are whinning because their systems might have limitations.

First you would have to decide if your business process can except a integrated CAM program within SWx. What I mean with that statement is do the design engineers generate G-Code along with doing the product design. Most large companies have manufacturing engineers that do tooling design and CNC programming. But some companies have lead machinist that write code but don't design. I'm not sure I would want someone having the ability to change the design just because the CAM software is inside of SWx. We have one seat of MasterCAM in which it is used to generate code. We have legacy data (AutoCAD) that is brought into M-CAM as 2D and SWx which is brought in as IGES.

If I had my choice to set up a shop this is what I would buy:

1. CAMWorks
2. MasterCAM (we use this for mold design)
3. Techsoft (makers of CAMWorks)
4. SurfCAM (great for mold design so I've been told)
5. GIBs

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 4.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NIVIDA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

"There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea" Bernard-Paul Heroux

 

[rfus]

How big is your pocketbook.

1. Delcam Powermill
2. Cimatron
3. Unigraphix NX3
4. EdgeCam

 

[cmm]

Thanks for your replies. I realize there are many CAM-related threads in this forum, but most of them are over a year old.

Heckler:
I will be doing all of the design and CNC programming. So tight integration with Solidworks is not a problem on that account. However, I don't want to go with a less popular CAM package just because it integrated with SolidWorks. In other words, I would like the CAM education I'm about to give myself to be portable in case I need to work with a CAD package other than SolidWorks in the future. Would that change the order of your list?

Rfus:
$5000 is what I have been lobbying for. We don't need full 3-axis support. So-called 2.5-axis milling and 2-axis lathe support is all we need.

Thanks again for your help.


Chris Montgomery
Mechanical Engineer

 

[Heckler]

Chris,

With that budget you might have eliminated my entire list with the exception of CAMWorks. CAMWorks is made by Techsoft. Techsoft is a main stream CAM package on par with MasterCAM. MasterCAM is expensive we paid $17K for 3-axis mill and 2-axis lathe....we might have some other options but I don't use it on a daily basis because it's nod locked to our R&D mold makers machine. I have no idea what GIBs CAM currently sells for. I worked at a company that used Gibs and they were not happy with it's functionality but again it was not supported and I have no idea what revision it was. The bottom line is with your budget I think you will be happy with CAMWorks. I've seen the demos and it's impressive....just make sure you keep the tool locations constant. Tool location control is my pet peeve

Best Regards,

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SW2005 SP 4.0 & Pro/E 2001
Dell Precision 370
P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
XP Pro SP2.0
NIVIDA Quadro FX 1400
o
_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

"There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea" Bernard-Paul Heroux