Does your cam system chain worth a frig, and do you have any tips for making it work, like using plane masks, etc...
The best chainer ive used was solidworks, and the worst, so far is UG believe it or not. I'm looking for some kind of control so I can pick a chain thats on a plane and have it follow the plane ignoring the intersections. Some kind of tolerance setting, or angle setting, or something??
Anybody got any neat chaining tricks?
Could you post a picture somewhere to look at? There are many ways to mask and or select. If its a face with some interior or exterior boundary to cut, select the top face. A picture is a thousand words...
-- Bill
I'd say Mastercam's chaining is at least as good as Solidworks, if not drastically better in some situations. Solidworks has a much nicer shaded in arrow to see the direction though.
Have no idea about UG, but Edgecam has a 2D button that keeps the chaining in the current plane. Sometimes I forget to hit the button again to turn it off, then spend lots of time trying to figure out what the f*ck has gone wrong.
Could you post a picture somewhere to look at? There are many ways to mask and or select. If its a face with some interior or exterior boundary to cut, select the top face. A picture is a thousand words...
-- Bill
I was just trying to stir up a thread on chaining.
Dood, you ever seen the docs from UG? You need trained to use the docs. They are setup as a searchable database. I bet there's 10 volumes of help files hidden in there, once you scratch the surface of a subject and have a few ideas of what to search for, you find yourself in the library of congress! It's awesome. The real problem is getting it rolling. There's no subject searching like a book is laid out. You need to know a little about the subject for the help files to really take off.
The wealth of knowledge just in this software package is like the sum of a million machinists spread out over 30 years.
I am so impressed, nothing but engines from the 60's impresses me this much.
As far as reading them all cliff, it's not set up like that.
THANK GOD I GOT FIRED!!! This software is freaking me out. I might never go back on the floor again.
It took me 3 weeks to get it to chain. The help files dont help unless you know something already about the subject. So for weeks I would try to chain. I would click a line, then click chain, and a box would pop up, so you can name is and save the chain. Silly part is all I had to do when that box popped up was select the next line and it would chain. DUHHHH<
This week was customization week. I tweaked it all out. Made a few macros, made some custom menus, etc... But...It was a bitch at first. If you open "customization" dialog, now the whole system acts different. You can drag and drop anything anywhere. Took me 3 days to figure that out.
The help files are on steriods, but for beginner stuff...it's useless.
This aint your moms cam software for sure.
Gibbs will chain just by double clicking any part of geometry (or edges) 2D or 3D depending on your setting with right mouse button. That is not the case with other programs? Jerry
Just curious, as you are a mastercam user....have you tried the solid chaining? I just stared to mess around with it this week & was actually impressed. For basic 2.5D toolpaths (say like facing, pocketing, ect) it is actually pretty slick. Basically if you have a pocket with a few bosses in it, all you gotta do is select the solid face and you are done. It select it as a "solid chain". hmmmm....guess chaining is not necessary in Mastercam either. Don't tell banquer tho....pretty sure there is no training video covering this.
Vinny, I just fix broken machines, wtf is chaining? Help me out.
Wes
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