UG vs Mastercam

We have a seat of NX7 and X2. We stopped paying maintenance on MC when we got UG. I've switched back and forth between the two systems over the last twenty years. There=92s no question UGs strengths are with complex part programming. I can=92t imagine roughing a complex part without cavity mill or surface milling without streamline. As for 2.5D, MC requires a lot of curve creation and manipulation. That may have changed now that it finally has feature recognition. But NX also has things like manual face milling. It=92s one of those things that you have to use to fully appreciate. When it comes to high speed 2.5D milling, I=92ve always been satisfied (more or less) with NXs trochoidal motion. There have been some issues, pr#s logged etc., but it does the job. I do think Surfcams Truemill is superior to conventional trochoidal. And I wish Siemens would just swallow its pride and pay the licensing to incorporate it (or rip it off as Volumill and Mastercam did). But I=92m not holding my breadth.

Can't be possible surely ;)

What do you get with level 3 + solids? I would assume at that price you get the full multi-axis enchilada, no? Btw, solids is a given nowadays. One thing that used to really piss me off in MC as having to tell it (a computer of all things) I was selecting a solid edge as opposed to a curve...

I've had good success with the Trochoidal milling. That said, it's maintaining a constant volumetric removal rate and keeping in the metal that's key to me on airframe parts. Opposite of molds, we are cutting from the outside in. Tougher to process than a bounded area. Constantly cutting on and off surfaces beats up inserted tools when aggressively milling due to the chip thinning. Everyone and their mothers has figured out pockets.

Having used Vericut's Optipath over the years, I've always wished volumetric removal would be implemented at the cam side. Think of a Z-level (waterline) roughed pocket with a contoured floor (not flat). There are uneven tool loads for the next tool even if you use the old "find the uncut corners" options. Using Optipath, imagine now that next tool speeds up and slows down based on the volume of material it's in? I'm hearing a buzz about that coming in a future release of NX. I would assume other cam companies are on it as well. I have seen a large airframe part go from 20 hours to under 7 just using just that process without any change to the actual tool path step down or stepover.

-- Bill

It's 10% Bill. So $16K for level 3 + solids, and your maintenance is $1,600 bucks.

Unless it's changed drastically in the last two years, NX's high speed machining paths are kinda crappy. I'm sure the complex 5 axis paths are the shit, but for regular 2.5D stuff, it's quite a bit behind Mastercam's Dynamic Milling

********* uhhhhh....???? I ran nx5. Maybe three or more years old. Let me tell ya, that friggen software made the sweetest 2d toolpaths Iv'e ever seen, and thats after 4 months on nightshift with UG, and mastercrap since version 4. I'm sorry to all the mastercam users, it's no contest, 2d or 3d whatsover. It simply shames mastercam. The reason is UG is actually...Unigraphics, Camax, Smartcam, and a few more.

MastercamX3 is pretty nice stuff, but it's still a cartoon.

Put me in a Ferrari and I'll probably still drive it just like my Subaru. I'm no race driver!

One of the problems with this trade (and many others I'm sure) is you can be shown where all the fancy buttons and mouse clicks are but... you still need to know what you want to achieve. Crap in... crap out.

-- Bill

Vinny, X3 didn't have the Dynamic Mill function. It's amazingly good. It's not even in the same universe as trochoidal milling. You also had more formal UG training in your first week on the job, than you ever had with Mastercam.

And calling Mastercam a cartoon? Come on now, the graphics aren't good enough to be a cartoon!

Vinny, X3 didn't have the Dynamic Mill function. It's amazingly good. It's not even in the same universe as trochoidal milling.

***** Ok, I'll back up then a bit and give mastercam x4 the benefit of the doubt. ****

You also had more formal UG training in your first week on the job, than you ever had with Mastercam.

****** a week on a UG tutorial doesn't compare with using mastercam for years in many shops with many people, along with three days in the begining on a tutorial with version 4 and many tutorials along the way, including one for x. I was on UG 3 months solid and one month off and on. Technically, I prolly bearly scratched the surface of UG...something I regret. ****

And calling Mastercam a cartoon? Come on now, the graphics aren't good enough to be a cartoon!

****** I will say this, my mastercam toolpaths are just as good as the cimitron toolpaths being ran in the machines around me. (for whatever reason, lol)

Ouh oh, as good as Cimatron? Polly some(not many) even better. Every software has good ones & suck ones. That goes for programmers too. But........... how many hoops were "jumped thru" to get there? I am tired of jumping. Ok the code generated for the machine has lot-o- rapids, big deal. It aint crashing, or gouging or plowing into heavy stock? Its confidently hoping around doing its thing. Peace of mind. "push the button & go home" But then again I've seen shop owners watch toolpaths run with a stopwatch to time rapids, & say "see I'm loosing money" go figure. How many times you walk thru a shop & the spindles are not running? Thats were your loosing money. Anyone ever program or run a Roders? A freekin triumph of German engineering.

-- \|||/ (o o) ______.oOO-(_)-OOo.____________________ ~ Gil ~ the self proclaimed IT13=A9=AE king

For ~$15K you get Mill 3 and Solids. And Mastercam Solids is the poorest implementation of solids I've ever seen. Robert White did a better job when he wrote FastSolid (addon) for Cadkey in the mid to late 90's. Hardly anybody machines from solids in Mastercam unless they're doing simple prismatic parts. Everyone heavy into surfacing imports or models solids then creates wireframes and surfaces from them to machine from. It really is truly pathetic compared to what I see our Cimatron users doing.

Mastercam will cost you well over $20K if you need a decent CAD system, Multiaxis, decent verification, etc. Initial software cost is likely close to that of UG. Around here (geographically) training and startup would be EXTREMELY costly. Is much much easier to hire people experienced with Mastercam than any other system. I know quite a few designers in the mold business who are proficient with UG but the ONLY shop I know of which used UG for NC programming was sold and absorbed by a larger company and is now using Mastercam.

There's a reason for that and it's very much related to wages, but that's a rant for another day as I've got to go earn my peanuts now. ;)

Thank for making the Mscam pathetic solids point. Its exactly what I also have experienced. Not that Mscam users are, but any dufus can be up & running Mscam within a few days making good toolpaths & learning how to jump through those hoops. Not the case with UG or Cimatron. Its high end shit that needs highly $skilled$ personal.

-- \|||/ (o o) ______.oOO-(_)-OOo.____________________ ~ Gil ~ the self proclaimed IT13=A9=AE king

I see you've been to Mastercam Fanboi Central too. The In-House Solutions eMastercam Forum where individuals who don't jump on their bandwagons preferring instead to do their own thinking get Lynched by a mob. Makes the sad excuse for a place to get support place ridiculously easy to troll. Here on Usenet trolling successfully requires actual effort. There are a few good people there, makes returning to the place every now and then worthwhile.

In the late 90's early 2K I was the IT goto person as well as a mold machinist and got first hand experience with UG's support when the company purchased a seat for tool design. That experience with UG's support was second to none. The people I worked with knew the system. They weren't reading from scripts, they weren't suggesting work arounds, they knew EXACTLY what the f*ck they were doing.

It all depends on where you are and your reseller. Around here,

Mill Entry =3D $3200 Mill 1 =3D $5000 Mill 2 =3D $9000 (worthless, only allows single surface machining with most 3D paths, and no "follow surface" gap setting) Mill 3 =3D $12000-$13000 depending on what day of the week it is. Solids =3D +$1000 Advanced Multi Axis =3D +$2,500

So you end up at about $16K for everything, + another $4K for Solidworks. Surprisingly, the maintenance for $16K worth of Mastercam ends up being about the same as the maintenance for the $4K seat of Solidworks!

The solids package is unnecessary, because you can still machine solids without it. I'm old school like BD though, and prefer wireframe and surfaces.

MC will do 5 axis positioning with any of the mill levels, but needs the add on for the fancy stuff. A very nice 5 axis post for a common machine like a Mazak Variaxis is $2500 from In House.

Exactly! The best might mean having to pretend the job requires skill and fair pay. 'lol

When done with a 3D job in Mastercam a user is usually left with a cluster f*ck of solids, wireframes, surfaces and boundaries on scads of different levels to get there.

Sometimes even copies of the damned model transformed to system coordinates because toolpaths borked when using a work coordinate system that for a decade has been broken.

Highly skilled personnel demand commensurate wages and like I said before, that's a rant for another day.

So really - you've just bought a seat of full NX. Except you don't get assemblies which means you import each and every piece of geometry required into your part file. Case in point, when I was at Haas, my SL30 base program was 7mb's in NX, in mastercam it was 25mb! I was able to include all the tooling and fixtures so I could make nice setup sheets in NX without the overhead. If the design changed (which it did) I just replace the model make the minor changes and regen the toolpath.

Folks are "old school" because the system forces you to be. I did the same when I used MC after years of using only solids. Really hated to have countless layers of wireframe. Went right back to straight solids when I was back on NX.

-- Bill

When I was using MC (x2 I think) I was having crashing problems with the Operation Manager (what they call it in UG) when the number of ops got over 80 or so. No one would help me on that. It was quietly fixed a version later. I brought up the lack of multiple holder collision detection support (without going through some horrific workaround at the time). I had been using multiple defined holders for years in NX. That was a deal breaker yet no one thought it was important!

I feel a bit of accomplishment when an update comes out and my own PR number is listed as been fixed. I've not had any major issues in the last couple releases though. The other thing I like is when they do confirm the problem, they prioritize it given its severity. Not the usual, " that's the first we've heard of that"...

-- Bill

Bill, you get assemblies with Solidworks. I import full assemblies on virtually every job. It puts each component on a different level, in the order that you added them to the assembly in Solidworks. I'm definitely not doing any "assembling" inside of Mastercam though!

How much is the maintenance and a nice machine-specific 5 axis post for NX?

When I open NX, my customers solid lives separately in a ready only folder that is viewed in as a component. If a new model rev comes in, I do a quick compare then point my part file to the new model. There is no repositioning the part since it stays in the customers defined attitude. You pay dearly if you accidentally machine a part to an old rev. File size is much smaller too. I just finished a 20' long support rib. My counterpart at the clients did a similar part in NX where he brought everything in as solids (he didn't know how to use assemblies). His part file was 75 megs, mine was 24.

Not quite apples to oranges with NX as they include machine simulation (Vericutish' looking models). They do include a bunch of posts only that come with all the cam packages. In the 5ax packages, they provide several complete post and machine simulations for running inside of NX. Fanuc, Heidenhain, and Sinumerik controls are provided for them. I think to buy a custom machine specific post with simulation it's about $8k. If you buy a new machine, that would be the time to do it. If your just using little Haas and Fadals maybe not worth it. You can get the post only built for much less I'm sure since it's just modifying existing stuff.

Once you get the hang of simple Tcl language, they are pretty easy to modify yourself using the included Postbuilder app. It's also pretty easy to convert the existing machine sims to fit your needs if you know how to model. The machine sims are just assembly models with kinematics defined.

-- Bill

Here's a blurb about the simulation tools:

I think that is where most cam packages are going hence my lengthy avoidance of pricing just a post.

-- Bill