Anyone ever used....???

I use cimatron every day, however, I still am using the IT line of cimatron. I have tried Cimatron Elite a few times while it was going through some growing pains. Most of the issues I had with it they worked out. As far as the design goes its actually fairly impressive. You have some powerfull tools in there. The one thing I found lacking was the sketcher. It may be better now as I havent used Elite since v6.0 I wish I could give you some examples to go by but its been a while so I dont remember much. I do use solidworks every day and have used it along side cimatron IT since the early days of solidworks. SW is easier to use and at the time, was more effecient "for me" due to the time spent on it. I think Cimatron is worth looking in to if you can get someone local to demo it for you.

Yeah! A response...

Have you ever used Cimatron for mold design specifically? What about for programming CNC's?

They now have a module to help pull electrode models, which I viewed with an on-line demo. Looked fairly impressive.

Not only does Cimatron program CNC mills and Wire EDM's, they can now program CNC sinker EDM's as well. Not too many programs can do that yet (that I've seen anyway).

For this reason, if it is good enough, I am looking into the possibilities of converting the whole design/build process to one package for many of jobs we do. A lot of customers like the fact that we currently design their molds with SolidWorks. So for those customers, we would continue to do that. Other customers don't care what we use, or even how well it is documented. They just want a mold that makes parts, and usually fast/cheap. If Cimatron does what it claims, efficiently, those jobs may be well suited for it. That's my main objective in looking at this package.

Currently, we design in SolidWorks. Then, for milling, I have to export all models to parasolid for the CNC programmer that uses Espirit. If wire EDM is required, I have got to create and export a drawing to dxf for the wire programmer that uses and old 2D version of Espirit. For the CNC EDM, I have got to create electrode models first (for the CNC mill), then electrode drawings showing the location and depth of each freggin electrode, so he can program it, MANUALLY. There are lots of aspects of this process that is not very efficient and takes a lot of MY time, that could and should be put off on the programmers. They usually stand around with their thumb up their you-know-what while their machines are running, while I am busting butt to try to keep up with their next process. This cuts into my design time for the next job, and we end up being late on deliveries because of it. I'm hoping Cimatron will help with this problem, and drastically improve efficiency at the same time. But I will listen to any other suggestion as well....

Seth,

Cimatron has always been a mold centric CAM system. Most of the current CAD capabilities are within the last several years. If you "only" design molds, it's probably a very good choice. It really isn't intended as a primary multi purpose CAD system.

It's very expensive though, so if you plan on more than one seat, you'll have to dig deep.

Mark

I am not wanting to replace SW as our multi purpose CAD system. I do all sorts of things here. Mold design is just my primary type of work. SW will still be used A LOT.

Can you give me a ballpark on how much it is? I haven't asked the vendor yet. I'd rather not call him to ask I would end up being on the phone for a hour or so. I am expecting a fairly high number here. I have looked at other CAM packages that were fairly high. Since Cimatron has more capabilities than those I've looked at, I expect it to be even higher. But it may very well be worth it too.

Hi Seth,

My name is George Berold and I am V.P. Market> Has anyone here ever used Cimatron??? I am not looking to replace SW, just

Hi Seth,

My name is George Berold and I am V.P. Market> Has anyone here ever used Cimatron??? I am not looking to replace SW, just

Hi Seth,

My name is George Berold and I am V.P. Market> Has anyone here ever used Cimatron??? I am not looking to replace SW, just

No, honestly I haven't. Any way to arrange an in-house demo in my area?

Hi Seth,

We can give you a wb demo for sure and depending on where yopu are situated we may be able to arange an in-house demo as well.

Please contact me either at snipped-for-privacy@rnb.co.il or at 1-800-844

George

Seth Renigar wrote: