Latest Version Of CAMWorks

Take a look at SolidCAM.

Brian

Teksoft has its own fully integrated 3d package now. The name of the package is Procam.

Teksoft has stopped working on CamWorks in order to focus on Procam. This is a real bummer for the companies that spent $10,000 to $14,000 on CamWorks.

I've been using TekSoft products for ten years now in fab. I would not ever consider their software if given the choice. Here is a post I placed in their user forum. Note that it was posted in December and has not received one single reply. I am truly as disgusted as one person can be. Perhaps my experience with TekSoft has made me a bit soft on SoiledWorks corp......

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 4:10 pm Post subject: a couple of old items....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First, I'd like to say that the support I have received from my VAR(Cimtronics) and specificly EJ and Jorge have been superb. I feel that they are doing a fine job in supporting a product that is inferior to anything I have ever seen in terms of development.

Having said that, I post a few issues off the top of my head. These are not new, nor are they news. I have submitted them to Teksoft in various ways and at various times over the last 8 years. These are simple to fix problems for the most part, yet have been ignored for some reason. Most are just time wasters, yet some have caused scrap.

Given the time I have been using this product, the development has progressed at a snails pace. It would seem that it has been abandoned for the most part and that there is no real interest in making it a program that would really be worth endorsing. Were it not for the investment already made and the support I have received from Cimtronics, I would have dropped it long ago.

It is my hope that this post might warrant some response from Teksoft, but given my past experience and communications with the company, I seriously doubt it will.

These are but a fraction of the issues I am aware of. I am running

2003 sp1.2. I will monitor this thread and update the list as I become aware of other confirmed issues. At least as long as I am permitted to and this thread is not deleted. I would welcome input from other users and hope that this can lead to some actual improvemnets to the program.

1) Click G01 Icon/Save/... green light icon disappears.....Pretty consistent, but second time around it seems to work fine.

2) Random deletion of cad/cam entities when panning or zooming. Seems related to time between saves. 3) Options greyed out that should be active. Ex.: selecting Linear tool path, micro joint parameters are greed out. Resolved by saving file. 4) Edit tool allows selection of boundary. 5) Picking is still years behind any program I have ever seen. Requires excessive zooming to select the proper entity. 6) Program still needs the ability to save defaults. Ex.: I have never used 1.0" lead ins, yet this is the default. I always use .100 lead-ins and should be able to establish this as a default. 7) Default snap related to certain functions should be user defined. Ex.: Trim tool: default snap modifier is the digitize icon. This is of absolutely no use and must be changed each and every time the trim tool is used. Program is still not Windows Compliant. Ex.: Ctrl-Z should be undo, program should have the capability to be used w/o a mouse. I could go on, but this is obvious a kludged DOS app ported to Windows and that the Win Compliant sticker is clearly in violation of M$ policy. 9) Many text boxes are modal. The ability to use the limited hot keys in the program are disabled after entering info into a text box.ex: Select a different color and then attempt to ZOOM ALL (CTL-A). 10) Boundaries can not be reversed. 11) Macro sequencing is next to impossible without placing each macro on its own layer and then filtering the layers. A simple list box listing the macro calls that would allow drag and drop reordering would be invaluable. 12) Click dimension, click endpoint snap and then click an end point. If you grab the wrong end point and undo or click mid mouse button, you lose the end point snap and it reverts back to entity select. 13) Dimension snapping should remember which sap modifier is last used. 14) Undo should span functions. 15) Default text size is .180" Needs a user defined default. 16) Posted files are left open after posting and require that ProCAM be closed before deleting/moving. Again, this is simply sloppy programming. 17) De-Select individual selected entities is needed 1 Database corruption is the norm when inserting parts with CAM into parts with CAM. CTD is usual result. This has become worse as releases roll on. 19) In order to tab in the slugs on large holes, a .025 gap has to be created in the circle. This frequently results in the hole disappearing when you zoom out. It returns if you zoom back in, but as soon as you zoom out, it goes away. I think it is OK if you rotate the arc off quadrant. 20) Dead zone and material display are on whenever a file is opened. New 'feature' I guess, but kind of annoying to turn it off every time. 21) Rotating CAM entities (Punch): Rotate a part that uses rectangular punches in non AI stations and then adjust orientation in turret set-up. Select the modified tool paths and then entire path is not hi-lighted. Post this and you'll get scrap. Entire path has to be erased and re-applied. Pretty basic math functions to fix this. TS solution: Post a warning message when you rotate parts. How lame. 22) Create boundary: Given the high probability that the program will snap to an unintended end point when creating a start point, it would save a lot of wasted time if MMB would remove the start point if it is the only defined component of a boundary. This would save moving from the boundary to undo and back again. 23) Edit Macro, create new layer, exit edit macro, where's the layer????? 24) Keystrokes should be handled w/o having to set focus on text box when in certain modes. ex: Fillet tool: When I type a numeric, it should know I am changing a radius. 25) In virtually every instance, selecting a new command will clear the snap modifier. EXCEPT when choosing to insert a part. Snap modifiers need to remain static across commands at least. At best, they should remember the last snap modifier used with that command. 26) A toggle for swapping M.J. values from left to right would be handy 27) Product should ship with a bag of some sort that the user could scream into. This would not help the software, but would at least be as helpful as this forum. Truly disgusting customer service. To be continued...

Full 5 axes?

For about that they could probably have gotten Unigraphics.

Procam is the stand-alone version of CAMWorks yes?

What do people think are the merits of integrated CAM packages vs standalone packages that use SWKS native files?

You said it! I have been a Teksoft user for about 7 years. I worked with Teksoft and Solidworks exclusively for those 7 years. My last project was a fairly intricate program on a 4th axis rotary table. What an extreme pain in the neck.

I have since moved on to another company utilizing Featurecam. Featurecam is an OK program with feature recognition and a 4th axis package.

The difference is like night and day. Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying that Featurecam is greatest machining program going but I am saying that Procam is one of the worse. Every mouse click in Featurecam equates to 5 or

10 clicks in Procam.

Not to mention the gliches. I can't count how much work I have lost over the years due to Procam crashes. I am so glad that I no longer have to deal with that program and I feel sorry for those that are stuck with it.

Do they have it (feature recognition) working for 4 & 5 axes work? Is the 4 axes actually just a remapped 3 or actual full

4 axes?

This is Nuts! TekSoft has had Procam for years! But people on this NG will mostly be interested in Camworks - which is an add-in for Solidworks. Teksoft came out with a totaly new 3-axis package and many changes in January (called Camworks 2004). CDs haven't even shipped yet. From my viewpoint, this doesn't describe Teksoft stopping work on Camworks!

I like Camworks and all the people I know that use it do also (about 5 different shops).

Sincerely, Jerry Forcier

snipped-for-privacy@here.now wrote:

Dear d,

I have used Camworks for years and what you describe must not be Camworks, but maybe is Procam, another Teksoft product that is NOT an add-in for SWX.

I like Camworks and agree with you that Cimtronics is a great VAR.

Maybe you can switch over to their other product, Camworks.

Your NG message could well be valid, but it shouldn't have been under the subject of Camworks - it is misleading to many.

Sincerely, Jerry Forcier

d wrote:

In a word: ASSOCIATIVITY. If there is no associativity between features and CAM, there is no advantage. There is also the issue of resources and expense of running/maintaining/learning two different applications. If I change a feature in SWX, I'd rather not have to start CAM from scratch or even have to modify it. As is, I modify the model, export the dxf and then apply/modify the CAM. This process is prone to errors in the form of missing modified features when applying CAM, but is preferable to erasing all CAM and starting over. Perhaps if my CAM software was better, starting from scratch would not be that bad.

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (d) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

The problem is that CAMWorks really doesn't know anything about SW features (from what I can tell). It simply looks at the set of surfaces that make up a SW part and then extracts its own features from that. It doesn't use any of the intelligence that's built into the SW model to its advantage.

So really the only advantage of having CW integrated directly into SW is that it saves a few steps. I think a standalone CAM package that could read SW files directly would be just as capable.

This probably needs more thought .....

Associativity ...... how does it work? What is it? Any advantages to having or not having it? (I think we are rid of jb for some time BTW .)

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (Cliff Huprich) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m21.aol.com:

Could you be more specific? I realize I didn't offer anything to back up my hunch and I could very well be wrong but I haven't seen anything to convince me that CW is actually looking at SW features during its feature recognition stage. Do you know for certain that I'm wrong?

I'm not completely sure what to make of this. Are those real questions or is that just some sort of dig at jb?

Joel Moore

How related are "machining features" (that may be process specific) to "design features" (good for parametric changes)? The word "features" may be spelled the same but .....

A dig at jb is always possible. He keep claiming associativity was not needed in his "unfried, unseemly, high-bread" world but did not grasp the barest nature of associativity (probably because he never used such things as CAD/CAM systems).

Consider a method CAD ==> CAM where the toolpath is sort of associated to the geometry on the CAM system. Make a change at the CAD side and you have to re-import all the geroetry to the CAM system. Where is the associativity of all the *old* CAM work to the modified geometry? It's ALL new. Even those bits that were, in a geometric sense, unchanged.

Those "few steps" can get quite annoying & time consuming ($$$$) I suspect. And a very good way to make new errors.