In going from NX4 to NX5, I was greeted by the usual worthless eye candy, renamed functions and a few added, buried, and somewhat helpful features for problems that I had already found workarounds in my 12+ years of using Unigraphics. Typical upgrade stuff, rarely anything you need and a period of re-adjustment to simply get back to where you left off with the previous version.
Until I tried using one of my Cam template files. I rough mill a hemispherical cup, around 2" in dia, using a spiral drive pattern, with a helical engage. I use about 60% of the tool, and a 3 degree helical angle on a 1/2" Carbide endmill on Titanium. I drive this right into the center of the cup and use a real tight spiral to climb mill back up and out the sides of the cup. I then follow with a semi finish and finish operation in similar fashion, leaving what looks like a high finish spherical bore.
In switching from NX4 to NX5, this simply goes away and becomes a plunge.
If you take the generic file I upload and replay it in 5, it looks ok, the minute you regenerate is it disappears. I will include the text of the eventual final response to my IR 6068970, but my question is... Who makes these decisions to exclude previous working and useful functions in the next upgrade? Does this person or people ever have to go out and run any of these programs their software generates? Do they really know what they are doing? It seems to me so often that your menus include so many options that step on each other you spend more of your time flipping around that you do getting things done.
My productivity has been cut in half since NX5 and is slowly getting back to where it was. How do you justify taking something that was automated and adding 5 more useless mouse clicks to it just to say you've added functionality?
I can only shudder at the thought of going to NX6. I better just delete all my template files and start over with a new set of workarounds, so I do not Crash my Mikron UPC600 Vario.
Here's the ultimate reason for my ire.....................
Dear Ted,
Our NX development team has investigated
PR Number 6068970 and have the following initial response:
The option of a degouged helical engage is not supported following the Non Cut Moves re-design in NX5. It's future inclusion is being considered by product management.
If you would like to discuss this further, please call GTAC at 1-800-955-0000 and select the appropriate support group. If you wish, the representative will connect you with the appropriate development supervisor, Manish Patel.
Sincerely,
The Global Technical Access Center Team
I will be calling..............................................