[petriej]

Originally Posted by littlebrewman I am researching new cad/cam software for myself and the shop i work in.We have one swiss turn lathe(tsugami),2 ZT mori seiki mill turn,1 SL mori seiki, 1 doosan puma 2 axis lathe,1 A55 Makino Horizontal mill,1 A81 Makino Horizontal Mill,and 1 fadal Vertical mill.Has anyone had any experience using partmaker to program these machines and if so what has it been?The biggestproblem i have with our current software(Mastercam) is the posts.They seem to have nothing.Also is partmaker easy to draw in.I have found mastercam to be very easy to draw with as a cad package.Thanks for any input that you can give.

Littlebrewman, I find Partmaker very easy to draw in. You can easily trim and extend lines with a very intuitive interface. You don't need to explode intersected segments to trim them or remove them as each intersection bisects the segment which allows you to individually manipulate the segment (also similar to other Delcam products). Post support is second to none (yes, we are on maintenance.) On more than one occasion I have submitted post modifications and received updated posts within 1hr. I have a less than common machine/control combination which has lead to a small amount of R&D to get the post perfect. But, I do not believe in hand editing as it takes too much time, and increases the chances for having a crash. I had the post perfect from the last software – still a great competitors program and it took some time. I foresee absolutely no reasons that will inhibit the Partmaker post from being perfect as well.