ANY PARTMAKER USERS OUT THERE?

I dont use it personally, but the company I work for does. Sometimes the program is a blessing to have, and other times i am better off writing a program by hand! Oh well, it keeps things exciting! How does everyone else feel about it?

I feel the same way you do. Most of the time I write the program long hand. When it comes to 3D machining or engraving I like it alot. The posts for our swiss machines are not exactly right and it gets aggrevating sometimes.

Same here... it works OK for generating complex tool paths, but I always would end up doing most everything longhand.

I have come to the general conclusion that the actual program Partmaker is a decent program. The area where it is lacking is in the post-processors, atleast for swiss machines. It seems like all that our programmers do is complain how everything looks great when they run a simulation, but the code which it creates usually needs manual editing to even make it run. Does anybody have any posts which they created/modified which work well on citizens or stars? I hate to see what seems to be a good program have its name tarnished because of poor posts. Thanks everyone!

I use Partmaker every day, it is a good program, although some manual editing is generally neccesary. ut it does a good job of reducing the amount of time it takes to write complex programs.

I don't use partmaker myself but we do use it in our shop. We have had to work with the company that we bought the software from to get the post figured out. We post to our nakumura with usually no problems. Our citizens on the other hand have problems. Productivity the company that does the tranining on partmaker is working on that problem for us. Good luck

Partmaker was one of the biggest mistakes that our company ever made. We mainly got it for our star SV-32. I don't think that the people who wrote the program even know what the machine looks like let alone look at the books for a sample program. In the time that it takes to go through the program and generate something that won't work on the machine I can have 4 programs wrote and debugged. Word of advice STAY AWAY!!! The portion of the program for the turn mills and mills isn't much better.

Carl

Amen, brother. I've been using it for about 8 months now and don't like it one bit. The problems I have with Citizen posts isn't as bad as the Star posts, but it still requires major rewriting. I have e-mailed my post problems to Partmaker Support and after several weeks of receiving modified posts (as many as four), the problem still isn't fixed. As a matter of fact, each new post I get comes with another set of problems. Don't they ever try these posts on an actuall machine? The guys at Star have been to our shop for programming seminars and tell us to stick with programming at the machine as Partmaker is good for making pretty pictures on your PC, but not good for running a machine. Unfortunetly, us programmers don't have many choices when it comes to programming software for screw machines. I see here on these forums that Esprit has it's post issues also. I am waiting for the more repitible software companies (such as Mastercam) to finally get on board with the screw machine industry. Until then, keep your pencils sharp and your calculater handy.

Does anyone use it for Hardinge? We are receiving a new turning machine with live tooling and this is the software they suggest. I will be responsible for programming it and the rest of our turning centers and mills. Is there any good experiences with the mills?

You will have to learn to config your post for your style of programming. I have finally reconfiged all our post for our SV-32's, SR-20's, and the SB-16 to post directly to the machine's. On a second note I have reconfiged the Mori post to do the same. Just hang in there and it does pay off. There is no other software that even comes close to the power this software has for Swiss. We also have Mastercam and UG that take's alot of time to even run right in the swiss machines. Partmaker will save you so much time although longhand will always be there for backup!

But the problem is you have to configure something that should have already been done. For right now I'm sticking to programming by hand, it's quicker and more reliable and readable to the next person.

Carl

Yeah, it should have been done already, but it's not. I had to just wade into the post and try to figure out how to make it work. If you spend the time and stick with it, you can make it nearly "post & go" for most types of parts. After quite a bit of fussin' & fightin', we've got posts that work real well for star SR's and SA's.
The software is still unwieldy, but there aren't many other options. Now that we've learned how to use "Config by Click", we can accomplish almost anything we need.
That said, we all wish the package was easier to work with.

Ken

We just bought a SR10J type C and bought the full load of PartMaker to make this our first foray into CNC easier- or so we hoped. How do I get the posts right for this machine? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

When I started I had no experience editing posts. Here's how I got started; After you have gotten your process table where you want it, go to Job Optimizer, Configure Post Processor, Launch ConfigPost. Click any line you want to edit; it will take you to the post, to the code that tells it how to write that line. Just experiment until you figure it out. Study it, change something, do a "save as" so you don't lose your original post, then see how it changes. It takes a bit of time and effort, but you'll eventually figure it out and get yourself a customized post. Guard it carefully.

Good luck and Godspeed!

I use partmaker almost everyday to create about 70% of my programs. Most programs will need to be manually edited due to custom tooling we have. Threadwhirlers and such are all custom. Most profile paths and general milling/turning is programmed correctly though.

I have come to the conclusion that for swiss machines this is as good as it will get.

Hi Christian,
Have not heard from you in a while. Hope all is well.
Drop us a line at work about the manual editing your having to do and we can see what we can do about minimizing it as much as possible. Have you got the latest Posts? That might help. Also, have you downloaded Version 9.1? Working on the Solid model is a huge help now.

Bill Cain


I use partmaker almost everyday to create about 70% of my programs. Most programs will need to be manually edited due to custom tooling we have. Threadwhirlers and such are all custom. Most profile paths and general milling/turning is programmed correctly though.

I have come to the conclusion that for swiss machines this is as good as it will get.

Hi George,

It was nice talking with you the other day. Thought I would just answer your question here also.

PartMaker will fix any problem with any of our Post (Must be on Maintenance though). Its very easy to report a problem using the Help - Technical support menu. Have the Job files out and attach a Post Modification Request form with them and we will look at what needs to be done. Any questions, you can call and we will help you fill out the form or discuss with you what is happening. Please note, We change posts because the machine may not run, not because someone wants the coolant code dropped 1 line. We give out Config-By-Click and ConfigPost Lite for that purpose. This is what Ken uses to modify his post.

Bill Cain
www.partmaker.com

We just bought a SR10J type C and bought the full load of PartMaker to make this our first foray into CNC easier- or so we hoped. How do I get the posts right for this machine? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Hey Bill,

Mark is having me take a "class" on postconfig so that when i'm sick and such maybe the other programmers and edit and run my programs. Right now most of our stuff is manually made due to threadwhirlers and having to move the gangs around to fit it all in without crashing. I don't really think we could configure a post to put that code out correctly ya know?

thanks,

christian

Hi Christian,

I have worked with many people to get special code output. The best thing to do is send a Program along with the modified code.

Also, I beleieve we added something to the post recently to allow for the clearance movement whe using a Thread Whirl. Give a call to Steph and ask her to send you your latest posts. I will gladly help with any edits your looking for explaining everything I do so you can begin learning how to edit the post. Bigest thing to learn is how the Flow works along with the logic thats in there.

Have you come to our Intruduction Webinar for ConfigPost? Thats the best place to start. After that, we always do advanced classes pretty much 1 on 1.

Bill Cain

Hey Bill,

Mark is having me take a "class" on postconfig so that when i'm sick and such maybe the other programmers and edit and run my programs. Right now most of our stuff is manually made due to threadwhirlers and having to move the gangs around to fit it all in without crashing. I don't really think we could configure a post to put that code out correctly ya know?

thanks,

christian

Hmm, I'll have to call about that. Yeah I have a scheduled a postconfig webex or whatever but most likely I will never have the time to do it haha. I was recently sick with the flu for two days and Mark had a little problem with me being the only person able to program the ecas machines so he really wants me to take the "class".

Hey, how are things going ver there, did the last post update help you out?

Bill Cain

Hmm, I'll have to call about that. Yeah I have a scheduled a postconfig webex or whatever but most likely I will never have the time to do it haha. I was recently sick with the flu for two days and Mark had a little problem with me being the only person able to program the ecas machines so he really wants me to take the "class".

Hey, how are things going ver there, did the last post update help you out?

Bill Cain

Things are real busy haha. Tried to work out some bugs on the new version 70 (i dont know if this is the newest post) and still having some issues. The offsetting of the stock and switching to Z3 move stock stationary (m142,m143) does not include the m142 and m143 code. Channel one sets the Z in and then waits channel 3 with a wcs141 but that is it. Without the m142 and m143 it still will give an alarm.

Easy fix just.

A few things that would be nice to add to the post would be after topcut and the setting of z turn off the spindle. I have been manually adding this for awhile. As would adding the broken cutoff tool detection.

Alot of problems with the follow support during cutoff still too. Seems like partmaker likes to put out redundant spin syncs and z syncs. It also likes to spit out a speed designation after it is already synced to main spindle. This causes an alarm.

Oooh and one more thing...channel 2 spits out a Y offset even when it isn't in polar yet or even not doing polar mode. Just changing the Y to an X would be fine. Although redundant.

I will take a look next week at these issues. Definitly would like to get this taken care of for you.

Bill Cain
www.partmaker.com

Hello Guys, I'm new to this site but I really wanted to share with you my thoughts regarding Partmaker. I've been programming Swiss for 15 years on everything from Star, Tsugami, Citizen, & Deco Tornos and I programmed all of these machines by hand in Fanuc, Mitsubishi, & Seimons 840Di so a couple years ago when I first started using Partmaker I was pretty sceptical about it and Im telling you Cam programming for Swiss isn't going away even Gibbs cam is trying to get into this market. I've worked out the bugs with the support of Partmaker on an Ecas20 10 Axis if someone is using that post it should be vs64 now. I can go from my PC to the machine without making edit's on very complicated multitool syncronized machining like pinch milling, Drill and turn, Ect. Sometimes I've thought it was the post screwing up and I find by doing a Quick NC program and reading the code I can go back and set things up differant and then it posts correctly, anyone with an Ecas should be aware you need to select the tool vs stock movement to control that Z3. If your company is paying maintenance I suggest you zip your files to them when things are not working right and get it fixed. I've got to a point that I can make my program's look like the one's I'de write by hand and like I said I never thought Cam could handle doing wait codes like it does. If you've ran siemons 840Di you'll know a thing or two about alarms and syntex error and I can use partmaker programs alarm free. Quick NC and support will be key to anyone's success.

Hi,

I understand the poeple which are really pisof off when a postpro doesn't work. I also understand that for what you paid you have a software which is not the one you need. The good question is, before you buy that kind of tool you should make some tests and not only use the animation on the screen. I'ts just there to sale a product but what you need is a couple of test parts you are running in your shop. When the code is right and when the machine is running then you have reached your.
I'm using Alphacam, Gibbscam and SylvieXpert and the all have the same problems.
Wha you buy a cam software it's a long term investment and you will have to work together with them to fine tune your postpro. But don't forget that you also have to take the time to learn it right, to take a course.

For swiss type machines try to look at that:

http://www.jurasoftswiss.com/en/

I'm not sure that I've seen a rev 1 post from the distributor that posts perfectly. Generally, in my experience a little tweaking will be necessary. Our mills still run Brand Y and they have to hand edit every post before they can throw it in the controller. I just rolled over from Brand Y to Partmaker and had the Brand Y post perfect after about 6 months of tweaking. It does take time, and I have found out on more than one occasion that it it not the post putting out junk code so much as me not setting a parameter in the job file correctly. Once you figure out the methodology of the software, and understand how the selected settings will affect the posted code as a whole, then you will better be able to post edit free programs. Sometimes something as simple as changing your cutting point will change your code entirely.