I've heard good things about this stuff's design side (specificaly proE), but from looking over it, it looks like it would have trouble with toolpaths and posting (NC generation). AM I mistaken here?

It is a good design software and I have seen some good pthats come from the Pro-Manufacturing side to.

But the toolpath side is vary cumbersome as I have seen and heard.

JM2C

I did a massive CAM benchmark for my company about 2 years ago. PTC was in there because we use Pro-E for design software. We found it to be not worth much. We went with DelCam's PowerMill and PowerShape for our Mold and Tooling Center.

HI Guys,
I have to agree with most of the comments made about Pro-Manufacture as I also work with Pro-E ( and most of manufacturing licences). Pro-E is an exelent design software in everyway particularly because it is a parametric system where design changes are carried out rapidly. On the other hand Pro-Manufacture is a nightmare and fully agree with Jeff, you're better off with other systems.

Martin G

thanks for the replies

I am An expert Machinist and have 18 years experiance in 4 differenet cam systems Proe is top notch no one in Maryland can touch what i do in the time I do it in 2 through 4 axis machining I was a user of Mastercam for 6 years And i must say Mastercam does not even come close to what pro e does.
The company I work for was announced as NASA vender of the year for precision machinied parts in 2003.

But The learning curve is steep once you have something
give yourself 2 years to learn it !
(Lead Programmer)

Mace

Mace,
What exactly do you find better about Pro-E versus Mastercam,
as far as the Cam end goes.

Hope you enjoy your stay:p

PEACE:D

Please See my parts in gallery!

iam going to prepare A comparison on Pro E and MasterCam
Give me A week or so.

Mace

Mace what is it that you are going to compare the complexty of the parts you do now to what you use to do when you used MC ?

I am wondering what type of comparison you would like.
I have a Pro-e-var that is also a Proto-typ shop that does Pre-e and Mastercam I can get there thoughts to.

I trained the MC people.

This is going to be fun:p :p

PEACE:D

No Mr. Cad cam I will have comparison of features side by side Examples of proe to mastercam not complexity of parts As i can program anything in mastercam that i program in pro e As lead programmer of my the company i work for i must stay up todate in mastercam to train the people that use it that dont know how to update themselves so i am extremly fluent and prepared to show honest differences between the two packages.

In no way shape or form am I tring to get in a pissing battle with anyone what you will see is facts only.
Let the people that read learn the differences and make there own opinions and go from there.
Pro engineering wildfire is avilable to anyone for none profit use (home use)for under 500. usd.
So ithink you will see alot of interesting things start to happen in this forum in the future and I will be here to make sure the facts are in .
And to help others learn and troubleshoot there issues

Regards
Mace

Originally posted by mace
No Mr. Cad cam I will have comparison of features side by side Examples of proe to mastercam not complexity of parts As i can program anything in mastercam that i program in pro e As lead programmer of my the company i work for i must stay up todate in mastercam to train the people that use it that dont know how to update themselves so i am extremly fluent and prepared to show honest differences between the two packages.

In no way shape or form am I tring to get in a pissing battle with anyone what you will see is facts only.

Regards
Mace
No one is here for that Mace. Thats why Cadcam and myself
are Moderators here. There will be no pissing matches.
You'd be hard pressed to find any one more knowledgeable
about Mastercam than "Cadcam".
Now lets all have some fun:p :p

PEACE:D

Mace I like your reply.
Can I ask what version of MC are you running?

Thanks for your time and look forward to your out look.

Originally posted by hardmill
Mace,
What exactly do you find better about Pro-E versus Mastercam,
as far as the Cam end goes.

Hope you enjoy your stay:p

PEACE:D


In response your question Hardmill

1.OPERATIONS
So an operation is few or many sequences using the same fixtures to cut them before phiscally moving or flipping the part to go onto the next being op010 is cut top of part and sides
op020 is flip and machine features on back.
So with that said Proe enables you to use a fixture for each operation wheater its lathe or mill 3jaw chuck or mill vise then when you create new operation you can speicify new fixtures this is all retained automatically so i f you forgot something in op010 mill vise and you working on op060 angleplate ,when you goback to op010 the vise that you were working with and placed with op010 in the begining will auto represent itself to you along with op010 coordinate sys. with that said lets talk about launcing op010 into vericut when you have 6 operatins proe suppresses all fixtures and coordinate systems from other operations so onlt the placement of op010 and its coordinate sys. goint vericut to check solid verification and vice versa with any operation created in .mfg files the vice or fixtures are launched into vericut with fixture tagged onto solid vericut file so if your tool ever touches the fixture hardend steels typically, vericut shows RED mark and files a report what tool ,where and when it happend for ease of tracabilty and fixing.

2.a. In pro e You can create any shape or size Workpiece From say previous operation to create the most efficient toolpaths no aircuts see where you have you removed material Graphically.The workpiece also will export to Vericut So you have true represention of What is the removed from prior operations This Saves So much time in machine times in more complex parts(and steels).
2.b. Also as you go machining you can create material removels attached to individual sequences. So when you launch vericut to check independent seq. prior sequences materials will be not be removed for true check huge time saver not watching whole projet cut 70 times as you program i have dual p4 3.0 ghz Xeon and this still can draw out to be 10-15 minutes each time I watch whole operation so I verify toolpaths as i go the when i am done with an operation i watch the whole part cut and go back if needed to mend certain sequences.( i have a fairly complex part i programmed in mastercam and to watch it in mastercams verify it takes 30 minutes to watch for errors.)

So to sum this feature up you are not stuck with a rectangle or cylinder for stock size.Also Great speed in verifieing independent sequences.

3.Volume milling is a sequence that is created from solids extruded and cut away as many times as you like (from any angle or plane that you can dream of any shape WOW) then after you have the boundries set with the solid volume you simply trim the volume to the part once this is done go select any number of walls to approach and exit the volume the parameters of this seq. are endless to get the toolpaths desired.(approach walls is a very commonly used feature to keep tool from plunging straight into workpiece to maximize toollife)(there is also exlude surfaces so you are not profiling walls that are not really there.)
This seq. is truly the MAC DADDY OF THEM ALL FOR COMPLEX ROUGHOUTS OR FINISHING IN UNDER 5 MINUTES HAVE THE MOST EFFIECENT PATHS IMAGINABLE TO ANY EXPERT MACHINIST YOU WILL HAVE NO COMPLAINTS FROM SHOP FLOOR ABOUT AIRCUTS OR NONEFFECTIVE CUTS.
Did i mention that the part will not have to be pro e native it can be iges surfaces,solids or step file etc... proe reconizes unclosed boundries and seals them of as a solid at the importing level.

This is just my start of defending this wonderful software that i will stand beside until something more powerful comes out onto the market.

I wish i could have more of file size to post demos and examples of what i am talking about.but i dont

So if anyone reads and likes what they hear tell me i would be more than happy to email you demo .avi files to see this with your own eyes.

Mace

Hi guys,

seem like we are having a good discussion about pro/nc. i'd like to put in my opion if it's ok. i've been using mastercam since they called it quick silver if i remember it correctly. i used to think mastercam is king of the hill until i work at this company. my job was just prototyping casting and plastic injection mold part. at first i was using mastercam but couldn't keep up with all the design change. i mean alot of changes on top of that they want me to tell them what version i am working on after trillion of changes. that's when pro/nc and intralink came in. cut the story short nothing will beat pro/nc if you have pro/e in house. as long as this job is still around i won't trade this pro/nc for anything else. not even mastercam v9.1.

Originally posted by mace
In response your question Hardmill

This is just my start of defending this wonderful software that i will stand beside until something more powerful comes out onto the market.

Mace

No need to defend anything in here. We're all just here to
share thoughts and ideas.

PEACE:D

Mace,

i have to agree with you 200% on that volume milling. that's one kick a@@#s feature.

I agree with Mace -

ProE Manufacturing is one of the most versatile CAM packages available. Although it can be annoying/buggy at times, it is great for extremely complex machining jobs.

Pro Manufacture takes a long time to learn and is not as easy to use as most other CAM software, but it allows you much greater control over every detail of the tool path.

"So if anyone reads and likes what they hear tell me i would be more than happy to email you demo .avi files to see this with your own eyes."

I will take you up on your offer. My email is jonbanquer@yahoo.com

jon

I would also like to know the answers to the following questions:

Does Pro/E support wireframe in model / assembly ? Can you explode a solid down to wireframe in Pro/E ? Can you work with the wireframe on non-native data... I know all of this can be done in UG but not sure about Pro/E.

jon

No answers. No e-mail.

Hmmmmm.....

jon

Jon,
That offer was made 09-08-2003 so it is likely he is no longer subscribed to this thread.

Hi, As this thread ppl mostly talks about pro e and mastercam, i would like to know if i design a part in ProE and export it as IGES (surface n wireframe) and import it to Mastercam to set the toolpath and do the post processing thing, will it be ok? I am really concerned about the geometry of the file losing its precision, not match, so on n forth bugging that i cant check every single detail...If any of you have ever tried to import export thing, please advise....My point of doing this is not because Pro E is bad, both of them are a good software but somehow i experience post processor problem...thats it...Thank you and look forward for any reply...

I take the Pro-e file native file. with in mastercam then there is no issue.

it doesnt seem that i can import .prt into MC version 8... What version are u using? how did u do that? im sorry if this question seems so unprofessional...but i have never done any solid in MC..please advise

Well in version 8 it was a chook add-on form Cadem-e then in V9 it was an added cost but was bulit into the system and the same with the version I run now being Mastercam-X it is built into the system.