How secure do you guys feel?

[SirDenisNayland]

At my place of business, we have thankfully not 'grown' to the point where we have dedicated CAD and CAM departments, spitting out code being handed off to a setup/operator guy, having to deal with troubles with posts and the like.

We currently use MasterCamv9, yes the old dos port, and it works flawlessly for all the work I have ever done, upto and including some 3D surfacing work. It is used mainly for profile posts and that is about it. I have modified my posts to work with my swiss machines (swap g2/g3, make Z positive). We're primarily a turning shop, our mills are basic 3 axis mills, some with high pressure, but they mainly just do second op work or basic 2.5D milling stuff where the majority of the time I just program by hand, or in some cases I use mastercam and it produces lovely tool paths, no issues at all.

Its been about two years since my boss has mentioned us upgrading our Cam software, and I've done a lot of research. The biggest thing, is having a software where I dont have to do the basic editing, yet I've come to realize that 99.99% of the multitask machine posts are fraught with errors, requiring you to either deal with the errors in the post by modifying them manually, wasting all that supposed time, or spend thousands on post editing software (as it seems most these days dont allow you to just jump in and edit) and wasting again more time editing them, or wait for their 'support' to come back at you with a working post. What I don't want is to ultimately spend $12000 on a piece of software where I only end up using it like I currently do mastercam9.
We were looking at GibbsCAM MTM, and got a quote with all the packages we need to run MTM, which includes the base, 2.5d, 4axis turning and a few other modules necessary, and then posts and a simulation model for one machine and it totalled upwards of 20k. adding in models and posts for the rest of our machines and we're looking at a 50k piece of software.

The problem is, that while the programs can generate the paths, I don't think I could ever in a manner that I like. I know my machines like the back of my hand and I squeak every last fraction of a second out of them I can. A great example is my K16, that sub spindle almost never goes home. The whole safety zone and simulation principles work on your defining of every tool, its length, etc, WHICH ALL VARIES from set up to set up, even with the same part as sometimes you just can't use the same tooling! What if you're using custom tools you made? Reverse gang spots, etc? Because of this, I personally will never, ever be able to trust any software to provide me with foolproof code. And even if it does, I guarantee Ill stand by and say "well ****, theres a load of time I could rip off this cycle". And at the cost of something like $6000 for a post and a simulation model per machine, it seems like a large waste of money and a large waste of time.

My current process works like this, I get the drawing, deduce what tooling I'll need and a basic plan to create it. I'll draw my part in mastercam if necessary and create what tool paths I need and post them. Then I either open a fresh notepad file, or existing templates Ive made, copy paste boom bam bing, near flawless program, ready for upload to the machine.

I know a lot of wasted time comes down to actually learning to properly use the software, but even while I know they will produce code that works it really doesn't work so efficiently at all. Maybe efficient for the CAD department and the guys who don't know their machines so well on the floor, but from my standpoint, being largely production, I dread seeing mundane redundant code. A good case was when we acquired our first Star machine, we got the guys to create us a program for the part we bought the machine for. They used part maker. The code was full of redundancies, G99/G98/G97/G96's everywhere all over the place, each line had a feed rate, tons of redundant retracts and feeds. I ended up saving almost a minute of time just removing all those redundancies. The best part was the threadmill path the software generated. No one could figure it out why it wasnt working until I took the points it was making and plotted them. low and behold we werent looking at a nice spiral path, but a rounded square path, and the second revolution actually crossed into the first.. Hello? It seems a lot of software and their posts are lazy and instead of producing clean concise code, are relying on the increased speed of the machine processors to make up for their junk code.

So personally, when it comes to anything aside from a crazy multiaxis profile or full out 3D mill stuff, I am 100% confident I can produce better code, at a faster rate, with drastically faster machine cycle times. And this leaves me back at square one. Do we really need a new piece of software? To put it lightly, if I left my current position to explore other opportunities, and my boss had to finally purchase these softwares and hire people to run then and then set up the machines in two different processes, I can almost guarantee productivity will be flushed down the toilet, as well as most part times doubling.

I am more than ever involved in this quest as my future plans involve contract consultation work in the swiss industry doing part consultations and offering programming and possibly training services so that other companies and users of these machines know just what they can squeeze out of their machines. I've had a number of vendors and other long time machinists come into our shop and end up blown away by how fast I am making some products as well as how clean my code is. I have created several macros that can do part features without the need for things like polar or milling interpolation, as well as other macros for certain things that are not options at all. I am learning solidworks and all of its functionality so I have a CAD basis to add to my skillset, as well as for future ventures involving actual tangible goods. I know being on my own I will need a CAM software, even if it is just to create a few toolpaths.. Is there really nothing better than my current mastercam9 for my actual needs?

[SirDenisNayland]

I guess I never got to relating to the title, I wrote too much and felt it was time to shut up. What I meant to get to was do you guys feel the sane security as I do that, no matter how much software advances, it will never replace a true master in these swiss machines just due to the multitude of variables and considerations? I feel that as far as swiss is concerned, none of us will end up replaced in the same way software has replaced a guy doing intense 3D mill work math all day calculating machine points and creating algorithms (not that I don't from time to time.. math is fun).

While there have been serious advances and you can now get one of these machines running a part (never said it looked good though!) without any prior knowledge, I truly do believe that they will never ever replace a skilled set of hands, one who knows the machine inside and out.

It is because of this I somewhat fear growth and the growing divide in this industry between the cadcam and the actual work taking place on the floor. As someone who does both who is part of a growing company I feel that these machines really do require a hands on approach and the whole department creating code handed down to the set up guy will just never work.

Part of it is my fear of putting trust in others.. trust that the set up guy will realize that the back drill needs to be pushed back for clearance.. trust that if he doesn't hell notice it on the first run through, trust that he wont just hit go and crash...

Which I guess is where these softwares come into play. Dumb everything down, don't use machines to their fullest and beyond, keep things sinple idiot proof and running even if the cycle times are twice as long. It just seems too damn flawed to me.

[ProProcess]

I think in general, most programmers feel as you do, pretty secure.
CAM is never going to produce totally efficient code, as they have to be prepared for all sorts of possible conditions.
If your lot sizes are high, then the seconds that can be trimmed out of "point and click code" generated by CAM make using the software use unnecessary.
If however, you are a prototype or R&D shop then those seconds do not matter and can be traded for the decreased initial coding time that CAM would provide, especially if you get 3D models directly from the customer.