I'm new to FeatureCAM, cad/cam in general actually...

[swingwing205]

Guys, I need some advise about learning this software. I've been a machinist for 11 years now, and I just recently changed jobs.

One thing I was bound to do was to learn cad/cam of some form (former employer was too cheap to send me to school, even after 8+ years!), and the cad/cam program here used is Featurecam 2005. It seems very user friendly (NOT like Mastercam, totally criptic stuff there), I've picked up a bunch about it in no time (I've downloaded the 2008 tutorials/guidebook off the Internet), and I work with an excellent machinist that knows this software well, and so I've been picking his brain about it.

Is there anything I need to know while learning Featurecam that'll help me out, maybe learn it faster/better? Any tricks I need to pick up on? How hard is 3D surfacing? I realize these are very general questions, so please bear with me. Any positive instruction, especially from the very experienced Featurecam users, will be greatly appreciated!

[duluthboat]

Turning, milling, 2D, 3D?

[swingwing205]

Originally Posted by duluthboat Turning, milling, 2D, 3D?

Yeah, I guess I should've included that bit of info. Milling 3D w/ feature recog....

[duluthboat]

Sorry I have no feature rec. time. Try the FeatureCam forum.
Gary

[dcalp]

If you can't get any classes- online, classroom or videos- pick up all the prints you can and just program. The help file are ok but I did most of mine just doing it. FC is pretty easy to just "do"

[rick_7037]

I Teach FeatureCam inTulsa OK give me a ring and I can maybe set you up with my training books and class files

Rick
rick.huddleston@tulsatech.org

[swingwing205]

Rick, I'll drop you an e-mail shortly. Thanks for replying!

[rick_7037]

any direct questions are best ask here for others to learn from
also the electronic copies of all the training materials are huge and are .exe files which are blocked on many servers. I am in process of trying to upload to a webspace and linking here for download.
Rick

[Mastercam User]

Originally Posted by rick_7037 any direct questions are best ask here for others to learn from also the electronic copies of all the training materials are huge and are .exe files which are blocked on many servers. I am in process of trying to upload to a webspace and linking here for download. Rick

You can upload 100 meg files for free and you don't have to register at:

www.mediafire.com

If the files are larger you could always split them.

[rick_7037]

Contact me @ rick.huddleston@tulsatech.org for a link

[cadcamham7]

I get excellent finishes with the "scallop" function of anywhere from .0002 to .005 steps and with a tolerance of .0001.