Unigraphics

[mongo46538]

Originally Posted by mongo46538 Hello, I have been using UG Cam for over 10 years now. Just switched to NX5. I will make every effort to seek and provide useful knowledge to this forum. Right now I'm just short of postal over UG infamous non-cutting moves. The problem I discovered today has prompted me to seek some form of self medication. Trying to threadmill using a helix curve and use fixed contour/curve point drive method. This works well as far as driving the cutter where I need ti to go, but I cant seem to get the cutter to simply start at the beginning of the helix and lift at the end even if I set every option to none. I want to set initial to a control point at the bottom of the helix (Thread milling bottom up) at the center of the hole and move strait to the beginning of the helix. It still wants to arc ramp in the z axis. Then when it reaches the top of the helix it puts a straight feed move the shortest distance from the top of the helix back to the bottom (Start Point). I have also had this set to where it appeared to work properly on the first generate and then give something different on the second generate. (ALL THIS BEFORE I POST TO CAMPLETE FOR USE ON A MIKRON UPC600VARIO 5TH AXIS MACHINE) If your remotely curious about my previous helical ramping in Fixed contour problem check out IR6068970 at GTAC. It has been upgraded to a full blown Priority 1 PR6068970. OO-oooooooo that and 50 cents still wont get a cup of coffee. That's ok because by the time we go NX6 they will have completely rewritten the software to add that extra functionality that we all cant live with out and I'm sure Ill lose more of my sanity as UG get crappier and crappier. Going slowly insane Mongo

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In going from NX4 to NX5, I was greeted by the usual worthless eye candy, renamed functions and a few added, buried, and somewhat helpful features for problems that I had already found workarounds in my 12+ years of using Unigraphics. Typical upgrade stuff, rarely anything you need and a period of re-adjustment to simply get back to where you left off with the previous version.
Until I tried using one of my Cam template files. I rough mill a hemispherical cup, around 2" in dia, using a spiral drive pattern, with a helical engage. I use about 60% of the tool, and a 3 degree helical angle on a 1/2" Carbide endmill on Titanium. I drive this right into the center of the cup and use a real tight spiral to climb mill back up and out the sides of the cup. I then follow with a semi finish and finish operation in similar fashion, leaving what looks like a high finish spherical bore.
In switching from NX4 to NX5, this simply goes away and becomes a plunge.
If you take the generic file I upload and replay it in 5, it looks ok, the minute you regenerate is it disappears. I will include the text of the eventual final response to my IR 6068970, but my question is... Who makes these decisions to exclude previous working and useful functions in the next upgrade? Does this person or people ever have to go out and run any of these programs their software generates? Do they really know what they are doing? It seems to me so often that your menus include so many options that step on each other you spend more of your time flipping around that you do getting things done.
My productivity has been cut in half since NX5 and is slowly getting back to where it was. How do you justify taking something that was automated and adding 5 more useless mouse clicks to it just to say you've added functionality?
I can only shudder at the thought of going to NX6. I better just delete all my template files and start over with a new set of workarounds, so I do not Crash my Mikron UPC600 Vario.
Here's the ultimate reason for my ire.....................

Dear Ted,

Our NX development team has investigated PR Number 6068970 and have the following initial response:

The option of a degouged helical engage is not supported following the Non Cut Moves re-design in NX5. It's future inclusion is being considered by product management.

If you would like to discuss this further, please call GTAC at 1-800-955-0000 and select the appropriate support group. If you wish, the representative will connect you with the appropriate development supervisor, Manish Patel.


Sincerely,



The Global Technical Access Center Team

I will be calling..............................................

[Rob_M.]

Originally Posted by mongo46538 (***********************************************************************) In going from NX4 to NX5, I was greeted by the usual worthless eye candy, renamed functions and a few added, buried, and somewhat helpful features for problems that I had already found workarounds in my 12+ years of using Unigraphics. Typical upgrade stuff, rarely anything you need and a period of re-adjustment to simply get back to where you left off with the previous version. Until I tried using one of my Cam template files. I rough mill a hemispherical cup, around 2" in dia, using a spiral drive pattern, with a helical engage. I use about 60% of the tool, and a 3 degree helical angle on a 1/2" Carbide endmill on Titanium. I drive this right into the center of the cup and use a real tight spiral to climb mill back up and out the sides of the cup. I then follow with a semi finish and finish operation in similar fashion, leaving what looks like a high finish spherical bore. In switching from NX4 to NX5, this simply goes away and becomes a plunge. If you take the generic file I upload and replay it in 5, it looks ok, the minute you regenerate is it disappears. I will include the text of the eventual final response to my IR 6068970, but my question is... Who makes these decisions to exclude previous working and useful functions in the next upgrade? Does this person or people ever have to go out and run any of these programs their software generates? Do they really know what they are doing? It seems to me so often that your menus include so many options that step on each other you spend more of your time flipping around that you do getting things done. My productivity has been cut in half since NX5 and is slowly getting back to where it was. How do you justify taking something that was automated and adding 5 more useless mouse clicks to it just to say you've added functionality? I can only shudder at the thought of going to NX6. I better just delete all my template files and start over with a new set of workarounds, so I do not Crash my Mikron UPC600 Vario. Here's the ultimate reason for my ire..................... Dear Ted, Our NX development team has investigated PR Number 6068970 and have the following initial response: The option of a degouged helical engage is not supported following the Non Cut Moves re-design in NX5. It's future inclusion is being considered by product management. If you would like to discuss this further, please call GTAC at 1-800-955-0000 and select the appropriate support group. If you wish, the representative will connect you with the appropriate development supervisor, Manish Patel. Sincerely, The Global Technical Access Center Team I will be calling..............................................

Your general complaint is just about the same as anyone else. I wouldn't even bother with NX5 if I were you. If you can skip it just go to NX6. Then you at least won't be flustered again by the number of click and moves they added to get from point A to point B.

[mongo46538]

Well thanks for the moderate acknowledgement of my seemingly generic complaint. However for your information, not only do I not have the option of changing versions at will, there are things they "took away" in NX6. I hear Transform has become "Move Object" and they excluded delta moves, then supposedly brought it back in a patch. NX6.0.2.
This information is for people either thinking about going from 4 to 5 or people thinking about taking the plunge into Unigraphics. If your not already forced to work with native UG files, there may be better choices for stand alone Cam packages. Otherwise if your on 4 stay with 4.

[Rob_M.]

Originally Posted by mongo46538 Well thanks for the moderate acknowledgement of my seemingly generic complaint. However for your information, not only do I not have the option of changing versions at will, there are things they "took away" in NX6. I hear Transform has become "Move Object" and they excluded delta moves, then supposedly brought it back in a patch. NX6.0.2. This information is for people either thinking about going from 4 to 5 or people thinking about taking the plunge into Unigraphics. If your not already forced to work with native UG files, there may be better choices for stand alone Cam packages. Otherwise if your on 4 stay with 4.

True, I liked transform better. My main point was just that if you could might as well get used to the look of NX6 now rather then further be disappointed again when you finally make the switch, that is if you do. the one thing I will say about NX6, is that I do like the non-cutting moves better. Once I got used to it I found I had a little better control over my engages. I guess now if anything after using NX6 for a while my clicking finger does more reps than it used to.

[camster]

I also like the new non-cutting moves. My gripe is that something that worked in NX4 should still work in NX6. The problem with the helical engage is only one issue with legacy parts. There are many PR on this one topic. For a new part the non cutting moves are better. When you open a part from a previous version you need to re-check you previously good operations to make sure the non-cutting moves have not caused a crash.

[mongo46538]

Originally Posted by camster I also like the new non-cutting moves. My gripe is that something that worked in NX4 should still work in NX6. The problem with the helical engage is only one issue with legacy parts. There are many PR on this one topic. For a new part the non cutting moves are better. When you open a part from a previous version you need to re-check you previously good operations to make sure the non-cutting moves have not caused a crash.

If my operator hadn't been on his toes that morning I used an NX4 template in NX5, my program would have plunged a non center cutting .5" carbide endmill spinning at 2000 rpm and 20 ipm an inch deep into titanium. My guess is it would have gotten about a quarter of an inch deep before it exploded.

Any aspect of a software that provides an elegant, instant and perfect solution to a problem, should never be excluded in an upgrade. Yes the biggest improvement in non-cutting moves is the ability to tell the tool where to start in planar profile and the graphical interface, those definitely rule. My point is why not add improvement without hiding, removing or renaming functions. Heck I'm still waiting for them to add back the selection subfunction to project curve. Transform and Project Curve are a Cam guys best friends...