Open Mind HyperMill, Delcam Powermill or SolidCam?

[Maicky]

Our company operates in the tooling industry. We are milling quite a lot in hardened steel. We are going to invest in a new 5-axis high speed milling machine. We are going to machine very small parts with small tools, and also machine parts with very high surface finish. We are going to upgrade to a new cam-software at the same time.

It looks like we are going to choose between HyperMill and Powermill. Maybe also SolidCam could be an alternative. Mastercam etc. are not alternatives anymore.

Can you users of HyperMill and Powermill post your thougths about the strengths and weakness of these softwares:
- which one is more easier and more userfriendly to use?
- 3 axis capabilitys
- 5 axis capabilitys
- toolpaths for hard machining
- other things to take into concideration....

I hope we get a discussion going around this....

[instrumakr]

Hi Maicky

Last year we bought our first 5-axis and we went with
powermill. We are a prototype shop doing 1-2 pieces at
a time. Powermill is the best software I have ever used.
We also looked at openmind and cimatron. Powermill
is easy to use ,has the abilty to modify tooolpath graphicly.
Has collision avoidance and gouge protection. And has great
workplane functions that come in handy doing 3+2 machinging.
Also it has great toolpath smoothing features and tool overload
restrictions that will be great for highspeed hard material removal.

Instrumakr

[Maicky]

We did choose Open Mind hyperMILL. We discussed with the people at Deckel Maho Gildemeister about this and we felt that hyperMILL is the most powerful solution available today for 5-axis simultaneous milling. Open Mind also offered us a few hour demonstration of hyperMILL and it seems very promising.

We know Powermill´s strengths in 3-axis high speed milling strategies but in our opinion hyperMILL is offering more.

Time will tell if we made the right choise.

[JARDEL]

preciso de um pos para maquina balestini spider comando num , 5 eixos ,para usar o powermill,por favor entre em contato por e-mail,avrella2009@bol.com.br

[Tony the Ferret]

Hi, i think you have overlooked the best system,, WorkNC. it will knock the socks of the ones you have shortlisted, for speed, reliability, quality and freedom of machining styles, (oh yes and also 3+2 comes as standard)