Milling/Turning CAM Software

[Joe Krut]

I am looking into some new CAM software for Milling and Turning. I've heard from my reseller about CAMWorks package. Does anyone have any experience w/ this software? The eval version seems good (www.camworks.com).
Thanks Joe

[extanker59]

We have both the CamWorks mill and lathe packages. I really like the mill package. Like most CAM systems today, what it simulates, it will do. I also like how it goes hand in hand with SolidWorks. When the engineers change something I don't have to recreate the wheel. Most of the time the tool paths update automatically.
Don't believe the hype about Automatic Feature Recognition. Unless your parts are fairly simple, it won't catch most of the features.


The lathe package is not good IMO. Just a guess, based on the number of questions on the CamWorks forum, but I'd say not very many people use the lathe package.
Maybe someone here who uses it will talk more about the lathe package?

[Cartierusm]

Sorry can't say about the software. For lathe work I've been using Dolphin Part Master. The lathe CAM part is definately a little buggy, but they are consistent bugs, so once you know it's actually a pretty nice program. Their tech support on the surface seems really good, answering phone with real people and such, but for the harder stuff it seems to fall through the cracks, but the problems I have, have other work arounds. If you call them they'll get you a FULL working 30 day trial.

As for CAD/CAM I really LOVE Rhino and RhinoCAM 1.0, don't know anything about RhinoCAM 2.0 but I'm sure it's pretty good.

[HuFlungDung]

OneCNC XR3 has mill/turn capability now. I'm not intimately acquainted with using it that way, because I don't have a mill/turn machine. But if one of you guys wanted to send me one, I'd brush up on it

But really, the way OneCNC has developed, programming a mill/turn machine is like having a combo of OneCNC mill and OneCNC Lathe, plus 4th axis module. So the basic steps to programming milling on the lathe is just as easy as creating a 4th axis operation, which is usually quite simple, given the nature of parts that are suitable for a mill turn machine.

[harley4ever]

Ill 2nd the dolphin. Im not so sure its bugs, just once in a while there may be a server busy error or something. Just my expierience tho. Been using for a little over 2 years.