Need Help!- Solidworks - Gibbscam Question

[Firtina]

Hi I have a question,

Who uses Gibbscam together with SolidWorks?
I got a few questions, I hope you can help me ...
First I would know how many use it?

[chippslinger]

I use Solidworks '08 and GibbsCam '07 every day together.

[double a-ron]

I import solid files into gibbs every day, but I use gibbs for all my cad and solid modeling needs. I just don't see the need to learn one more piece of software.

[pdoherty]

I use Solidworks 2010 and GibbsCam 2010 everyday.

An an engineer, Solidworks is essential to me for design and communication - I could not live without it. I do not have a problem with Gibbscam being a separate application, but I sure do wish the UI was more like Solidworks. I have been b*tching at them for years that they need to migrate to a 'feature tree' way of organizing machining operations and to implement standard Windows menus and shortcuts.

We are on maintenance for both applications and it always amazes me how every year, SW rolls out dozens of improvements and new features and Gibbs gives us pretty much the same old stuff. When they do come up with something really innovative (like Volumill), they charge an upgrade fee (on top of the annual maintenance subscription)

Gibbs does have about the best machining simulation that I have ever seen, and I guess that is one of the reasons I keep using it.

[double a-ron]

pdoherty, did you try the software before you bought it? The "feature tree" or lack there of is why most of us went with gibbscam in the first place. If that ui is what you wanted then you should have went with another cam suite. Also it says in their literature many times that gibbscam was, "made by machinists for machinists". If it was made "by engineers for engineers" it would do the exact same thing, but you would need a degree to know how to use it.

[mogwash]

I also have a question. I'm designing some parts that are being machined by a company who uses gibbs. The design requires a small engraving that they say doesn't actually need to be extruded into the solid part but just needs to be a drawing on the surface for the mill bit to follow.
So, my question is, how can you import a Solidworks "Sketch" into Gibbs. Thus far, all of my sketches have been lost in the conversion. Any ideas?

[pdoherty]

mogwash,

I used to do what you are trying to do regularly before I bought the solids import option for Gibbs. Gibbs can import a 2D dxf or dwg into a workgroup where it can be used to define a tool path.

What I used to do was create a solidworks drawing at 1:1 scale that showed the feature I wanted to import and save the drawing to a dwg. Then I would open the drawing in Autocad (or SW Dwgedit) and clean it up by deleting any unneeded geometry and putting the origin where it was required.

[pdoherty]

double a-ron,

Yes, we tested Gibbscam extensively before we bought it in 2001, which was 3 or 4 years before we got our first seat of Solidworks. It's just dissapointing to look back and see how little Gibbscam has changed since then.

It's not really clear to me how the user interface of GibbsCam is more 'machinist oriented' though. It does make sense that if GibbsCam is the only cad/cam interface that you are used to, it would be hard to learn other software.

[69owb]

We use to have a seat of GibbsCam at work wasn’t impressed with it at all. Demo’d MasterCam and InventorCam (SolidCam). We went with InventorCam since it was fully integrated in Inventor, one of the nice things is that once you open your model in InventorCam it saves it as a new model so you can add or change geometry without messing with the original model so at any time the design changes InventorCam will let you know and update you tool paths without redoing the hole part again.