Automatic roughing and finishing 2.5D part with Stock Awareness

[hsmworksguy]

This video shows how to use 3D Adaptive or Pocket Clearing to automatically rough and finish a 2.5D (prismatic) part with stock awareness.

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6hx8NjHQto"]YouTube - Automatic Roughing Prismatic Parts[/nomedia]


I also added a seperate "How-To Videos" page to the web side, or you can search hsmworksguy or hsmworks on YouTube for more videos.

SolidWorks CAM - Support

[neurosis]

I have a couple of questions for you.. Is there a way to get that initial facing routing to start off of the part rather than ramping in to the material?

Also, how does HSMWorks do for rest roughing? Can you rough with a large diameter tool and then come back with a smaller tool to rough tighter areas using stock recognition?

HSMWorks looks very interesting!

[hsmworksguy]

Good questions. I should create videos for these.

Facing automatically starts the tool off the face of the part, so you don't have to do anything: just pick the face or solid edges of the face.

The vertical lead-in radius is just to keep your machine moving in a fluid motion. You can turn that off (just set value to zero).

Yes on the Rest Machining. Just turn on Rest Machining under the Geometry tab. You can calculate rest paths from the 1) All previous operations 2) specific previous operation(s) 3) From a stock file 4) From a separate solid body or 5) from the defined job stock.

You'll get cut paths only in areas where stock remains with appropriate lead in/out moves, and taking into account previously removed material.

If you don't already have it you can request a full 30 day working copy at HSMWorks - The CAM Solution for SolidWorks or Feedback

This even post processes so you can see how well we run your machine and the quality of the surface finish.

[neurosis]

That sounds very good! How are the post processors to edit?

I guess what I am asking is, can they be edited and modified by the end user or are post mods made by the reseller? Are they highly customizable?

[hsmworksguy]

HSMWorks post processors are written in JavaScript and are completely open and editable by the user. Documentation is included with the installation.

JavaScript is a very well documented open language and has the added benefit of being reliable and executing very fast, which will matter if you are posting surface files. (A decent place to start learning JavaScript is actually Wikipedia.)

All the common posts ship with the software and I almost never charge for post modifications except for 5-axis and mill/turn.

[neurosis]

Will each new release of HSMWorks be backwards compatible with older Solidworks versions?

How does HSMWorks do with multiple fixture offsets?

Is it good for full 4th axis machining?

Sorry for the 100 questions!

[hsmworksguy]

Great on the last two questions, but why not get a free 30 day evaluation and see for yourself?

GREAT first question, and one that a lot of people don't know. HSMWorks is always guaranteed to work AT LEAST two SolidWorks revisions backward. For example, HSMWorks 2011 will run AT LEAST SolidWorks 2009 and newer.

So, you do not HAVE to update SolidWorks each time there is a new HSMWorks release.

[neurosis]

Thanks! I was curious because our owner dropped the maintenance in favor of Catia which is required for our MBD certification. I am very interested in HSMWorks but this would end up being a deal breaker for us unfortunately.

We are current up to Solidworks 2010 but with things being what they are, I do not see the owner continuing maintenance on Solidworks with our current Catia requirements. We currently use Mastercam for our programming but he is becoming fed up with the constant bugs in Mastercam and is looking for a decent replacement.

I understand that to be a plugin to another system and to keep up to date with their current product you need to limit the support for older products.

[hsmworksguy]

The problem with maintenance is not its cost, per se, but what the expense buys. If the subscription provides updates that are buggy and do little to help, then yes, letting the subscription lapse makes sense.

If the updates are not buggy and include enhancements that pay for themselves, then staying current makes business sense. In that case, sort of like regularly scheduled machine tool maintenance, software maintenance pays for itself.

[neurosis]

The problem with maintenance is not its cost, per se, but what the expense buys. If the subscription provides updates that are buggy and do little to help, then yes, letting the subscription lapse makes sense.

If the updates are not buggy and include enhancements that pay for themselves, then staying current makes business sense. In that case, sort of like regularly scheduled machine tool maintenance, software maintenance pays for itself.

We have never had any issues with solidworks at all. We do not take advantage of "most" of the enhancements that come with the newer versions as our work is coming in more and more as MBD. This changed our requirements as a company because now we only have to model a very small fraction of the jobs that come in our door. Since a majority of our work is Boeing/Aero-space we are required to have a licensed seat of catia. Our issue with the solidworks maintenance is that since we are no longer required to model "most" of our parts, the cost of maintenance has become hardly worth it. We use Catia for all of our translation. What parts that we do model using solidworks, to be perfectly honest, we are able to do with a 10 year old seat of solidworks. We do not design our own parts nor do we modify any existing designs of our customers.

Now all of that being said.... We are looking for a "CAM" package to possibly replace Mastercam. The reason that I started to look at HSMWorks, is that it uses Cimco's adaptive clearing strategies and I am very familiar with their software. We had their Mastercam addon as a demo for a few months and in that time I became very familiar with the strategies. I have also been using solidworks since about 1998 so I am very very familiar with their software as well. This makes HSMWorks a very appealing choice as long as it fits our type of work. Our only issue is that it is tied to Solidworks and keeping up to date on their software in order to keep up to date on HSMWorks. That is very unfortunate for us. Most of our machining strategies are wrapped around high speed machining due to the type of work that we do and our machines. So what ever software we try or direction we take where software is concerned, it must have these strategies included.

[hsmworksguy]

We have the perfect solution for your situation. You can "add" SolidWorks part modeling to HSMWorks for just $1,000. That way you do not need SolidWorks or maintain your SW. Send me a private message with your email and I might be able to help you more with that too.

Normally I recommend people buy SW from a SW VAR because my focus is CNC (though I've used SW since 1997 and know it very well). Your situation is unique and the reason we offer our HSMWorks Standard 3D (HSMWorks 3D + SolidWorks Part Modeling).