Getting a design from Solidworks 2011 to MC9

[Walle]

Can someone please explain how I would go about to get my design from Solidworks 2011 to Mastercam V9?

I've tried all different versions of DWG (from R12 to R2010). I've tried DXF, ACIS, IGES, both different kinds of STEP, both kinds of parasolid, and a bunch of other different formats as well, without any luck. The DWG and DXF files actually seems to be loading in something, but nothing shows up in MC9, file is totally blank. I've tried saving in 6 different orientations (read somewhere that top in SW is front in MC9)

Is it impossible to import from SW2011 to MC9?

This is getting extremely frustrating as I've spent well over 16 hours total trying to get this to work. My employer do not want to spend 50-60k SEK (about 9k USD) on a new version of Mastercam. *banging head on desk and ripping my hair out*

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

/Walle

Edit: The design is pure 2D at this stage. In the future i will have to import 3D designs as well though.

[metlshpr]

I have always had good luck with the iges exported file. Go to the options in the save as dialog and be shure that you are only expoting surfaces not solids or curves.

[WallyL7]

I'm surprised DXF's won't work. It's been a LONG time since I've been on V9, but I remember importing DXF's quite a bit...

[TheBigJW]

Originally Posted by Walle Can someone please explain how I would go about to get my design from Solidworks 2011 to Mastercam V9? I've tried all different versions of DWG (from R12 to R2010). I've tried DXF, ACIS, IGES, both different kinds of STEP, both kinds of parasolid, and a bunch of other different formats as well, without any luck. The DWG and DXF files actually seems to be loading in something, but nothing shows up in MC9, file is totally blank. I've tried saving in 6 different orientations (read somewhere that top in SW is front in MC9) Is it impossible to import from SW2011 to MC9? This is getting extremely frustrating as I've spent well over 16 hours total trying to get this to work. My employer do not want to spend 50-60k SEK (about 9k USD) on a new version of Mastercam. *banging head on desk and ripping my hair out* Any help would be greatly appreciated! /Walle Edit: The design is pure 2D at this stage. In the future i will have to import 3D designs as well though.

We do this all day long.

For 2d use the file save as from the Solidworks drawing file. When you select .DWG from the list then go to the options tab in the save as dialogue and select dwg2000 format.

For a 3d parasolid use the save as option to save as version 14 I think.

I can post pics if you are still stuck.

I can't blame your boss. Look around. It will most likely be cheaper to find a new piece of software than upgrade. If your dealer is outside the US he can just crank the price of your software at any time. Double it if he wants. This was confirmed to me by CNC software today on the phone.

Try and stick to a software company that sells direct. Not through dealers.

John

[Walle]

TheBigJW: Thank you, it worked! I also learned (from a post on another forum) that if I go ahead and make a new sketch on the surface I want to export, and then do a "convert entities" of the surface, it will be saved in the DWG/DXF. Unless I do that, the DWG/DXF ends up empty for some reason (this is in part-mode, not drawing mode). When I did it from the drawing somehow the dimensions ended up exactly twice what they were supposed to be (i did check that scale was 100%). Not an issue though.

Although, the only issue remaining is that my splines will be machined as polylines, with a "stepped" surface instead of a smooth surface, even if I chose "export splines as splines" and not "..as polylines". The part I'm doing can't really be done any other way than splines, using radiuses would be a lot of hassle, and I don't really think I could pull that off since it's a continuously changing radius. I actually machined it from the parasolid format, and to me it makes sense that it comes out that way when machining from a solid, since I guess a solid can't be built from a spline, but needs a polyline. The strange thing though is that when I set up the toolpath from the imported DWG/DXF exported as spline, I get the exact same code (same byte-length of the nc-file) from the post-processor as I get when I do the toolpath from the solid. Using Heidenheim post-processor.

Any ideas on this? I could shoot a picture of the result, I could also post a part of the NC-file, if that's interesting.

Oh, and the banging head and ripping hair wasn't because my boss won't change the MC9 to a newer version, just out of frustration of not getting it to work

WallyL7: So was I! Turned out though I was doing the export the wrong way, so I was actually importing empty DXF/DWG's

Big thanks!

/Walle

[TheBigJW]

I don't think you need to convert a sketch first. Have you tried selecting a surface. Then right click and save as DWG should be in the right click menu. It will just save out that profile.

John

[TheBigJW]

Using the phone so answers are short. There is a scale option in the drawing options save as dialog box. Set it to always export 1:1.

John

[Walle]

Someone on another forum said that they need to be converted first, and when I do it like that, it does work. When I just select the face the file will be empty.

Gonna check that setting and make sure it's set to 1:1, thank you!

[Walle]

This is the way the piece came out (I tried to find the best angle to show the "step" effect applied to my spline) and the DWG-file used.