mastercam on mac?

[Imacman]

Hello... I am new here.. and very confused... i'm about to buy a CNC... I am a MAC user.... i have about 6 here from G3's to the newest Intel's... I'm over the fact that my mac can't run to a CNC... no probem.. I will pick up a PC for that... but my question is what software can I design in?... I am a Graphic Designer Using CS4 Photoshop...Illustrator & Flash....so what would be the obvious choice for me to design wood workign projects in?.. My intention is to begin building Electric Guitars & Strumsticks.... In a perfect world... I would like to be able to do my basic 2D guitar outlines in Illustrator then import them into a another mac program that will let me finish the deisgn of the instrument ..ie.. Routed edges... Pickup holes , Tuner key holes etc...... then bring that file over to the PC to do the CNC coding.. My apologies... I am very new to this... and I'm not quite sure I even have a handle on the process... Correct me if I'm wrong... but...does it work like this... A.) design object in a Cad program... Export or save file in a DXF format... then import this into a CAM program ( No Idea what a Cam program is BTW ) and that CAM program will create GGode and send it to a CNC?... is the way it works?... Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Imacman

[littlebrewman]

CAM stands for computer aided machining. Mastercam can be used as a design tool the thing that makes it a cam package is the fact you can also use Mastercam to draw toolpaths using tooling that is going to cut the part.If you are just looking to design the part then Autocad or solidworks would be something to look at.Hope this helps.

[Jkirk3279]

There's NX CAM... on new Macs it runs as an X11 application and will both design and cut.

Using a PC as your controller isn't a bad idea.

What that means is you'd need a PC running MasterCAM, or Pro E, to do the cutting.

And thus you'd need a design program for your Mac that outputs in a CAM friendly format.

MasterCAM users do this all the time with SolidWorks.

I'm beta testing a program called Ares, with this same end in mind.

I wish I had a solid list of programs that had been tested and proven to work; I don't yet.

Basically you look for the requirements of MasterCAM. Does it need IGES, DWG, DXF, STL?

Then find a Mac program that outputs those formats.

There are some pretty good Mac design programs, as you might expect.

SolidEdge, Ashlar Vellum, Vectorworks (mostly architectural), ARES, and there's a rumor about SolidWorks coming to the Mac...

IF SolidWorks makes the jump, that's probably the best bet.

One piece of advice: DO NOT pay for a program without testing it.

EVER.

If the salesman promises two days of training, and on the first day plaintively asks "can I have my money now?";

Say NO.

They don't make money while they're training you. They make money while they're on the road looking for new vict ... I mean, new clients.

I forgot to mention: if you can't find a good Mac CAD program that fits with your CAM program, remember that all Macs made in the last three years can reboot and run Windows natively.

[casta-baga]

Mastercam runs fine on my VirtualBox, we have used a shared folder for the DNC APP... all the info is on the net...

where I work, we have lots of applications related to CAD/CAM/CAE/DNC/ADMINS ETC running on windows, MAC X and Linux, the best is Mac X

the place has a apple server networking all the mac computers for over 2 years already...
we went through strange conversations with people that represented edgecam + autodesk inventor, better not mentioning their company's names... to try to construct a good system... did not work at all, very strange experience for us, why the F word spending over 30T euros for a combo that sucks in the first?

so we have decided and I felt that, going out of the microsoft OS System spectrum, ( spending money with IT personnel, problems with network, file exchanging, virus etc etc...) for what?
why not pay for students to develop a new CAD/CAM app?

why not to go with a solution for Mac and Linux and kick all the microsoft stuff out of the door...
so they have had decided to purchase nx unigraphics,...

works perfect, myself I'm strong on mastercam, powermill, smartcam, gibscam.... autodesk inventor, cimco dnc (money suckers) etc...
I got to run unigraphics after 16 hours of a learning experince...
all on a Mac X system... and .... the only problem now that we are having, is a Mac/Linux machine to send PGM to machines like Okuma(like it), mazak(suckers) and haas (don't like it),

just today we have had some problems with a very special special machine that is from North America...,why spending $3000 dollars for the post processor if it does not even work????????

we pay for the post and after more fees to fix it? why Mastercam?

[Jkirk3279]

Originally Posted by casta-baga I got to run unigraphics after 16 hours of a learning experince... all on a Mac X system... and .... the only problem now that we are having, is a Mac/Linux machine to send PGM to machines like Okuma(like it), mazak(suckers) and haas (don't like it), just today we have had some problems with a very special special machine that is from North America...,why spending $3000 dollars for the post processor if it does not even work???????? we pay for the post and after more fees to fix it? why Mastercam?

Yeah, that's not fair. You buy the MasterCAM post and then it doesn't work, they should fine-tune it for free or refund the money.

We just went on a tour yesterday, at a place that manufactures parts for jet fighters.

They had Mazak. I kind of winced: not because these aren't good machines but because I'm being trained on a FIRST mill, etc, and Mazak means starting over.

So, share with the class ! How well did the NX (formerly Unigraphics) work out as far as product design and gcode output ?

The Youtube demos are awesome.