Community College Okuma MC-V4020: CAM ROADBLOCK - Experienced Guidance Needed

[bcavender]

65YO 2nd Semester Machinist Student here.

Am currently attending a community college equipped with an Okuma MC-V4020 vertical machining center. I am hoping to develop skills for a low volume prototyping biz eventually as an interesting/fun retirement side hustle. Been through the manual machines and now learning the CNC side. Before I started on this leg of the path, I had decades of 2D CAD Elect/Mech design experience and 3D wasn't too hard of an effort to gear into. Some dabbling with FEA has been quite rewarding too. Boots in the mud machining experience though is the skill set I need to flesh out. I want to be able to design for ease of machining. Got a long ways to go on that. Still, I can model and output to almost 40 filetypes to go forward to CAM software. That is reasonably in hand.

Here is my brick wall:

The school's Okuma VMC still trucks along really nicely for its age, but the school is way behind on the CAM software side with only a long outdated/unsupported version of DelCAM FeatureCAM software. After a fair amount of trial and error, I found that FC can take in Parasolids files I export very quickly and reliably. Works all day long. FC Auto Feature Recognition works at the 98% level for geometry, but the rub comes when I try to tool up in FeatureCAM and end up with odd errors, a number of which are undocumented error codes, toolpath errors that take long debugging sessions trying different parameters to get to a workable post I can carry to the machine. I would have thought simple, 3 axis curved slots with a slight chamfer should have been a slam dunk even 6 years ago.

I will be the first to admit that likely a percentage of the problems result from my inexperience ... still, I have just finished three projects where the 3D modeling, import and auto feature recognition/cleanup in FeatureCAM took 20 minutes and massaging errored operations to Gcode took 10hrs to three days. Bad trend with no light at the end of the tunnel. The errors/problems I showed the instructor left him as puzzled and few alternatives to try. I am bouncing the issues off the FeatureCAM free forum, but that isn't a long term, timely solution for me or the young guys trying to get a start here.

It appears the likelihood of the school getting some new state of the art VMC hardware is very low, so getting post software for the old Okuma is an ASAP necessity. The school might have some dollars for new CAM software, but they will be scarce I expect. I might have to float my own (if affordable) just to keep my ed moving. In either case, I need something that will work effectively. Failing those, the enrollment there gets marginally productive for me. I want to hold off buying a VMC for the ranch until I can get some decent skill level in hand to avoid wasting scarce capital on equipment that turns out to be too big or too small for my future needs.

I would also like to get this problem solved as there are a bunch of young students about to go where I am currently crashing. (We need stuff in the schools so the kids can actually learn something practical. Finding this kind of problem has been disconcerting because it's clearly going to be a roadblock to the kids hoping to land a competitive career shortly.) I am looking for guidance from someone that can help me define a known-good path that I can take to get to the goal of fast/reliable CAM toolpath post software so I can spend my time learning feeds/speeds world ... making chips not putzing with software/config errors.

My research has turned up these folks as Okuma compliant for post processors: Autodesk/FeatureCAM, EdgeCAM, Esprit, GibbsCAM, MasterCAM and Siemens. Lower cost alternatives would be more than handy if I have to pitch it to the school admin.

Slight complication I would like to solve at the same time: Being in the biz world for decades, I have had more than one experience where "partners" under contract have quickly lost interest in our business plans/functionality/economics when they came across other opportunities that were more lucrative TO THEM ... I really do not want to be a bagholder again as Whomever Software Inc. decides their business needs to become more profitable at the expense of their customers. Suing for compliance from partners ... especially very large partners ... is not an option and they understand that full well. Some of the exceedingly irate shop owner comments I have seen about the new subscription/cloud/security technology issues has me nodding fully in agreement with them. I need to have control over the amortization period of my software/hardware dollars ... not to mention full control over my customers' intellectual property ... clearly no excuses would be accepted by their attorneys. I (eventually) need a "no excuses" class solution. So it would be good if there was some real local control in the CAM solution if possible.

All ideas, suggestions and comments are welcome and appreciated!

Best regards,

Bruce

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[deadlykitten]

try this approach :
- learn each machine cycle, be able to code long hand whatever needed until 2.5D ( simple geometry )
... create general files for each common/simple operation: facing, drilling, tapping, slots, helix, etc
... this will create the knowledge of basic iso codes
- learns each machine function, specific to that Okuma cnc that is near you
... this will create knowledge about Okuma's take on metal machining, and you may discover things that only on Okuma are possible
- find at least 1 ( better 2 ) guys with experience on CAM; stick to them, otherwise you will lose years
... this will create knowledge about CAM interfaces and possibilites
... at this stage you should be able to debug a CAM code, and also spot CAM requirements
... learn to edit CAM source, so to output whatever code you need
... repeat this with 2-3 more CAMs, so to see whatever each one can do

- practice your skills on different controls : okuma, fanuc, etc : master basic differences between different cnc mediums

- check latest functions , capabilites of the Okuma control
- 3D organic shapes
- sincronize the CAM with the machine
... output origins and tool offsets from code, with less than 0.3 tolerance
... preset tools, with less than 0.15 tolerance
... run interference checks without being near a cnc, with less then 0.3 tolerance
... your program should require less than 0.5 corections from the operator



ps : read some manuals unleast open them randomly, once / day