PARTMAKER USERS

[Jayswiss76]

Hello Guys, I'm new to this site but I really wanted to share with you my thoughts regarding Partmaker. I've been programming Swiss for 15 years on everything from Star, Tsugami, Citizen, & Deco Tornos and I programmed all of these machines by hand in Fanuc, Mitsubishi, & Seimons 840Di so a couple years ago when I first started using Partmaker I was pretty sceptical about it and Im telling you Cam programming for Swiss isn't going away even Gibbs cam is trying to get into this market. I've worked out the bugs with the support of Partmaker on an Ecas20 10 Axis if someone is using that post it should be vs64 now. I can go from my PC to the machine without making edit's on very complicated multitool syncronized machining like pinch milling, Drill and turn, Ect. Sometimes I've thought it was the post screwing up and I find by doing a Quick NC program and reading the code I can go back and set things up differant and then it posts correctly, anyone with an Ecas should be aware you need to select the tool vs stock movement to control that Z3. If your company is paying maintenance I suggest you zip your files to them when things are not working right and get it fixed. I've got to a point that I can make my program's look like the one's I'de write by hand and like I said I never thought Cam could handle doing wait codes like it does. If you've ran siemons 840Di you'll know a thing or two about alarms and syntex error and I can use partmaker programs alarm free. Quick NC and support will be key to anyone's success.

[Koalas]

Hi,

I understand the poeple which are really pisof off when a postpro doesn't work. I also understand that for what you paid you have a software which is not the one you need. The good question is, before you buy that kind of tool you should make some tests and not only use the animation on the screen. I'ts just there to sale a product but what you need is a couple of test parts you are running in your shop. When the code is right and when the machine is running then you have reached your.
I'm using Alphacam, Gibbscam and SylvieXpert and the all have the same problems.
Wha you buy a cam software it's a long term investment and you will have to work together with them to fine tune your postpro. But don't forget that you also have to take the time to learn it right, to take a course.

For swiss type machines try to look at that:

http://www.jurasoftswiss.com/en/

[petriej]

I'm not sure that I've seen a rev 1 post from the distributor that posts perfectly. Generally, in my experience a little tweaking will be necessary. Our mills still run Brand Y and they have to hand edit every post before they can throw it in the controller. I just rolled over from Brand Y to Partmaker and had the Brand Y post perfect after about 6 months of tweaking. It does take time, and I have found out on more than one occasion that it it not the post putting out junk code so much as me not setting a parameter in the job file correctly. Once you figure out the methodology of the software, and understand how the selected settings will affect the posted code as a whole, then you will better be able to post edit free programs. Sometimes something as simple as changing your cutting point will change your code entirely.

[chunkymonkey]

I was forced into learning Partmaker for "consistency amongst programmers" reasons. Not only do we not have a way to macro hex's and other loop cycles without config-post pro, but comp for Swiss requires me to click comp-right for g41. what the heck? I know the Part-maker people are very intelligent, but why the heck cant we have free options of what they call "retro"? (this is what we were told on the macro question. I don't want a long hand version of a mill cycle of a hexalobe. could darn well be 1000 lines of code to fix one thing. I have the formulas for a hexalobe and turned into our own G-code, but cant get squat from our 10k software to spit out without editing.