Pro/Toolmaker, has anyone tried it?

[Adam Hubert]

Does anyone have any experience with the Pro/Toolmaker CAM product. PTC about a year and a half ago purchased a product from a UK company that was called DepoCAM which before that the internal code was kind of the foundation of a product that Vero now owns called Machining Strategist. That product that used to be DepoCAM is now called Pro/Toolmaker was primarily was meant for HSM (High Speed Machining). Smooth moves, nice elegant ramps on on off, being nice the the cutter, eliminating herky jerky moves, and so on. A lot of the internal guts of this HSM CAM product over the years has been licensed to many other CAM products.

Has anyone out there tried it.

If so comments would be appreciated.

[bartL]

Adam,
I've tried the TOOLMAKER demo a few weeks ago. Too bad I couldn't make any savings or post process the files. But making the toolpaths looks very easy. I think it's much easier to learn as the pro/mfg, but for now I'm using mfg again. Maybe I'll go to a toolmaker demo day at the local PTC distributor end of the month.

Good luck!
Bart

[bartL]

Adam,
Yesterday I've been to a hands-on workshop for pro toolmaker.
After an hour of demo's we got the change to try it ourselves and I can tell you it's very easy to learn. It's an excellent programm for moldmakers. It has some anti-vibration and smoothing functions which can be used for (pre) roughing.
I was told toolmaker 8.1 is a 3+2 axis and 9.0 a 5 axis simultanous.
If you have any questions feel free to ask me, I might give you an answer.

Regard,
Bart