Any opinions on Esprit for turning and 5 axis milling these days. How pricey is it?

[implmex]

Hi All:
Any opinions on Esprit these days.
Good, bad, prices?

I'm looking for a CAM alternative to Fusion 360 for a client company that is making robot parts.
They're just setting up their first small R&D shop now.
Mostly 3 axis and 3+2 axis small parts lots of turning and a fair number of custom turning tools.

So far as I know, Fusion STILL cannot create custom turning tools and does not even allow using a tool for an operation it's not explicitly designated for.
So no profiling with a grooving tool (so far as I know), even if it would follow the shape just fine...stupid stupid stupid!
I'm expected to do the bulk of the programming for them.
So I'm looking for something decent...no Hypermill needed, but no low end Bobcam either.

This company is growing...I need to recommend something they can grow with.
The future has a lot of Mill-Turn or live tooled Swiss in it and a good bit of 3+2 milling as well.
They're very ambitious...talk is of a vertically integrated setup to make a few hundred robots a year.
Having decent CAM bones now avoids the pain of a changeover later.

What say ye?

Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com

 

[plastikdreams]

Ug

 

[Jatrox]

It has gone up since Hexagon bought it but I don't know the current price. Definitely powerful enough to do what you described and more. It's nice for the custom tooling aspect and machine templates

 

[implmex]

Thanks plastikdreams and Jatrox:
Anybody else with an opinion.
Please don't be shy guys.
Let me know your true feelings!

Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com

 

[BarnFab]

I have just been through this exact process , I put some numbers up - https://www.practicalmachinist.com/forum/threads/cam-software-options-prices.407220/

End result is I am $40k lighter and have one CAM System that runs all my machines, has accurate simualtion, has MUCH better tool paths than fusion BUT HAS WAY WAY WAY more setup time that fusion.

One thing I will say is that I think Esprit has lost some market capability with Fusion pushing hard these days a lot of 3 Axis stuff is way easier in Fusion than Esprit and if you get Esprit expect a learning curve.

Happy to answer any questions you may have as I have nothing vested in the answers just my experience. I am running a 3 Axis with Rotary, Live tooled sub spindle lathe and 5 axis. If I just had the 3 Axis with 4th I would not have bought esprit .

Unlike some I did the full week training course and bought the CAM Wizard Hybrid training CD's and went through them all, some several time lol.

 

[boosted]

This sounds like a good fit for Esprit.

I cannot speak to the relationship with Hexagon, but I have ton of experience prior to the merger with both Esprit Legacy and Esprit TNG.

Esprit turning cannot be beat IMHO. I have tried damn near everything under the sun to program NT machines, and just keep coming back to Esprit.

If the knowledgebase is built out, templates made, etc... I actually think Esprit can crush F-360 for simple parts. Where Esprit is lacking is really heavy 5 axis milling. I now use hyperMILL, because it is way better for 5 axis IME, but I miss Esprit profit milling and feature recognition every day.

 

[Macturn]

NX.

 

[rootsandstones]

What CAD is the company using? Solidcam would also be an option.

 

[jhov]

... no low end Bobcam either.

Have you looked into BobCAM recently? It's not what it once was. The CAD is still awful, but their CAM plugins for Rhino and Solidworks are actually pretty good these days. But if money is no factor, I'd probably go with NX for the all in one, integrated solution. Especially if they are manufacturing their own designs.

 

[hanermo]

Probably agree with implmex.
NX, or something like CATIA.

I learned CATIA when I was 16 on dedicated IBM hw .. about 38 years ago.
ALL the good stuff has a steep learning curve and endless stuff you have to learn to work with - and endless gotchas.

For a new small shop, unless they have lots of money and time == unlikely, rhino and a suitable cam plugin is the way to go.
Rhino has lots of small niggly problems and no associated dims, and no good db integration.
But it´s really easy, really fast, and has by far the best user interface.

But learning any of the good sw like catia will take 400+ hours, cost 40.000$ dollars in work, and probably another 40.000 $ in IT stuff.
Because they do IT stuff 3-4-5 times, badly, until they get it somewhat right.

If I was building a small shop I would go with rhino and any suitable plugin cam, bobcad, madcam, whatever, depending.
A big business, nx or catia, but that means several seats, since you cannot depend on one single person.

5 axis, or complex lathe, like with back boring and or twin turrets, and or dual-turning, I have no idea of.
--
I really like rhino.
I like SW. Excellent db stuff, multiuser stuff.
Stupid difficult to do some simple ops.
Both have or had problems with complex and or compound curves in corners.

Integrity of models fails - for no real reason.

 

[PegroProX440]

Im a Cimatron mill guy and lately have been dabbling in turning and we use esprit here. I think its such a dumb program and makes no sense as far as the workflow and user interface. It does put out good programs for our Okuma lathe with sub spindle and live tooling.

Ive never had such a hard time grasping how to do something as I am having right now. Learning a new machine, new CAM and new process all at once.

 

[Jatrox]

Esprit has a larger learning curve than most. I hated it at first and still grumble a bit from time to time but I'm still learning all the in's and out's. But once the templates and knowledge base is built it is very easy to navigate.

We use a lot of subs and macros and I love it for what it can do there, and the way you can manipulate processes. It does take a little longer to set up a complicated process with logic built in but it's worth it. Once it's done it's just plug-n-play

 

[Mr. Atoz]

We recently purchased Esprit. The cost for 3 seats, maintenance, training, several posts and some other goodies was over 170,000. We too chose the Cam Wizard training software and found it to be worth every penny. Have you considered Esprit TNG? It looks pretty good. However, it is still a fairly new product, but is the future of Esprit, or so they say. If you have experience with other cam software, the learning curve is not tooooo scary.

 

[BarnFab]

The other question to ask is what are they doing ..... are they making parts with designs supplied or are they designing and making ? If we are doing Design to Make ie prototype stuff Fusion 360 is all over Esprit for speed due to full integration between CAD and CAM. Esprit does not do well with change relatively speaking and if you import the solid and then do feature recognition and then tool path it etc even with templates it is way slower than Fusion where it is all in one place. Esprit has better integration with SW but it is still crap compared to Fusion . Esprit does some really stupid things but over all it was assessed as the best solution to get all machine on one. Admittedly I did not try to program the Okuma out of Fusion I went AOT -> Esprit .. Still lots to learn

 

[escapethewrmhole]

I'm about $100k into a single seat.
I only use TNG, as E20XX is just cumbersome, and awkward but it can do things TNG still cannot.

Bought it when we bought our Mori NTX in mid 2021.
Now we use it for almost everything. Except the 4-axis mill unless we need ultimate control over some fine details for that we use fusion which is much easier and faster.

There's many things that are more awkward and less powerful than other CAM systems but they all have caveats. So pick your poison really.

 

[Dan B]

To the OP, if you are concerned about price Esprit probably isn't the direction to go. I believe our 1 seat set us back about $50K about 13 years ago.

 

[YoDoug]

We use TopSolid here to program all of our machines, VMC's, HMC's, 5 axis, Twin turret/twin spindle, B axis millturns, etc. All of them 100% edit free code. When we purchased 5 years ago we also looked at Esprit, but their CAD was so lacking we had to pass. TopSolid now covers all of our design CAD, CAM, and PDM in one software.

 

[plastikdreams]

I know mastercam X series very well, the newer ones not so much. But they still offer a good system from what I hear. I am working on learning ug/nx just to broaden my horizon.

 

[implmex]

Guys this is all super useful information and I am grateful you were willing to share it.
I have the local Mastercam guy coming this afternoon for a demo, and I have sent files to the Esprit guy to noodle with and convince me.
I will contact Top Solid too and see how they respond.

Sadly jhov, I just can't seem to get over my prejudices against all things "Bobcad".
I've spent so many years being sniffy about them after being mercilessly harassed for years when I made a tentative inquiry way back when that I just can't bring myself to confront the ogre again.
I'll bet I'm in good company from all I hear.

Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com

 

[plastikdreams]

Just to further my comments, the first time I sat at nx I was able to draw shapes, extrude, and cut. So the basics are easy to grab and tool around with.