How do YOU avoid collisions and crashes?

[Marvel]

As someone who has used both Camworks VM and Camplete... They are not even close to the same as far as capability. Camplete has additional tools like minimum tool stickout calculation, preferred rotation, axis polarization, and the fact that it's the actual post where its relatively easy to modify to your liking(though, they would prefer you to use it as it is so they can keep the post revisions concurrent with yours).

However, the APT post for Camworks didn't translate all the tool data over to Camplete. So, i would have to rebuild all the tools in Camplete. And after working with Camplete devs to figure out what it exactly needed to fix that, I submitted a request to HCL directly for a change as our VAR can't change the APT post. HCL told me it would be ready in the next release. Cool, that doesn't help me now, but ok.... 6 months go by before it actually shows up in a release and they only added 2 of the 3 items that i very explicitly detailed. Luckily, I truly only needed Camplete once convert XYZ to XZC so that I could face a part that was larger than the Y axis travel.

So, while waiting for HCL to get the APT post ready, our VAR said they would build us a VM for free for our two 5x mills. Cool. So i started using Camworks VM which worked just fine. No bells and whistles. But simple to use and tool data transferred exactly as it should. We eventually upgraded to the highest level(premium or pro) of VM and had VMs build for our Haas VF5(with configs each for 3x, 4x rotary, 5x trunion) and one for our Haas Lathe with Live tooling.

The one thing I absolutely hated about using Camworks VM on the lathe was that it was way too much work to get the tool holder to sit in the block right, and then get the right block on the turret. So, none of us ever used it for lathe sim.

I really enjoyed Camplete, it's a well made piece of software. But we only had one VM for the machine it came with. Camworks VM did what it needed to do which was collision check, but not much more.

Curious when did you use CAMWorks VM? I know when they first introduced it in 2018 it was very limited and IMO pointless. I was told it was overhauled about a year ago, but I doubt it. It seems like HCL doesn't invest too much into CAMWorks. Seems like the development started lacking when HCL acquired it from Geometric. That seems to be the norm with HCL, you have an enhancement and you get about 50% of what you asked for or they make it worse.

 

[BluishInventor]

Curious when did you use CAMWorks VM? I know when they first introduced it in 2018 it was very limited and IMO pointless. I was told it was overhauled about a year ago, but I doubt it. It seems like HCL doesn't invest too much into CAMWorks. Seems like the development started lacking when HCL acquired it from Geometric. That seems to be the norm with HCL, you have an enhancement and you get about 50% of what you asked for or they make it worse.

We switched CAM packages about a year ago. Still have Camworks in a limited capacity as we are finalizing the transition. But 5 of our 6 programmers don't use it anymore. We are still trying to utilize the new and wonderful EDM Pro, but in typical HCL fashion it was added and hasn't seen an update in a year...