Is SW CAM / CAMWorks as clunky and useless as it looks?

[gregormarwick]

Or am I judging it too harshly / prematurely?

I gave one of my guys the task of trying it out as we have spare seats of SW with basic cam included. I had the notion that it would be useful for doing simple jobs when we are busy (we have two seats of featurecam as our main programming software).

I helped him figure out how to edit posts and get a working post for one of our older vmc's and set him to work.

After a while spent hovering over his shoulder watching him wrestling with it I was really unimpressed by it. It seems horribly clunky and awkward to do even the simplest of parts.

Before I have him waste any more time on it, is it worth persevering with, or is it actually just a piece of shit?

 

[BugRobotics]

Yea, I messed with it a few years ago (so may not be fair but I have a feeling not much has changed) and was completely unimpressed. When you use HSMWorks everything else just feels lame.

Not sure why the companies don't copy HSMWorks.

 

[Nmbmxer]

I use it at home to program for a retrofitted Bridgeport boss. It’s included in my student copy of SW (Titans).

I find the feature recognition to be really buggy. Sometimes I modify the part geometry and it will update and wipe out my tool paths and then not recognize the previously programmed features at all leading to head scratching.

I’m also finding it hard to use fixtures and vises. Latest issue was having two operations in the same fixture with the part in a different orientation (flipped over). Ended up having to save-as into a second assembly so I could have the second part orientation. To be fair I’m not an expert at using it and the professional version might address the fixture thing.

 

[Pete Deal]

Well I use it every day. I like it.

 

[mhajicek]

I talked to my Solidworks dealer about it. They chuckled and said no, it wouldn't meet my needs.

 

[Shawnrs]

Or am I judging it too harshly / prematurely?

I gave one of my guys the task of trying it out as we have spare seats of SW with basic cam included. I had the notion that it would be useful for doing simple jobs when we are busy (we have two seats of featurecam as our main programming software).

I helped him figure out how to edit posts and get a working post for one of our older vmc's and set him to work.

After a while spent hovering over his shoulder watching him wrestling with it I was really unimpressed by it. It seems horribly clunky and awkward to do even the simplest of parts.

Before I have him waste any more time on it, is it worth persevering with, or is it actually just a piece of shit?

I have used it for 15 years without much problems so I am going to say your guy is probably the problem, not the software.

 

[Shawnrs]

I use it at home to program for a retrofitted Bridgeport boss. It’s included in my student copy of SW (Titans).

I find the feature recognition to be really buggy. Sometimes I modify the part geometry and it will update and wipe out my tool paths and then not recognize the previously programmed features at all leading to head scratching.

I’m also finding it hard to use fixtures and vises. Latest issue was having two operations in the same fixture with the part in a different orientation (flipped over). Ended up having to save-as into a second assembly so I could have the second part orientation. To be fair I’m not an expert at using it and the professional version might address the fixture thing.

Get more training

 

[Dalego]

I started using it a few months ago. It was a bit difficult to understand I agree as there are other CAM software that is easier to use, however it is really simple. I would look into mentoring through your VAR.

 

[AARONT]

I've been using it for 11 years and like it. I went from Mastercam to Camworks and have liked Camworks better.

 

[BugRobotics]

I've been using it for 11 years and like it. I went from Mastercam to Camworks and have liked Camworks better.

Yea, this is important. When evaluating this type of stuff you need something to compare against.

CAMworks is exceptional when compared to Mastercam when we're talking SolidWorks integrated CAM.

 

[Pete Deal]

I've been watching these posts on the pros and cons of various CAD/CAM systems for a good number of years. From the comments it seems that none of them are golden. There are bugs in CAMworks that I don't like and I work around. There are other threads that people have discussed this. Bottom line is that it's a joke to think you can decide how good any of this software is with just a cursory look.

I do think the basic SW CAM ought to have a few more features. I have bought the professional level and I think it ought to have a few more features. But it does the job and I don't need a tether to any mother ship.

 

[AARONT]

I use it at home to program for a retrofitted Bridgeport boss. It’s included in my student copy of SW (Titans).

I find the feature recognition to be really buggy. Sometimes I modify the part geometry and it will update and wipe out my tool paths and then not recognize the previously programmed features at all leading to head scratching.

I’m also finding it hard to use fixtures and vises. Latest issue was having two operations in the same fixture with the part in a different orientation (flipped over). Ended up having to save-as into a second assembly so I could have the second part orientation. To be fair I’m not an expert at using it and the professional version might address the fixture thing.

I'd be willing to bet the reason why it won't recognize features you've modified is because you deleted some of the sketch for that feature. Once you do that you have to reselect your feature in the feature tree. Then right click on the feature, generate your toolpath, then click update on the window that pops up(don't click regenerate).

 

[Pete Deal]

I've been watching these posts on the pros and cons of various CAD/CAM systems for a good number of years. From the comments it seems that none of them are golden. There are bugs in CAMworks that I don't like and I work around. There are other threads that people have discussed this. Bottom line is that it's a joke to think you can decide how good any of this software is with just a cursory look.

I do think the basic SW CAM ought to have a few more features. I have bought the professional level and I think it ought to have a few more features. But it does the job and I don't need a tether to any mother ship.

 

[Antarctica]

I played with it a bit earlier this year and intend to spend more time on it after I finish dusting off my solidworks chops (been along time since I used it and some of the 'how-to' has changed). I will say that the amount of tutorials via solid works is pretty pathetic. I haven't looked extensively into what's on youtube, but a cursory look didn't show much there either.

Can anyone point me to a good thorough tutorial?

 

[AARONT]

I played with it a bit earlier this year and intend to spend more time on it after I finish dusting off my solidworks chops (been along time since I used it and some of the 'how-to' has changed). I will say that the amount of tutorials via solid works is pretty pathetic. I haven't looked extensively into what's on youtube, but a cursory look didn't show much there either.

Can anyone point me to a good thorough tutorial?

Try this. I don't know where your skills are but he seems to have quite a few tutorials. SolidWorksTutorials With Aryan - YouTube

 

[Nmbmxer]

I'd be willing to bet the reason why it won't recognize features you've modified is because you deleted some of the sketch for that feature. Once you do that you have to reselect your feature in the feature tree. Then right click on the feature, generate your toolpath, then click update on the window that pops up(don't click regenerate).

I understand how to update features, and that works fine if I change a radius or hole size. I’m having the feature disappear after say adding a filet to the outside contour. Then I try and extract the machinable features a second time and it won’t find the profile feature. Often I end up closing and opening it again and it will work.

 

[Antarctica]

Try this. I don't know where your skills are but he seems to have quite a few tutorials. SolidWorksTutorials With Aryan - YouTube

I think the way I wrote my response was misleading - I was actually looking for a good tutorial on Solidworks CAM/Camworks

 

[Marvel]

I've been using CAMWorks for over 15 years and have not had any issues, I program quite complex parts daily with it. Recently SolidWorks released their SolidWorksCAM that is included with SolidWorks, that is essentially CAMWorks, from what I've heard and can tell its pretty basic though. I have the CAMWorks Milling Professional Package.

It was about 3 years ago I bought my own seat of SW/CW and had been a long time CAMWorks user, and have had experience/used other software, MasterCam, SurfCam, BobCad. I wanted to give everything an option being I was about to just drop over $10k on a seat. The only thing IMO I found comparable to CAMWorks was Siemens NX. And after doing a lot of research one thing everyone should do when looking at software (any software) is research. I found that a majority of these CAM software's license their toolpaths from ModuleWorks and MachineWorks, so behind the scenes the software is generating the same toolpath, the only thing different is what you see and how CAMWorks implemented "Toolpath X" into their software lay out. I tell everyone looking at CAM software to keep this in mind, IMO ones is NOT better than the next, what makes a software better is solely opinion and how well you can comprehend and understand how the toolpaths were implemented within the software's settings.

You can go to both the websites listed above ModuleWorks.com and MachineWorks.com and view their partners and see all the CAM partners they license toolpaths to.

One thing I've noticed over the years reading forums and seeing new users try it, they are 3 days in and cant figure out why the feature recognition isn't perfect. Well it takes time to make it work how you want, everyone programs differently, over 15 years and I'm still making adjustments, adding to my TechDB to "perfect" the way it does things.

I actually don't utilize the feature recognition as much as I could, I use it mainly to recognize holes, tapped, reamed, counterbore, etc. I've had parts with over 600 holes with 30 different sizes and I can have it programmed in 5 minutes with speeds and feeds, using feature recognition and with a TechDB that has been fine tuned to pull pull out my spot drill, leave the correct size chamfer based on hole properties, pull the correct drill and tap, drill and reamer all based on material selected. If my hole exceeds my spot drill diameter size it knows to grab a chamfer tool and put a .01-.015" chamfer on the edge.

I also see a lot of comments "I found it hard to do......" Fixtures is a big one.....It's lack of experience. It's no different than building an assembly in SolidWorks, define your mates in assembly mode and than once you start programming it damn near walks you through telling it what part is being programmed and what parts are fixtures and it gives you an option to tell it how far you want to keep tools and holders away from any defined fixtures for every operation generated.

 

[Marvel]

I had some of the same issues early on, I found it to actually be a computer issue. I upgraded some components and made some computer setting changes and haven't had any issues since.

 

[Marvel]

I talked to my Solidworks dealer about it. They chuckled and said no, it wouldn't meet my needs.

Should have a discussion with an actual CAMWorks dealer rather than a SolidWorks dealer, seems like the SolidWorks reps have little knowledge to the CAM side of things, not to mention the actual SolidWorksCAM version of CAMWorks is pretty limited compared to an actual CAMWorks seat.