Mastercam laptops?

[triumph406]

But the thing is that is an old discontinued laptop, same as my old discontinued tower.

My Tower is an old HP Z800.

So you cant really nock that people need or want to buy a high end piece of expensive equipment to last over decade, when that is what you did.
The prices on those, on some sites has not been removed, but doesn't matter if you know hardware you know that laptop was expensive when it was released.
Was $2,000-$3,000 when new

So not trying to say your being hypocritical but, you bought an expensive laptop then, and these guys want an expensive laptop now.
for the same reasons, So their applicable and usable for longer.

I did buy an expensive laptop USED

I think it might have been maybe $500 off of ebay. At the time they were going for more, but this one slipped thru the cracks. Other then memory it had the best availible processor and video card.

I just don't think all these 'power users' need all the horse power they think they do. And if they do it's for short periods of time.

Of course it's a different story if a program will not physically run on old graphic cards or processors.

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Both the Z800 and 8740 are maxed out on memory, they wouldn't be that useable on the base memory they came with from the factory. The Z800 also has a decent Quaddro card as well.

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My $.000002 worth of opinion.

 

[Houdini]

Except when you have to take the computer home.

Had to leave early today, grabbed my laptop got home and was able to keep working. I’ll take the price hit for that ability anyday. If you don’t need to move the computer obviously a desktop is better.

What do you mean, my super tower is portable

 

[Houdini]

My Tower is an old HP Z800.



I did buy an expensive laptop USED

I think it might have been maybe $500 off of ebay. At the time they were going for more, but this one slipped thru the cracks. Other then memory it had the best availible processor and video card.

I just don't think all these 'power users' need all the horse power they think they do. And if they do it's for short periods of time.

Of course it's a different story if a program will not physically run on old graphic cards or processors.

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Both the Z800 and 8740 are maxed out on memory, they wouldn't be that useable on the base memory they came with from the factory. The Z800 also has a decent Quaddro card as well.

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My $.000002 worth of opinion.

And just to reiterate for others, I don't buy the expensive AF "workstation" stuff for the power/speed that keeps being mentioned.
I buy it for one of the main purposes its made, reliability, stability, durability, accuracy, compatibility, drivers and driver support.

The speed/power is the very last thing I care about, machines 10 years old are good, 5 years, perfectly fine.

that's why I mention I would rather have an older "workstation" than a newer gaming rig.

I don't so much want all that power and speed, that's 1/8th of the need, its the other 80% of stuff I want more.

What do I give a shit if I have the fastest i9-14900k water cooled, max overclocking, enough OC RAM I need a sheep herder , a Geforce RTX 4090 OC
and it costs $5,000-7,000.
but the thing is freezing, and locking up all the time, reboots, vector storms, OpenGl ghosting, frame locks, poor anti aliasing, video driver locks and reboots,
incompatibility with software.....Then it doesn't really matter how fast it is.

edit: people like to disregard that the software vendors recommend workstation hardware, especially video cards, some don't even reference you can use anything but workstation graphics cards.

 

[Houdini]

PowerMill
MasterCAM
Hypermill bottom of page1, page 2 says no AMD cards
NX
Solidworks, check "all graphics cards" only pro cards listed
SolidCAM all pro cards

Almost every time only Pro video cards are recommended.
it can go on and on, but people like to disregard this, what eva floats your boat.

 

[triumph406]

The HP8740 has a core i5/core i7 cpu and is 14 years old.

Compare that CPU to a modern i9 and there's no contest lol.
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i9-13900K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-M-520/4129vsm812

LOL I never knew that, well I probably did 10-12 years ago. I didn't care then and I don't know. The 8740 came with a few different CPU and video card variations. my recollection is mine was top of the line for 8740 when it was new.

Of course it's going to get killed by modern processors

How many modern CAD/CAM programs are capable of using all the cores anyway?

What do you interpret as "complex 3D toolpaths"?

Complex surfaced wind tunnel model parts. Because the guys on the bench wanted to finish the surfaces with the minimum effort typically they were programmed (surfcam) with .0001" surface tolerance and .01" stepover. They wanted a finish they could use 400-600 grit and finish with scotchbrite.

The old way of rfinishing parts after contouring req'd starting with files, then progressively finer grades of paper.

The last parts I ran were typically run thru the night. 8-16 hour run times nothing unusual.

In Surfcam, I've never had a toolpath take more then 5-10 minutes to generate, regardless of how complex it is. But it wouldn't matter if it took 30 minutes, I can let it run in the background while I'm doing something else. Cad work maybe, sawing material, setting up a cnc etc etc.

Typically the first thing I do is write roughing programs. I don't waste a lot of time making them very efficient. I write so I can get chips made asap. Then I start writing semi-finishing programs, then finishing programs. The older computes can create toolpath much faster then the machine can remove material.

In fact now I think about it, the shop programming laptop is an old beaten up pos Dell M90

Do you have large assemblies on the screen and are you able to rotate them without it being a slide show?
Some people need as much power as they can muster. I'm not one of them but I do need a beefy computer often.

Never been an issue in either Cadkey or NX2 rotating very large assemblies. There is a setting in NX you have to enable otherwise the solids turn into rectangular blocks as your rotating. The 8740 has the top of the line quadro card that was availible at the time, and the Z800 tower has the best Quadro card from maybe 8 years ago (newer then the tower itself)

 

[mhajicek]

I've never built a system with ECC in the 30 years I've been doing CADCAM, and I haven't had those stability issues people talk about; the computer will stay up and stable with multiple Mastercam windows open for weeks, until Windows wants a reboot for updates. I've built systems with both Quadro and GeForce cards, and the only difference I've noticed is that Solidworks wants a Quadro for flow simulation.

 

[???]

What do you mean, my super tower is portable

Better be careful with those flowing locks and those fans.

 

[triumph406]

Do you have large assemblies on the screen and are you able to rotate them without it being a slide show?

Rotation done with a 3D space mouse. Easiest way of rotating and holding iphone at same time

1500 solid bodies. 30% are fully detailed 8020 extrusion

(Much faster using the mouse)

This wasn't the 8740 laptop, it was the old Z800 tower with an old Nvidia FX4800 card (5119mb memory), which was released 11/11/2008. You read that right 2008

When I get the 8740 powered up again I'll take a video of that, it will be just as fast

 

[Mtndew]

As someone deeply immersed in the realm of online gaming, I understand the importance of having a reliable laptop that can handle the demands of modern gaming titles like Rocket League.

Odd first post, but a potato can run Rocket League.

 

[len_1962]

Complex surfaced wind tunnel model parts. Because the guys on the bench wanted to finish the surfaces with the minimum effort typically they were programmed (surfcam) with .0001" surface tolerance and .01" stepover. They wanted a finish they could use 400-600 grit and finish with scotchbrite.

The old way of rfinishing parts after contouring req'd starting with files, then progressively finer grades of paper.

The last parts I ran were typically run thru the night. 8-16 hour run times nothing unusual.

In Surfcam, I've never had a toolpath take more then 5-10 minutes to generate, regardless of how complex it is. But it wouldn't matter if it took 30 minutes, I can let it run in the background while I'm doing something else. Cad work maybe, sawing material, setting up a cnc etc etc.

Typically the first thing I do is write roughing programs. I don't waste a lot of time making them very efficient. I write so I can get chips made asap. Then I start writing semi-finishing programs, then finishing programs. The older computes can create toolpath much faster then the machine can remove material.

Yes SURFCAM is probably one of the best at 3D toolpaths out there and fast at generating them.
I have used it since 3.0 dos for ID model making. As you stated light sanding and steel wool or scotbrite, prime and paint. though now mostly use HSMWorks ans I make mostly recalinier parts for students, but when it cannot get what I need done it is Surfcam.