Pro Engineer-Prismatic Milling or Production Machining

[MoldMaker]

Any users of Pro Engineer-Prismatic Milling or Production Machining?
Do you know the capabilites of these CAM systems?

 

[Rocko]

many of our suppliers dumped pro E machining software for other independent systems.

 

[MoldMaker]

Rocko,
Do you know the reasons why they did this? Is it becaude Pro-machining software is not capable of doing the things that PTC say it does?

 

[Rocko]

It is more difficult to get good consistent tool paths versus other products (mainly in mold work). Also other standalone products have many for choices for cutting strategies and techniques. What type of work are you going to use it for? What are the cost restrictions?

 

[MoldMaker]

We are currently using the Pro-Eng CAM system in the manufacture of our molds and we are very unsatisfied with it. We want to know whether other users are experiencing the same difficulties in the use of the system. We have numerous problems, ranging from cutter crashing into workpiece, wrong dimensions, very slow process to create machine path, bad choice of cutting strategies, post processor problems and many others. We are planning to invest in an HSM machine later on this year and we want to start programming the machine the proper way. We have in mind to switch over to Delcam.

 

[Rocko]

Yes those are some of the reasons i have heard about people switching from the product. Delcam is a nice product and I took a look at it, it is quite expensive when you start adding the add-ons. We went with Gibbs Solid Surfacing Module and have been happy with it. Like all software they can all be improved. Our tool path creation time is very quick a mold 15inches by 30inches with a countour surface cutting strategy: 1/4 Ball Mill and a no more than .003 step over took approximately 24 minutes to create. This is also a variable stepover so it will decrease the step to keep a consistent scallop height when hitting near veritical walls (drafted).

 

[Rocko]

Also Gibbs is very very easy to use. Also check out this thread it is old but it may help you.thread 281-24914
They also have the granite interoperability now, check out their website.

 

[pascual]

Do you know if Gibbs or Delcam import directly from proe 2001?. My company has in mind to change manufacturing to one of these systems because of the problems you wrote.

 

[MoldMaker]

Delcam can supply an additional Pro-E direct import at an extra cost or you could you one of the Industry standards, for example IGES or STEP.

 

[Rocko]

The GibbsCAM Pro/ENGINEER Exchange capability allows users to directly open a Pro/ENGINEER the ".prt" or ".pdt" files directly into GibbsCAM for machining. The GibbsCAM STEP Exchange capability allows users to read and machine STEP AP203 and AP214 files. Once the CAD model data is read, GibbsCAM's powerful, industry-leading ease-of-use capabilities can be used to generate efficient CNC programs for a broad range of CNC machine tools. I hope this helps you.

 

[albertm1]

Anyone else have any comments since Wildfire 2.0 came out and the machinist packages have been revised?