Re: WorkNc G3 V20 Crack
Vanina Mazzillo
Looking for someone who has used both softwares and what you like and dislike about both of them. We have currently powermill for our edm dept. and worknc for our steel cutting dept. We are thinking about switching over to powermill for everything but Im looking for honest opinions from real world users before we do. Thanks!
Thanks for all the info guys, We are slowly transitioning to powermill. Id say were split 50 50 using powermill and worknc now. I am finding that powermill is great in giving the user lots of options with toolpathing. Also its bad with giving the user lots of options with toolpathing
I would do some serious testing. Powermill has been getting slower with every new version. I get more crashes now than ever before too. I never used work NC but a coworker did and he really liked it. I really like powermill but since version 16 its been going down hill. Just my 2 cents.
@cheidenfelder good to hear your side. I have been using it for almost 15 years now. Worknc is easy and safe to use imo. BUT powermill is so much more functional and gives the user more options than wnc
In a different thread I had started a conversation about why we use WorkNC over MasterCAM and I had gotten some input about MasterCAM being just as good if not better then WorkNC. I just found out that we are spending over $8k a year on Maintenance for WorkNC and would be delighted if that could go away.
My WorkNC programmer sat me down and showed me something that he said would have to be a necessity if we were to make the switch. He brought up the part in 3D and ran the tool path on it. The screen showed the 3D part and yellow lines over the 3D part which represented the center of the cutters path. He then, in the 3D view drew a box over the yellow tool path and it automatically remove those paths within the box and recalculated. He was also able to select a single path by clicking on it and select a generic shape. All of these automatically removed the tool paths in that area and recalculated. Can masterCAM do this or anything close to this?
I know this is an ease of use issue, but if it saves them 30 minutes a day of clicking around the screen, that saves the company money. Although I am not sure if that is close to the $8k we are spending a year on maint. But if it means the difference between getting a job out on time or not it just will not do.
Mastercam can trim any toolpath. Draw a box or any other shape superimposed over the tool path and Mastercam can trim (remove) all moves within the shape or keep only those inside the box and remove the moves outside the shape. Very useful.
Sounds to me like using containment bounbries. MC also has a toolpath where you have control curves on either side of the surfaces and the path follows the boundries or cuts across the curves. You definitely should have a MC dealer come and show you. Do a direct comparision to your WorkNC pathes.
Well what you just gave as an exmaple of editing to me is just a waste of time in programming. Why would you program a path to have to remove part of it. I do 3d and have done 3d for a while now and I make all type of boundaries, limiting surfaces, and other things while makiing the toolpaths that keep me from getting cuts in places I do not want. I almost 99% of the time make a toolpah post it, send it to the machine hit the green button and walk away on 3d parts. If you are having to edit out moves and this that then to me wasting more time than saving if you have certain editing tools that Mastercma does not. Maybe you need those editing tools becuase you are so limited on the toolpaths.
WorkNc and many others drive the competition to what it is today and that is what causes Cnc Software to develop a clear cut and competitive solution. Stanetool stated an obvious benefit that serves his/their needs; I could only wish that other competitors would as well.
Most of the mold shops around my area use worknc and mastercam both. They really like worknc for calculation time and use mastercam for trim rines runners ect. But they have been making the same type of molds with mc for years. Woorknc is suposed to be (according to them) more automatic in its program creation. I have never got to see it run agnainst mc so i don;t no for sure. On a last note the same guys tell me if your going to only have one cam system use mc because it will do any job they get thru the door.
I have used both - we chose mastercam for its 5axis abilities and strong 2d machining. But it depends on your needs. If you need that rapid editing ability - mastercam can't do it. It can do a hell of a lot more than Worknc in other areas. But if that rapid editing is what you need mastercam can't do it. But it can do better in other ways - more of a change in how you program - set it up right first not fix it after. It took us a little while to get over that but now we dont think about it. You don't miss it.
I worked with WorkNC about 9 years ago in combination with Pro-E for design. WorkNC, at the time, was a CAM-only package, which meant a lot of strategy on the Pro-E side. One of the remarkable things in WorkNC, which I have only seen in a Japanese package called Camtool, was its ability to keep track of stock which had already been cut. That meant subsequent tools only cut what had been left over without crashing into remaining areas. Another remarkable thing about WorkNC was that it had a couple of really snazzy toolpaths that created awesome finishes for molds.
I don't know how WorkNC has evolved over the years. Nine years ago it had a lot of limitations as far as setting boundaries along parting lines, cutting in 2-D, etc.. I woulnd't mind taking it for a drive again. As far as Mastercam goes: I have the flexibility I like that I did not have with the Pro-E/WorkNC combo.
But as some one said a few posts back: one has to be creative with whatever one is using. And that is what makes this work so interesting. The cad and cam packages are just the tools in the hands of the artisan.
We have WorkNc and Mastercam V9.12 Mill level3 both at our shop. And peraonaly I would rather you take my toolbox away than make me use WorkNc over Mastercam everyday. First of all Go ahead and try to make Work Coordinate Systems in WorkNC as easy as you can in MC. Oh and then try to make I don't know lets say a surface or I know drill a hole in WorkNC. Oh wait youe can't. Tell your WorkNC programmer to get a life and start using some real programming software not just something only he can use.
Hello @Jeff494, thank you for your post. Do you mind providing the brand/model of the computers? I am going to ping you with some additional information. Since this is your first post a warm welcome to Spiceworks.
Hello @Jeff494, thank you for your reply. We asked for the brand not to get you to change brands. Once you have a chance to read our responses in this Community, you will see that the consultant and I do not do this. The brand and model are used to search our systems to see if there are customer alerts, etc. If you had posted in the Dell Group, we would have assumed that you had a Dell computer and we would not have replied. Since you are new, you may not have noticed that many members will identify their brand affiliation. However, if we see that this is a general issue and if we run across a resolution we certainly will share it.
depending on your hardware and time resources and budget, and your need or willingness to solve this, you could try the old drive in the new machine (or vice versa). You could try the new machine with only 16GB RAM. You could find some other, in-between machine to try on.
Have you found any fixes for this, Im battling the same problem with worknc 2017 su2. My computer opens the workzone fast but our shopfloor computers take forever for them to open with the comupting boundaries and iso lines dialog box.
CNC - 2 to 5 axis milling machining from WorkNC, Sescoi CAD/CAM software.
Global roughing-machining with dynamic stock management / holder collision check.
www.sescoi.com
www.workncg3.com