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VisualMill fourth impression
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| In this episode, rather than do the operations in order, I jumped ahead to where I had to make a sketch so the toolpath would be correct doing the shallow pocket at the bottom. Making that sketch took 20 seconds in SolidWorks, here it was more like 10 minutes. Part of the low productivity was the fact that I have never used the drawing stuff before. Still, I used AutoCAD for many years, and still use TurboCAD, and between those and SolidWorks, doing a simple sketch should not be this hard. While the configuration management issues would be hassle, the BobCAD salesman told me that some folks like a stand-alone package since you don't have to run it on the SolidWorks computer, you can have it on a cheaper or less powerful, or more convenient to the milling machine computer. I suppose another solution would be a stand-alone program that would open and save to SolidWorks files, but I am not sure any CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) program that can do that. I have started to look at BobCAD CAM, and had some trouble getting used to its wizard style interface, and the fact that the simulations seem to run in a patched-in window instead of int eh Solidworks model, the way SW CAM by CAMWorks does. It took me a half-hour to figure out that what BobCAD calls "Pattern" really means "What side of the geometry to cut." I was astonished that it chose to hog through the part model, rather than to the perimeter, I have to be leery of a program that lacks so much "model awareness". CAMWorks, VisualMill, and BobCAD all have pluses and minuses, but I will reserve judgement until I get more time under my belt. |
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| In one of the practice runs for this video, I did try the "Automatic Feature Recognition," and unlike in the SolidWorks version of VisualMill, this version produced results. I did not let the automatic machining happen, but that might be a fun video, also to see why the SolidWorks version did not find anything, perhaps because I already had toolpaths defined by hand. I am no fan of software developed with Microsoft tools, like Visual C++, or Visual .NET, or Visual Basic, for that matter. Microsoft promises how easy it will be while hiding all the horrible bugs that you can't figure out. Just the fact that VisualMill needs three separate Visual C++ installations bothers me:  . They call out a 2005, a 2010, and a 2017 version. I assume that is because they never re-wrote the code when Microsoft changed the tool. Microsoft is famous for this, where an update will break something that used to work. I assume that is why VisualMill is unstable on my machinate, since it has a newer C++ than the one VisualMill expects. I worry about software based on crappy Microsoft design practices, but it seems like many CAM packages use this C++ package. |
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