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For what it is worth,there are betterr Cam programs out there for the money then Mastercam.If your goal is to generate code directly from a solid model.then you would be better off with a system that runs in Inventor itself.It seems like Hypermill does.if you have access to Solidworks,you can import your Inventor model and use any of the several cam systems that run in side Solidworks.Camworks comes to mind,it is very powerfull and about the same cost as mastercam.

I was very impressed with Visual Mill for the money,and I have several friends that love Gibbs and Featurecam.Your work will dictate your needs.Vector is a great lowbuck package,but has its limitations.My experinece with solid models is they are not as easy to work with as the cam salesman will lead you to beleive,just a word of advice.I have tried to cut both solidworks and step files in Mastercam and had poor results,I resaved the files as iges,and saw sucess.

As for the post,most posts are tweek able,a generic Fanuc post should get you going.Some systems have post generators which can be used to write a new post from scratch,its a learning curve,but its about the only way you are really going to get exactly what you want.Actually,if you dont plan on using sub routines,a Fanuc post should work fine with EMC.

Pro E used to have a version of Wildfire that ran in Linux.I dont know if Pro NC will run in Linux,but if so,I think you could get both packages for about then same 10k you are gonna spend on Mastercam.Id look at Visual mill at 5k complete.Good luck!!!

Thank you JR1050

Cam software is not like CAD. As you said it's not easy to decide which is going to help you in easy and better way. I have decided not to invest in any CAM package untill I try some of them practically with my machine.

I saw Hypermill site and they look promising. And most interesting thing is that it runs inside inventor. Can anyone give me an idea about their pricing for 5axis please ?

I need an opinion about that isn't it a good idea to start with 3axis heekscnc and pycam initially ? Because according our road map, We need 5axis CAM after 6-8 months.

IMO going initially with heekscnc and pycam is that you don't have to struggle with post-processor and you can gather experience for better decision about your CAM investment in future.

Hi
This might be not the best implementation but at least I get some results

Just I have to delete the G28 's lines ..... otherwise I can't run the program.


Sorry I'm very short in time these days, so I simply collected a bunch of files I have and zipped them


P.S.
As fare as I remember I had to start from the version 9 ....... pst

Mike This attachment is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it.

Just out of curiousity,what are you gonna be running as 5axis with EMC?This definately changes what type of cam system you will need.Is it a 2 axis table on a 3 axis mill or a rotating gimble head?What kind of work are you doing?

The best 5 axis I know of is Surfcam,Ive heard Unigraphics and Pro Nc are good also,along with Delcam.

You might check out the eval copy of Mecsoft Visualmill,as the 5 axis system is 5k and 5axis anything else is 15-20....

If you are just getting started with a 3 axis system,check out Vector,it will do a lot,but then again for the 800 it will cost you,you could get an entry level copy of Mecsoft.

I know none of us ever do this,but there are torrent sites......

Currently we have many manual mills and lathes but initially we converted a large mill-o-planer 2axis table with 2axis mill head (one up/down and one rotating) which is obviously manual and we are getting difficulty to convert the same head to 3axis due to some limitation with previous design. so we decided to run 3axis for a while and have some CNC experience then get a new universal 3axis head to make it full 5axis. Before going to 5axis, there is 4 lathes and 2 mills as well to convert into CNC and EMC.

There is too much confusion in CAM side. So I decided to concentrate on free software first with some low cost 3axis CAM's then decide for 5axis later. BTW Madcam 5axis is also a good choice but you need rhino for that all under 2.6k.