Free SolidCAM

[Herding Cats]

I will start by saying I have no vested interest in this and nothing to gain, I am just a satisfied customer.

IMO one of the biggest hurdles for small shops to step into mid to upper tier CAM software is the price when most companies won't give you an eval trial and will only do a live demo.

I used Fusion for a couple years and though the price jump was insane, until I did an actual eval of SolidCAM and decided it was easily worth the money as is it far more powerful. Also their tech support is great as I've always gotten someone on the phone except for once I had to leave a message and they called back in less than 20 min.

I believe the only catch with this promotion is you need to already have Solidworks since it runs inside of it.

 

[g-coder05]

This is interesting. Bold letters "You Own It". I have never seen a CAM system that allowed ownership rather than usage rights....

 

[Herding Cats]

This is interesting. Bold letters "You Own It". I have never seen a CAM system that allowed ownership rather than usage rights....

Might just be marketing that didn't go through the lawyers, I don't know.

Just thought it might be a good opportunity for anyone who wants to see what a mid to upper level cam package has to offer without dropping any money.

 

[Pattnmaker]

Anyone using Solidcam for programming 5 Axis milling? How do you like it? Any idea what a seat costs for a 5 axis seat?

I am considering getting a 5 axis CNC router and I will need to upgrade my Cam Software if I do so. I have been using HSMworks for around the last 10 years. I don't hear great things about HSMworks 5 axis and AD seems to have abandoned any upgrades to HSMworks. I have one perpetual seat of 3 axis HSMworks and have a seat of Fusion just to get our second seat of HSMworks. I do like HSMworks for our 3axis work, 99% of our work is 3d and it works well for the work we do. Most of our work is wood and Renshape on 2 routers but we do some aluminum patterns on a machining center as well.

I do have an online meeting next week getting pricing on Powermill but I am concerned that while it has a good reputation for 5 axis work it may be abandoned like HSMworks has been. I got pricing on a seat of NX just the CAD no CAM a while ago and what the local reseller wants for it is ridiculous.

The reason I am thinking 5 axis is a lot of our work is tall and yet we need to use small endmills. We have some large jobs right now that are 11-12 inches tall and yet we need to cut corners out to a 1/16" rad. A lot of our work lately is 20-30 inches high and we need to reach the bottom to both rough and finish parts. Geometry is often somewhat complex but while we often cut impellers it is just one side of one blade we are cutting at a time not a blade with the next hanging over it like those of you who have to cut impellers out of solid stock. Most of our 5 axis work will be wood and Renshape but we might do some larger aluminum parts on the 5 axis routers. All the jobs are one offs so speed of programming is much more important than fine tuning toolpaths to be perfect.

 

[Imachine909]

They defiantly mean it's yours to use with no limitations, but the only limitation will be you never own it.

You do have to have a newer version of Solid Works. I know because I was approached about this from the Solid Works sales department. Basically they were pitching this to to because I have upwards of 10 seats of Solid Works Professional 2015 I believe it is and they have been pushing me to bring them all currently. So they were using this Solid CAM as carret to get the upgrade. Point is keep in mind you have to have a newer seat of SW to utilize this offer.