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Author Topic: If not LazyCam then what?  (Read 3526 times)

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If not LazyCam then what?
« on: May 12, 2013, 09:17:43 PM »
I am playing with Lazy Cam and it is okay to me, but I understand it is a dead end.  So what is everyone using instead?  I worked as a CNC programmer for a year on a pair of Fadal machining centers where I did mostly castings from 50 year old prints, all hand coded. I then worked for four years doing prototypes on an old Bandit controller where my boss wrote me a DXF to Excel program, and an Excel to Bandit loader program. So I have worked with some less that cutting edge stuff!

Gary H. Lucas

Offline Tweakie.CNC

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Re: If not LazyCam then what?
« Reply #1 on: May 13, 2013, 02:39:18 AM »
Hi Gary,

Along with many others, I still use LazyCam and it’s predecessor Mac1Filter.exe. albeit only occasionally. In my case it is mainly for handling HPGL files and within their limitations they are both great products and well worth learning to use.

For .dxf and similar work these products have, unfortunately, been technically overtaken by many, more advanced, softwares (for example the Vectric range) mainly because of the additional features, speed and ease of use.

There will always be new and better software coming along but who is to say that the old stuff is not still good ? (When Mach Rev4 arrives many will change camp but if Mach3 does the job...)

Tweakie.
PEACE

Offline RICH

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Re: If not LazyCam then what?
« Reply #2 on: May 13, 2013, 05:44:15 AM »
Gary,
I would suggest you try Cambam as it provides good code and has some nice features for the price. Only use it for the milling machine and assume
that is what your interested in. Any CAD work is done with AutoCad and for 3D Meshcam is used.
For the lathe Dolphin is used.

All the software is similar and what I like another would dislike so only you can judge a selection.


RICH
Re: If not LazyCam then what?
« Reply #3 on: May 13, 2013, 07:06:52 PM »

There will always be new and better software coming along but who is to say that the old stuff is not still good ? (When Mach Rev4 arrives many will change camp but if Mach3 does the job...)

Tweakie.


Tweakie,
You are right about that.  I ran an old Bandit controller and it had a very good mill bore cycle that spiraled out then made a circular move back to center, and it was very gentle on the cutter.  Then I ran a 20 year newer Fadal and their mill bore cycle stuffed the end mill straight out from center into the material.  There was nothing you could do to prevent it from chattering badly!  I wrote my own subroutine instead.  However the Fadal had a macro language that was actually MBasic.  That worked very well.  I wrote a 50 line program that we used to cut a 12" x 18" x 7" deep pocket in steel with a 15 degree taper on the sides and rounded out corners.  The roughing operation took 70 passes with a insert mill, and the finishing was done with 700 passes using a cutter with circular inserts.
Re: If not LazyCam then what?
« Reply #4 on: May 13, 2013, 07:09:16 PM »
Gary,
I would suggest you try Cambam as it provides good code and has some nice features for the price. Only use it for the milling machine and assume
that is what your interested in. Any CAD work is done with AutoCad and for 3D Meshcam is used.
For the lathe Dolphin is used.

All the software is similar and what I like another would dislike so only you can judge a selection.


RICH
Rich,
I downloaded the trial version of CamBam, and I have the trial version of MeshCam already.  I have a project where most parts would be best in CamBam, but one part is probably a MeshCam candidate.

Gary H. Lucas