Mastercam

“The machine shop benefits apprentices by enhancing their confidence in the skills they are developing. The opportunity for one-on-one sessions with experienced arsenal machinists addresses the challenges posed by classroom sizes and limited machine availability.”

“A teacher’s day is filled from beginning to end and if a problem arises in a CAD/CAM lesson, that problem can become a major headache without some sort of lifeline. A call to Mastercam is always answered and someone there will spend however long it takes to solve the problem and keep the class moving forward.”

“The students begin to see that everything in their homes, in stores, on television and in the world around them is manufactured and what they are learning comprise the basics for producing life’s tangibles.”

““When you have systems that you can really rely on they will create what you need. I am speaking of the code coming out of Mastercam. We can verify it, we can look at our fixtures and our machine in Mastercam, and make sure that we’re not going to hurt anything significant. That allows us to go ahead and take that next step because we don’t have to stand there and watch the machine.””

“"Due to the particularly complex and challenging machining geometries involved in high-gloss milling, we chose to work with Mastercam.””

“We have an array of machines for an array of jobs. We machine everything from stainless and aluminum to plastics and Iconels. We don’t shy away from anything, really.”

“It’s awesome having this machine simulation suite built into Mastercam. As I’m buying tools, I can drop them directly into my CAM software and check for collisions and avoidances. It’s been extremely helpful in lessening the learning curve because, as our 5-axis jobs take off, our focus is going to be on reducing hand-working parts after machining and reducing setups. The software makes it easy to import programs over from 3-axis and just redo a couple of areas rather than start from scratch. I can have working code very quickly.”

““We’ve been programming the same way for a long time; it’s second nature,” said Ott. “Learning to program a new way comes with a high degree of difficulty. Similarly, going mainstream with Mastercam across Ariel’s corps of machinists and engineering support team is a sizeable training effort that will be ongoing. The results so far have been clearly worth the effort.””

““We want to focus on the Mastercam tools that directly apply to our parts machining workflows.””

““FASTech was ideally suited to produce a tailored training program for us,””

““The results so far have been clearly worth the effort.””

“We've been programming the same way for a long time; it's second nature. Learning to program a new way comes with a high degree of difficulty. Similarly, going mainstream with Mastercam across Ariel's corps of machinists and engineering support team is a sizeable training effort that will be ongoing. The results so far have been clearly worth the effort.”

““I think Mastercam allows you to customize pretty much everything down to the posts and personal preferences. We bought a machine last year that was configured differently than anything else out there. With the combination of 5 different axes that are in different planes than any of the other machines out there, you need a post to be able to post G-code. There was not a post existent for that machine. Being able to customize posts and parameters, using all the different settings within Mastercam, has been easy for me and very useful.””

““Port Expert allows us to tilt more in a tangent cutting toolpath along the surface. We just have more vectoring control of the tool and are able to utilize the optimum cutting flute surfaces on the lollipop endmills,” said Ramirez.”

““Mastercam gives us an opportunity to take on work that other machine shops cannot do,” said Roberts. “We have made several parts over the years that we never could have manufactured without the CAD/CAM software.””

“They included translators, post processors, and support in the base cost. With some software companies, many things are extras that add to your base cost as well as the annual cost of your support contract. With the overall time and support we get from them, it means everything when you come down to it.”

“The improvement in programming and the new technology that the software is always evolving helps us stay ahead of the curve and meet customer demand.”

““We’re good friends with our MLC guys, Patrick Warren and Scott Lyndsay,” he said. “They support us any time we need something. When the 5-axis stuff was new to us, they helped set up the posts and simulation software so we didn’t crash the machines.””

““Demonstrating Mastercam CAD/CAM on the Penta machine gets our foot in the door much better than running a slide show or a YouTube video would,” said Hirschi.”

“We’ve been teaching Mastercam for a long time. Most of the shops here—I’d say 90 percent of them—use it. So, our students want to be on the machines and be hands-on learners.”

““We can take a part that would take somebody maybe half a day to program and literally program it in five minutes. And have the machine running before they even finished the program,””

““We have taken the more powerful tools that are available in Mastercam and directly applied them to our programming strategies in our toolpaths to reduce cycle times and increase through put,””

“The toolpaths were much more intuitive. It was very easy to make new programs with less air-cutting and unnecessary tool engagement, like plunging and retract motions.”

“Systems are extremely important,” concluded Wellman. “Whatever system you choose, everybody needs to be fully trained and integrated, and everybody needs to use it.”

“Mastercam gives us tremendous flexibility to run repeat jobs in a multitude of work centers. I think the key to any job shop is to be flexible.”