As we've been grown our manufacturing capabilities over the past few years at Tuff Writer we've started spending more and more on infrastructure. Originally, this meant buying a few shelves to turn the dining room into a "warehouse" or purchasing a few new tools for parts assembly. Recently, this turned into buying industrial grade equipment (compressors, grinders, presses) which cost significantly more than standard hobby grade tools. So far, they've all been worth it, even when I had some doubt. This includes spending $2,500 to buy an air compressor on Fellhoelter's advice. Knowing then what I know now, I would even consider buying a $5,000 screw compressor instead. Now that we're almost done building out the shop and about to start slowly filling it with even more equipment, things are going to get expensive on a whole new level.
Purchasing CNC equipment is always a complicated decision which includes signing up for years of payments, but it is made easier by having experience with HAAS machine equipment. Once you have the equipment, if it doesn't work out, you can also sell it and get most of your money back (even old and poorly maintained CNC equipment seems to hold its value pretty well). The real hard part is deciding on which Computer Aided Machining (CAM) software to choose.
CAM software is a funny little racket. You purchase a piece of software which costs anywhere from $1,000 - $20,000 (depending on what features and toolpaths are needed). This software then requires an annual "maintenance" of anywhere from $500-$5,000 a year. In addition, there are dozens (if not more) of viable options by different vendors and most of them are sold by Authorized Dealers which do not list prices publicly, making direct comparisons difficult. To make things worse, there's a bit of wheeling and dealing involved which means that even the listed prices aren't necessarily cast in stone depending on who you are or who you know (or the time of day and direction of the wind). If you choose poorly... you can't just sell the software license so you're stuck with it. Considering the scope of the investment (both in terms of money and considerable hours becoming proficient with the software) and the duration of commitment (purchasing a CAM package only to find that it doesn't actually support some required process down the road would be financially crushing) this is no small challenge.
Using the Amazon method of simply checking reviews on-line and on machining forums seems like a good start it that only goes so far. Every CAM package seems to have supporters and detractors. For every glowing recommendation there's a shop that tried the software and hated it. Another option is to simply go with the most popular package. After all.. that should be a safe choice, right? Maybe but that also seems to make it the most expensive and there are other issues to consider. Is the software stand-alone or part of another package (i.e. Solidworks)? Since I do all of my modeling in Solidworks, it may be possible to get a cheaper software that is part of Solidworks and allows for faster programming as any design changes are immediately reflected in the CAM software (thank you Dave Zamora for teaching me associative design). So where does that leave our fledgling little machine shop?
It looks like we'll have to evaluate a few different CAM packages and put them to the Pepsi Challenge (tm) in the hopes of finding the best, most cost efficient piece of software for our purposes. Most vendors allow a 30 day free trial of the software but that does mean a significant investment in training and testing. Still, it's better than nothing.
Mastercam: The most popular CAM software for small to medium machine shops in the US by a wide margin. It also happens to be the most expensive (we're ignoring massive enterprise software like CATIA). I'm actually taking an 8 week class in Mastercam X9 to get familiar with CAM software programming. There is also significant training and documentation available from third parties for this software. Entry level seems to be around $5,000 with a full loaded version (for milling and mill-turning) at around $25,000.
Solidcam: Cleanly integrates with Solidworks and is feature based off the solid model. Not cheap but less expensive than Solidworks and seems to have comparable functionality (assuming all the same modules are purchased) and includes new high-speed toolpaths for efficiency. They also have extensive on-line video training libraries. The entry level version starts at $3,000. All in with mill-turning and 3D contouring it pushes $20,000.
HSMWorks: Also feature based and also integrates into Solidworks. The limited 2.5D version is actually free. Something to consider is that they are owned by AutoDesk which means that they may eventually push for the AutoDesk Inventor platform over Solidworks. Pricing seems pretty reasonable, less than Solidcam but the features might not line up. One of the big advantages here is that they have a licensing version which allows for a one-time purchase with no ongoing costs. They also have an annual "rental" license which at $3,000 is in line with a Mastercam annual "maintenance" fee making it relatively affordable. Kitted out, the full perpetual license sells for $10,000.
Yup, there are many, many more worth looking at (Delcam, Esprit, etc.) but for the moment it looks like I'll keep working with Mastercam since the training classes are excellent but I will probably have to pick up HSMXpress to hold me over while I figure the rest out. There's also a chance I might get my hands on a full license of Solidcam for cheap so I'll try to do a full comparison as best as I can over the next 6 months.
Who knew it would be this complicated?
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