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dford1-Visitor
1-Visitor
December 10, 2011
Question

Mold design using Creo... (now Pro/NC general commentary...)

  • December 10, 2011
  • 1 reply
  • 944 views
Hello Daniel and Jose,

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

(Son Nguyen - I'm sorry we derailed your request without helping...)

I have followed some of Daniel's public commentary earlier this year. I have obviously felt similar frustrations, but have not been as publicly vocal. This public discussion can be good because it shows that there is some life in the user group and PTC is listening. It would be great if other users were drawn in and this forum became more active.

We now have multiple seats of Pro/NC, MasterCAM, and PartMaker, but all of our company's engineering work is based in Pro/E. I would love to be 100% Pro/NC, but PTC has not been keeping up with the others in toolpath development, support for mill/turns, Swiss lathes, etc.

I am more optimistic after reading Jose's comments. It's good to learn that Jose's group is continuing to develop Pro/NC. However, it will be quite a while before we move to Creo, so we will probably have to get further involved with the other CAM packages in the mean time.

I'm much more interested in core functionality than interface. I can live with the interface, even if I don't like it. However, getting good high-speed toolpaths can be like pulling teeth. How about trochoidal milling - we have to write equations for the trochoidal curve just to mill a slot. Volume milling is often difficult to perfect and can require work-arounds (air cuts, slotting moves, pillars, etc). VoluMill (and the other products Daniel discussed earlier this year) looks like it addresses a lot of these issues, but I don't want to use another software package to "patch" the toolpath along with significant editing after post-processing. Apparently, other CAM packages have already licensed, or copied VoluMill style functionality for seamless integration.

As Daniel has done, it would be great to get involved with PTC development or the Technical Committee - not only to contribute, but to have the opportunity to meet and share ideas with other users. It's probably a better learning opportunity (for Pro/NC) than any of the training classes or the annual user conference. However, I already have a full time job with way too many demands, so I take what I can get from this forum.

Have a good weekend everybody.

Regards,
Dave Ford
NC Programming Mgr.
G.W. Lisk Co.
Clifton Springs, NY 14432
(315) 462-4381

From: Santos, Daniel (GE Oil & Gas) [
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1 reply

D
DanielSantos1-Visitor
1-Visitor
December 10, 2011

Hi everyone!



Well, I think after all these discussions, productive ones I believe,
it's fair to say that Pro/NC is going through a retake and that PTC it is
working. Not at the same speed we expect, not in projects that will
please everyone, but they're working again on NC. In the past 16 months
I've looking at these guys with a magnifier and trying to both
collaborate and let my frustrations very clear. Not always I've put them
in the friendliest way, but when you're frustrated you also commit
mistakes.



All this rant comes from the fact PTC dropped the R&D of NC tools for
nearly a decade, doing a very small number of projects every two years
to address good things, but unfortunately leaving more important
ones behind. Companies don't by software as a luxury article, like a
Louis Vuitton purse but rather a tool to solve engineering /
manufacturing problems, so I think it was a mistake from PTC to think
people would continue to worship the product as it is... manufacturing,
more than design, I think, has changed dramatically in the last decade. I
can still design a great product in WF2, but WF5 allows me to machine it
easier. So, in my opinion, yes, PTC dropped the ball for a decade, and
I hope that after this retake they won't drop the ball ever again...



As Dave, we'd love to be 100% PTC, but for the same reasons he used, we
need to look somewhere else too... engineering software users are one of
the most loyal categories of customers in this world, but we need to be
careful with that when our own ability to be competitive and survival is
placed at risk... things change, and they do it fast... you need to keep
it up in order to secure your paycheck...



To finish, I'd like to say that I re-conquered my optimism in Creo/NC
even with the fact that we're a couple of years away from the big things
many of us are waiting for... but they'll come based on what I've
seen... All the noise we've been doing around NC is turning into
improvements in the quality service, technical support site, new
functionalities, etc... so again, it's important that we users keep
telling PTC where they need to improve... and I think that with that,
they will...



Our personal experience with TS responsiveness and bug fixing has
improved dramatically in the last months, as a result of continuous
follow up and an open conversation with PTC about our frustrations. I
feel they are working... as the huge giant they are, this takes time,
but I can see the slow dinosaur finally moving on... and I'd like to say
thank you for the people working on the backstage to make this happen.
Average time for bug fixing for example has dropped in some cases from 5
datecodes to 2... from 10 months to 4. That's something... not as good
as small software companies but definitely a good start... would they
treat us better without all our noise in their blogs and media: I don't
think so. But I think they're listening again.



I think Creo 3 and onwards will be very competitive releases again...
but time will tell us what's going to happen... for now, I feel PTC is
trying to accomplish their vision with Creo... and I hope they don't
change that by keeping customers like me and Dave in mind every single
day...



Best,



Daniel

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