New CAM product on the block

[jcdammeyer]

Dear All,

This is George from TakshakCAM. @DavidR8 , once again thank you for introducing us and for the kind words- we will be upgrading to the commercial license today so that I can make a detailed post.

In the meantime, if it is ok, I can answer some queries I saw here.

Kind Regards,
George

Hi George,
I'm using the discontinued embedded AlibreCAM with AlibreCAD. The upside is I can move back and forth between the CAD and the CAM system and not lose all the CAM operations. AlibreCAM is a version of Mecsoft VisualCAM which is part of their VisualCAD/CAM package. Mine includes the 4th axis and I paid a lot over the years.

Needless to say I was disappointed to see it discontinued with the only option now to export a step file and import that into VisualCAM to get the same operations. But make one change in the drawing once you realize it would work better in CAM if it had that change and all the work is gone. The native AlibreCAD files didn't suffer from that issue.

I don't understand why the CAD suppliers don't make their drawing file format available so companies like yours can create integrated modules that work with the CAD. Perhaps you can explain that?

Here's an example of facing the back of a casting. Drawing is in AlibreCAD as shown by the tab on the bottom left corner.


And here's the now selected AlibreCAM simulation with the flycutter doing the passes.


Here's the spotting drill for all the holes.


And the generated G-Code.

%
N1 G17 G20 G40 G90
( BEGIN TOOL LIST )
( TOOL 6 - CenterDrill1 - DESC: 12.0000 DIA, 2 FLUTE,  CARBIDE MAT )
( ENDOF TOOL LIST )
(Spotting Drill)
N2 T6 M06 G43
N3 S3000 M3
N4 G0 Z1.9685
N5 X-0.9744 Y0.9426
N6 G0 Z-0.0197 ( F0.9 )
N7 G81 X-0.9744 Y0.9426 Z-0.126 R-0.0197 F0.9
N8 G80
N9 G0 Z1.9685
N10 X0.9744
N11 G0 Z-0.0197 ( F0.9 )
N12 G81 X0.9744 Y0.9426 Z-0.126 R-0.0197 F0.9
N13 G80
N14 G0 Z1.9685
N15 X-0.9744 Y-1.0061
N16 G0 Z-0.0197 ( F0.9 )
N17 G81 X-0.9744 Y-1.0061 Z-0.126 R-0.0197 F0.9
N18 G80
N19 G0 Z1.9685
N20 X0.9744
N21 G0 Z-0.0197 ( F0.9 )
N22 G81 X0.9744 Y-1.0061 Z-0.126 R-0.0197 F0.9
N23 G80
N24 G0 Z1.9685
N25 X-2.2835 Y1.815
N26 G0 Z0.0984 ( F0.9 )
N27 G81 X-2.2835 Y1.815 Z-0.0079 R0.0984 F0.9
N28 G80
N29 G0 Z1.9685
N30 X2.2835
N31 G0 Z0.0984 ( F0.9 )
N32 G81 X2.2835 Y1.815 Z-0.0079 R0.0984 F0.9
N33 G80
N34 G0 Z1.9685
N35 X1.5354 Y-2.3189
N36 G0 Z0.0984 ( F0.9 )
N37 G81 X1.5354 Y-2.3189 Z-0.0079 R0.0984 F0.9
N38 G80
N39 G0 Z1.9685
N40 X-1.5354
N41 G0 Z0.0984 ( F0.9 )
N42 G81 X-1.5354 Y-2.3189 Z-0.0079 R0.0984 F0.9
N43 G80
N44 G0 Z1.9685
N45 T0 M06 G49
N46 M30
%

So although VisualCAD/CAM is more expensive usage is pretty easy and if I did have to drop down a level to use STEP files instead of native files why, other than price, would I use your software?

 

[trackwhack]

@jcdammeyer : Looks like a well oiled setup and I would not argue that Takshak offers a better solution since we dont have CAD.

I don't understand why the CAD suppliers don't make their drawing file format available so companies like yours can create integrated modules that work with the CAD. Perhaps you can explain that?

Allow me some time to explore if I can open the gate to other formats. Our team was of the opinion that we stabilize on Step, STL and DXF before we open other formats. We also have to check if its ok to import their format directly or if we have to bribe them for it 😉

 

[Sqought]

Hi George, I also have a few questions (apologies if some have been answered in youtube videos already posted)

• Some other CAM software allows you to re-upload a changed model and it will re-associate the old toolpath onto the updated model geometry. Is this feature supported or planned?

• I sometimes CAD my fixtures, which is helpful to make sure I don't damage them with my toolpaths. Is there a way to upload a STEP file and specify what is a part vs a fixture? Do multi-body STEP files play well with automatic feature recognition?

• Is rigid tapping supported or planned?

• I noticed none of the languages are "Indian". I know India has many languages and it's a complicated subject but this still strikes me as a little odd. To be clear, I only (barely) speak english so this doesn't affect me, just curious.

 

[trackwhack]

Hi @Sqought, thank you for your queries, you've surfaced some interesting bits, no apology necessary.

1) You can save the working project including generated toolpaths as a project file that can even be shared with others using who use Takshak. However Takshak is not CAD, and there isn't a way to open the project file in any other CAD to reauthor the geometry. Hence the modified model would not be associated with any Takshak project or toolpath. I don't see a solution to this unless we add our own CAD module and that's not something we have in the works. I will run this by my team to see if we can think of anything innovative.

2) (a) No, there is no way to distinguish between the model and fixture if its the same body. We have however, through our latest release today, added a section where you can setup tabs directly on the model and have all operations honor it. Alternatively the contour operations have tab setups. But neither will meet your specific need.

2) (b) When a multibody assembly is loaded, Takshak breaks it down into separate bodies and lines them up for your to rearrange / remove /reorient etc and make a layout of the parts if you intend to machine them together. So you can choose which bodies to retain to machine.

3) Language - Near Impossible considering the diversity of our country, but more importantly, all business and industry is conducted and run in English and I don't see anyone picking up the product in a local Indian language yet. If we did have a primary homogenous language like Korean / Chinese or Japanese, we may have seen something similar. For context, my five immediate neighbours all speak a different tongue but we all speak English as well, and most folks here speak at least 3 or more languages.

 

[L98Fiero]

@jcdammeyer : Looks like a well oiled setup and I would not argue that Takshak offers a better solution since we dont have CAD.


Allow me some time to explore if I can open the gate to other formats. Our team was of the opinion that we stabilize on Step, STL and DXF before we open other formats. We also have to check if its ok to import their format directly or if we have to bribe them for it 😉

Frankly, Alibre and you working together at whatever level was the first thing I thought of, both are affordable and your software looks like it will be as good as Alibre.

 

[trackwhack]

@jcdammeyer @L98Fiero We have reached out to Alibre CAD and asked if they'd want to collab to make it seamless between the two apps. So far we have not received a response. If they respond in the negative, we will still try on our end to see how we can enhance the experience.

 

[trackwhack]

For other CAD users : Just some notes from an engineering perspective.

We use OpenCascade as our geometry engine for CAM. Its good enough for CAM, irrespective of complexity as CAM requires minimal libraries from OCC and most of the work involved in CAM are the complex Operation kernels and the math associated with it. This is why it is generally acknowledged that making a CAM software is far more difficult than CAD.

Having said that CAD requires a very sophisticated geometry kernel and this is where OCC falls short. Most of the issues we have with FreeCAD are due to the not so ideal OCC libraries. Hence we did not want to make a CAD solution based on OCC.

Takshak will release a CAD solution and our aim is to make it on par with OnShape. But this requires expensive licensing from industry standard geometry kernels like Parasolid or ACIS. That would make the CAD itself expensive and once again out of reach. Alibre's Expert edition is still a USD 2000 price tag.

Due to this constraint, our team decided that we will build our own geometry kernel and then build our CAD. The implication is that we have been working on it for quite some time now and dont expect to release a CAD solution at least for another 12 months. However, when we do release it, we intend to make it completely free. We shall try to not disappoint on this commitment.

 

[DavidR8]

@trackwhack It would be amazing if you and Alibre could team up. I tried hard to like EZ-CAM and just could not get there.

 

[trackwhack]

I wonder if some of you, who are existing customers could nudge them a bit. Its been a couple of days since we wrote to them, and I'm worried that they may not be keen.