Edgecam Part Modeler tutorial.Tells you how to customize your interface for ease of use.
Setting up the interface on any software is really important. It’s one of those things you never seem to get around to. Like cutting your toenails then you get a hole in your sock and you think “I need to do this shit”
Get On With It
Once it’s done you get hours of fun. Think of all those wasted moves and drop down menus you won’t have to worry about.
I call it wasting time to save time. It might take you half an hour to do this but once it’s done every time you use your software you save a few more seconds.
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Imagine you have a family of parts to create models for. The parts are all of a similar shape but the sizes vary in sizes.
Rotating Washers
This Edgecam Part Modeler Tutorial Video explains how to link your model to an XL Spread Sheet.
For simplicity I am using a washer but it could be something far more complex.
In this Edgecam Part Modeler Tutorial the thickness, bore diameter, outside diameter and chamfer size are listed for eight washers in a spread sheet. This spread sheet links to Part Modeler and you can add as many washers as you choose and vary the sizes.
One of my big projects over the last few years has been creating Macro Programmes for the machining of wedding rings. People who know me are saying “did they really trust him with all that precious metal“.
Gold Bars
A wedding ring is quite a simple thing to produce on a CNC Lathe or so I thought. The customer then happened to mention that there were 250 styles. He needed to produce them in six different materials and in every size.
A quick bit of maths there are 143 sizes, 250 styles. Oh dear that’s like millions of programmes.
The clever ones amongst you already feel a Macro Programme coming on. I have love hate relationship with Macros.
Use them correctly and you have a very powerful tool. Used wrongly as they often are, they are a recipe for collisions and bullshit.
One of my Golden Rules is never over complicate CNC Code for your customer ie the CNC Setter Operator. Anyway no more ranting. This wedding ring Macro is a masterpiece and has been developed over nearly three years.
Hear is something you might not know. Edgecam Part Modeler can calculate weights if given the density of the material.
How cool is that?
Get Weight
Anyway that was where I got thinking about linking a spreadsheet to Part Modeler (here is another video). The spreadsheet contains all the data for the wedding rings (all 250 of them) in any size.
By clicking on a ring the model is produced and the weight calculated. I can’t actually show you this because of confidentiality agreements. It’s not like I am the James Bond of CNC Programming. But they would kill me if I told you how it’s done.
Anyway I know that once you see this Edgecam Part Modeler Tutorial your imagination will run away. It is a part of my job I really love. Seeing people learn something and then go on to put it to use.
I am lucky enough to work with people who are often way more creative and intelligent than me. Once they are given the tools to work with anything can happen.
Watch this Edgecam Part Modeler Tutorial and release your creative skills.
This tutorial is about Edgecam Associativity it’s not really a tutorial.
It’s about the concept of Edgecam Associativity in solid modelling. It shows how you can create a model in your solid modelling system which can be transferred straight through to your programming system.
Edgecam Part Modeler is part of the Edgecam suite of programmes. You can create solid models very easily with Edgecam Part Modeler from simple line drawings.
You can move straight into Edgecam from Edgecam Part Modeler and start machining your component.
The brilliant thing is that through associativity you can alter the model and Edgecam will immediately know that you altered it in Edgecam Part Modeler.
The video below is about how you can build assemblies. This could be something like a fixture with all its bolts and clamps.
This could be one complete assembly and you could move it around and do all sorts of things to it as a single unit.
You can also have sub-assemblies which are assemblies inside assemblies.
Edgecam Tutorial Assemblies and Filters
The great thing is that if for example you make a clamp and a bolt and a nut as a single assembly, when you get into Edgecam and you need to move them over a bit you can easily move them in one go as a single unit.
All you would have to worry about is filling in the hole you left behind and creating a new one in the new position.
It’s really easy to drag and drop bits or full assemblies around. That means you can take a part and move it into a different assembly very easily.
All CAD system will have a form of assemblies they just may work a little different to Edgecam Part modeller.
Filters
This is how you get the various items in your assembly to be displayed on the screen. It’s like each bit has its own light switch so you can see everything at once or just a single nut.
It’s like stripping your engine down and just seeing the crankshaft without getting oil on the carpet.
In Edgecam Part Modeler you just set up a load of filters, give them meaningful names like whatsit and thingummy.
