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Mastercam NewsFlash May/June 2008
Mastercam’s FBM is so Easy To Use… Even a 6 year old can do it!
Mastercam’s new Feature Based Machining (FBM), available soon with the X3 release, automates 2D solid model machining. This offers shops dramatic speed improvements and allows for great reductions in programming time. Mastercam’s FBM will evaluate the part and automatically program pockets, contours, bosses, and drilling routines with minimal user input. New users to Mastercam will be machining 2D solid parts sooner thanks to FBM's ease of use and short learning curve, and power users will find it helps them get basic tasks off their desk fast so they can move on to other work. In fact, it’s so easy to use that even a 6 year old can do it! Please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS0pRQX93lc to view Clarissa, an employee’s 6-year old daughter, program a part using Mastercam FBM.
Mastercam Partners Mastercam has teamed up with some of the manufacturing industries’ top players. What does this mean for you? It means more ways to boost your bottom line – a wider variety of new software tools, shop-proven hardware, powerful learning tools, and much more. Add-ins: These add-in options for Mastercam might be just what you are looking for. They include CAD products, other CAM products, DNC solutions, inspection software, learning tools, and more. See Products > Cad Partners: Mastercam offers many ways to import your CAD models. These CAD vendors have special relationships with Mastercam, and a few include Pro/E, SolidWorks, Unigraphics, KCDw, and more. OEM Partners: Mastercam has developed special relationships with companies who can provide turnkey solutions for your specific manufacturing needs. A few include Accu-Router, CNC Motion, Northwood, and HighRES. See Products > Cutting Tool Manufacturers: We have tool catalogs available for use with Mastercam. Samplings include Dapra, Duramill, MillStar, and Sandvik. See Products > Please visit www.mastercam.com/Partners/ for a complete listing and description of Mastercam’s Partners.
One Good Medical Part Deserves Another
Those were the words Lou Dertouzos used to describe what the transition from traditional aerospace to advanced medical parts manufacturing was like for him. Lou spent most of his career (about 30 years) in aerospace manufacturing and even had his own shop. Five years ago he was lured away by a major medical device manufacturer in Indiana. For the past year he has been engineering manager for Innovative Medical (Fort Myers, FL), a start-up machine shop specializing in the manufacture of surgical tools and implants. He explained that designers of aerospace parts, at least in the past, generally designed within the constraints of typical high-performance CNC machining capabilities. Medical device designers don’t seem to look at it that way. They don’t perceive any limits. Whatever material and geometry combinations they can create in CAD, and prove out with finite element analysis, is what they expect their suppliers to produce and deliver on time. Innovative Medical, now in its second year, was conceived specifically to take on that sort of challenge. The owners, Youngquist Brothers Inc., spared no expense in equipping this brand new, 21,000-square foot plant with 20 CNC machines, including Willimen-Macodel mill-turn systems and Citizen Swiss turning machines. Advanced Mycrona multi-sensor CMMs verify that parts have been manufactured to spec. As for delivering on time, the owners equipped the plant with its own generator and an uninterruptible power supply to make sure that there would be absolutely no excuses. To run the plant, Youngquist Brothers recruited experienced medical manufacturing professionals from all over the country, which is where Dertouzos came in. Dertouzos, who is responsible for programming the Willimens, found himself with more work than he could handle with the company’s existing CAM system. He convinced management to purchase two seats of Mastercam, a CAM program he had been using since the mid ‘80s. Soon he was keeping the company’s 15 Willimens entirely busy and discharging his other responsibilities as engineering manager. Dertouzos’ most recent experience had been with Mastercam Version 9. Innovative Medical purchased two seats of Mastercam X2. “It was a big leap as far as the software goes,” he said. “Because of the workload, I was not able to get any formal training. I couldn’t have anyone come in to show me; I had to figure it out on my own. Within the first day, I was already putting toolpaths on the parts, and soon I could create toolpaths so complex you’d be amazed that the machine could even keep up with it.” To read more about Lou and his use of Mastercam, please click ‘here’.
Do you want to be a Mastercam Success Story? We are always on the look out for customers to write Success Stories and published articles about. Would you like your shop to be the spotlight of an article published in a magazine, or a Success Story featured on our web site? If so, please contact marketing@mastercam.com with your contact information and a brief explanation of how your shop uses Mastercam. If we use your information, we will ship you out a Mastercam goodie bag containing items like T-shirts, mugs, pens, and more!
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“We just got a print in of a prototype a couple of days ago. Years ago we’d look at the print and think it was a nightmare, like a 5th grader looking at Mozart sheet music. But now you look at it and say, ‘I think I’ll start on this end’. You kind of dive into it. We know we can generate the toolpaths to machine it.” 
