6 Replies Latest reply on Jun 18, 2011 10:44 AM by Lenny Bucholz

Solidworks to Mastercam

Jacob Pribyl Feb 23, 2009 5:24 PM

I'm having trouble importing a complete assembly from SolidWorks into Mastercam. What I want is a full wireframe along with the solid bodies, but when trying to open a solidworks file directly from Mastercam I get a 'Cannot find Parasolid data in Solidworks file' error when trying to open it with MCX2 MR2, and 'Only Assemblies from Solidworks 2003 and later can be read' error with MCX3.

If I use a parasolid the solid bodies come in fine but only part of the wireframe is correctly loaded.

Parasolid

STEP files will let me import a complete wireframe along with the solid but the wireframe is all lines and splines, even when it should be arcs, the only file type I've found that will let me import a full correct wireframe is IGES, which won't do solid bodies.

IGES

To get a full assembly into Mastercam right now I have to import an IGES wireframe and merge it with a parasolid and fix the levels for all the parts manually, which gets kind of tedious after the first couple hundred levels. Anyone have any suggestions or workarounds?

Solidworks to Mastercam

Kelvin Lamport Feb 23, 2009 5:48 PM (in response to Jacob Pribyl)

Mastercam has a module for SolidWorks. No need for conversions.
http://www.mastercamforsolidworks.com/
http://mastercam.com/Products/...olidworks/Default.aspx
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Solidworks to Mastercam

Kelvin Lamport Feb 23, 2009 5:53 PM (in response to Jacob Pribyl)

But if you want a translator;
http://www.mastercam.com/Suppo...tercamX3/Default.aspx
http://updates.mastercam.com/x...ect-solidworks-web.exe
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- Solidworks to Mastercam
  
  Jacob Pribyl Feb 23, 2009 6:02 PM (in response to Kelvin Lamport)
  
  Thanks, I'll try it out.
  
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Solidworks to Mastercam

Phil Marra Feb 23, 2009 6:04 PM (in response to Jacob Pribyl)

Jacob,

There is some confusion in what you have said here.
First parasolid does not support wireframe you may be reading a parasolid file into Mastercam that shows a "wireframe" in MC but you didnt export a wireframe from SW.

Iges should do the trick but you will need to export both solid/surfaces and 3d curves. For Mastercam Id suggest flavoring the trimmed surface (type144) and b-splines (entity type126) then select surface representation /system preference to "mastercam."

As for the levels in Mastercam, that is a problem that no one has found a solution for, or at least I hear the complaint everyday.
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Re: Solidworks to Mastercam

Matt Sumner Jun 6, 2011 12:10 PM (in response to Jacob Pribyl)

In the latest version of Mastercam which is X5 you should have no problem getting what you are after by opening the Solidworks Part or Assembly file directly. There is no need to convert it to a different format.
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Re: Solidworks to Mastercam

Lenny Bucholz Jun 18, 2011 10:44 AM (in response to Jacob Pribyl)

With any old version of a CAM software you are SOL to have the newer version of SW work...I know thats how it is and we need to either spend the bucks on the CAM update to work with the new version of SW or find work arounds.

Remember thats the only way the CAM guys can get you to buy the updates buy not supporting the newer versions of solids.

Now here is a work around, take the parasolid from SW 2011 and read it into your SW 2003 then open into Mastercam the same way you did before, shouldn't have the issues you are having now.

As a CAM guy myself been using SW and Surfcam since 97 together and have had some of the same problems between relases of SW I always have 2 to 3 older versions of SW on my computer to solves any incompatibility problems.

If you are tring to be current with SW you need to stay current with your CAM...cost money YES but then your not spending the same money on lost hours of productivity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JMO
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