What’s Your Digital Tooling Budget?

When I was learning to be a manual machinist, people used to say, “Budget as much for tooling as you do the machine.” Danged if they weren’t spot on right. In fact, if you wanted to be well tooled up (and what machinist wouldn’t?), you could even leave off your measuring tools from that budget and focus on workholding, fixturing, toolholding, cutters, and the like. If they aren’t already on the machine, you have to put a DRO and any power feeds in this category as well. Powered drawbar is mighty nice to have too. Tooling is definitely not cheap.

Then I went CNC, and I started noticing a lot of that tooling wasn’t needed any more. Though I might like to have a 4th axis, I didn’t need a rotary table, for example. But suddenly, I had a whole new category of tooling to add–at the very least, I needed a CAM program to be really productive with the machine. G-Code editors and feeds and speeds calculators were not far behind. There are no doubt a number of other kinds of software, which I’ve taken to calling “Digital Tooling”, that is important to your work.

Some machinists are funny about Digital Tooling. I’ve talked to machinists who spend hundreds on custom ground cutters and want to preserve their life as long as possible, but balk at $69 for a sophisticated feeds and speeds calculator. Or, in another case, they are proud that they have a name brand and not a clone Haimer 3D Taster or Blake Coaxial Indicator, but they want a cheap or free piece of software. Go figure. With CNC, your digital tooling may have a bigger productivity impact than any of your “real” tooling.

Given that CNC goes through cutters faster than manual machining (through no fault of it’s own really, it’s my fat fingered MDI moves or the far bigger piles of chips being slung around), I may not be able to reduce my regular tooling budget much. And, to get the most productivity possible, I may need to spend nearly as much again on Digital Tooling. Maybe the higher cost of a CNC vs manual evens it all out and regular + digital tooling = machine cost. I could believe it, although I didn’t need a cart full of CAT40 tool holders for my old manual mill.

What would you suggest budgeting for digital tooling?

Whatever you decide the budget ought to be, I’ve added a new “Digital Tooling” section to my Supplier Links page. I think you’ll find those entries are worth taking a look at. I have each of the packages mentioned here at CNCCookbook, or in one case it is on its way and I will have it shortly. You’ll find I’ve either written about all of them or will shortly write. It’s a good list to start from and includes:

BobCAD/CAM: Entry level to mid-market CAM.

Dolphin CAM: Very well regarded entry-level CAM package.

G-Wizard Calculator: G-Wizard is CNCCookbook’s calculator for CNC machinists–it’ll save you a lot of time!

G-Wizard Editor: CNCCookbook’s G-Code Editor and Simulator. In Beta as this is written, and therefore free until it is full release.

HSMWorks: A fresh look at CAM from the people who built the Cimco G-Code Editor.

MecSoft: One of the most popular companies in the CNCCookbook CAM Survey and makers of VisualMill, AlibreCAM, RhinoCAM, and a host of other products.

MeshCAM: Very easy to use 3D CAM package.

OneCNC: My “home base” for CAM–this is the one I started with and still use constantly.

Tormach: Some very cool imaging software as well as software for their tool presetter.

If you make Digital Tooling for Machinists in some form or fashion and you’d like me to take a look at your software, drop me a note.

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4 Comments

• CNC Software: Digital Tooling for CNC « CNCCookbook 2011/05/31 at 4:05 pm

  [...] recent article on Digital Tooling has been very popular so we recently started working on a new Cookbook series around software. The [...]

  Reply
• CNC Software: Digital Tooling for CNC « CNCCookbook 2011/05/31 at 4:05 pm

  [...] recent article on Digital Tooling has been very popular so we recently started working on a new Cookbook series around software. The [...]

  Reply
• Alibre Acquired by 3D Systems: Is the Maker Movement Going Mainstream and Big Bucks? « CNCCookbook 2011/07/19 at 6:27 pm

  [...] for technologies they view as strategic. I’ve been saying for a while that in a CNC world, digital tooling is just as important as and perhaps more important than actual physical tooling. 3D has certainly put their money on [...]

  Reply
• Alibre Acquired by 3D Systems: Is the Maker Movement Going Mainstream and Big Bucks? « CNCCookbook 2011/07/19 at 6:27 pm

  [...] for technologies they view as strategic. I’ve been saying for a while that in a CNC world, digital tooling is just as important as and perhaps more important than actual physical tooling. 3D has certainly put their money on [...]

  Reply