4 Common Misinformation Told By Some CAM Resellers About CNC Post Processing

CAM RESELLER: You Have To Use Our Post Processors Inside CAM To Effectively Benefit Our CAM Software
TRUTH: If this were true, many CNC machining companies would complain about 3^rd party post processors they use. However this is not the case.

Almost all major CAM software on the market have been producing APT/CL outputs without any missing information or errors. By using these APT/CL outputs, many CNC machining companies continue to create their NC programs using 3rd party post processors, for over 20 years.

How do we know it?

Because we have been producing post processors for 21 different CAM programs for more than 14 years and we use their APT/CL outputs.

We have hundreds of customers who use our CNC post processors without any complaints or difficulties.

We also develop advanced post processors for complex CNCs that cannot be customized by CAM resellers. Many CAM resellers seek our support when they are unable to resolve their customers' post-processor issues.

We recommend that you stay away from post processors inside CAM. Why? If you don't create an alternative post processor solution for you, if not right now, you'll likely soon be paying huge amounts for your new CNC machine posts.

Moreover, when most CAM vendors realize that you are not looking for an alternative solution, they start offering you high post processor prices.

They will also offer you huge annual maintenance prices, when you request an update to your existing post processors.

Therefore, you don't have to, or even shouldn't, use post processors in CAM.

CAM RESELLER: Information Is Lost When You Use a 3rd Part Post Processor, We Directly Generate NC Programs
TRUTH: Many CAM software in the market generate tool path outputs in intermediate formats like cutter location (cl) file. Almost none of them generate NC programs directly and they also post process these intermediate outputs to generate the final NC programs.

If what they say is true, they will also lose their information in the post-processing stage.

If a company claims that they directly generate NC programs and if this is really true, stay away from that software. This is a really awful way of post processing and things get messy when you need a post processor for a complicated CNC machine tool like a millturn with double turret or 6 axis milling machine etc.

CAM RESELLER: Our CNC Post Processors Are Certificated
TRUTH: Even if this could be true for some CNC machine tools (depending on the partnerships between CNC builder and CAM company), it is impossible that they could test and certificate all the post processors for all different CNC machine tool brands and models in the industry.

Why?

There are thousands of different CNC machine tool brands and models.

Even for the valid certificates, these certificates will only be valid for specific models of that brand, will not cover all the models.

Actually we heard such kind of certificates in the past, not hearing for a while.

Because, if you know the CNC post processors in little, you will also know that two same model CNC machine of the same brand can have differences in their machine parameters. This is a good way to show to versatility in CNC machine tools.

CAM RESELLER: Easy To Customize Post Processors In Our Post Editor
TRUTH: Just ask them to make a small change on one of their existing post processors, observe how long does it take to make that change. I can share with you some simple modifications that you could ask:

• Changing the location of the coolant (for instance changing coolant line location from the operation start, to just before the first cutting movement line of each operation),
• Adding a new specific coolant M code that you want to activate only in deep hole drilling operations.
• Changing the rotary axis lock/unlock codes (ask them to change the lock/unlock M code locations)
• Ask them to add cutting tool information as a list in the beginning of the NC program,
• Change the N line formatting (either ask them to write N lines at each tool change, or just ask them to write N lines at each operation start, or at each drilling cycle lines etc)

There can be questions you can create on your own.

Just ask them to do the customization while you are watching, and see the amount of work they have to complete and also look at how long it takes.

Then decide yourself if it is easy or not.

The truth is, most CAM software in the market only have simple text editors to customize a post processor, and you get lost in long text files, even for a small change you need.

Just keep in mind, we only recommend you to ask simple modifications, guess what happens when you need a big change.

I also advise you to try MANUSpost developer and compare yourself the two post processor editors. I am sure you will see how a post processor editor should look like.