[Jacky.miller45]

I am a garage hobbyist with a motoman up200 and XRC controller. I was wondering if anyone had any input / suggestions for CAM software. My nephew is in a high school level vocational program and was looking to do some pretty basic woodworking for the capstone project. Any input would be greatly appreciated. I've landed on Robodk for reverse kinematics, but everyone claims their CAM software is the best so real world input would be great. Feel free to email. Thanks alot. Jack

[Albert]

We don't particularly recommend a specific CAD/CAM software. There are many good options out there and each product has pros and cons... We try to support any 5-axis machine code for robot machining (such as 5-axis APT files or different flavors of G-code). 

We also support the following plugins for CAD/CAM software:

• Alphacam (plugin sold by Vero Software/Hexagon)
  
• Mastercam
  
• Rhinoceros (Rhino is CAD but has plugins for CAM such as RhinoCAM or Madcam)
  
• SolidWorks
  
• TopSolid (plugin sold by Missler Software)
  
• WorkNC (plugin sold by Vero Software/Hexagon)
  

In your particular case I would look for a software with attractive pricing for educational purposes or a limited/free version that you can work with.

In any case, you can load any generic 5-axis APT files or G-code in RoboDK, create your simulations, define your setup (location of the part, tool, etc) and generate a robot program compatible with your robot controller, free of program errors (using a plugin is not a requirement). 

You should not have any issues with your XRC controller using our default post processor for Motoman robots.

[Jacky.miller45]

Thanks for the reply Albert. I was looking pretty hard at rhino and alpha cam. I just wanted to be reasonably sure this was a "doable" project before pulling the trigger on a particular software. Thanks again