Hi Folks! The first ten minutes of this video discusses the role CAM plays and criteria that influence which is best for your shop.
Then, at 10:45, we do an introductory tutorial to HSMXpress (Free CAM for SolidWorks): drilling, tapping, profiling, pocketing, and even 2D adaptive clearing with high speed machining tool paths! HSMXpress is a free (really!) CAM plug in integrated with SolidWorks. I have been excited to try it out and must say I have been very pleased. It’s not only well built and intuitive, but was quick to learn and offered a lot of well-thought out parameters and design / GUI features that not only will I appreciate, but I believe will make this software easier for others to learn and use! Amazingly, there are (very) few decent video tutorial on how to use it! This is a snappy, 15 minute tutorial that walks through most of the major operations and ought to get you up and running (or at least close to it!) I am still relatively new to HSMXpress, so stay tuned for more!