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**Taz** · 3 February 2007, 14:50

Originally posted by gt40 View Post

I'm not a fan of on board anything - I find any on-board hardware is usually a bit of a compromise.

You'd be hard pushed to find a board that doesn't have on-board everything

The only card you're likely to need is a video card. If the on-board devices are connected to the PCI-e bus rather than the PCI bus then there's no real disadvantage to using them.

**gt40** · 3 February 2007, 14:56

Well, I expected as much.
My main thought was that I really wasn't concerned about having them on board if it added any price difference.
I suppose my main concern would be which chipset and CPU combination would be the most robust/reliable/cost effective.
I've really not been following things lately.

**Taz** · 3 February 2007, 16:41

Core2Duo's seem to be the CPU's of choice these days

Chipset wise I guess it's between Intel's 975 and nVidia's nForce 6x0.

The Asus P5WDG2 WS Professional looks pretty impressive, supports both PCI-e and PCI-X so covers all bases. It doesn't do SLI but as it's not for a gaming rig I guess that doesn't matter.

**Mehen** · 3 February 2007, 18:37

Yeah, Core 2 Duo, which one depends on budget. Even the E6300 is an excellent CPU. Apparently some of the mobo's out now will support even the 45nm parts coming towards the end of the year, but if you don't need to upgrade don't worry about it.

ASUS is good, stick with ASUS. The P5B 965P is an excellent board - cheap and isn't bloated with features you might not want.

Get a 2x1024 set of DDR2. Something along the lines of DDR2-800 PC6400 with fairly loose timings. The amount of performance you gain by going with something tighter timings isn't worth it. Even something like 5-5-5-12 should be ok. Most brands of ram are good (OCZ, Kingston, Corsair, Mushkin, etc). I am not sure what kind of ram requirements you have, but getting the 1gb sticks leaves room in your machine for more. If you are overbudget, then go to 2x512, this will be the easiest way to cut cost.

A lot of places have the Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB pretty cheap. It is the drive I am using, works fine.

Case is something that I have skipped on in the past and have regretted it. It is worth it to spend $$ on a nice case (and PSU).
Check out the Silverstone lineup, the TJ0x series (Temjin) http://www.silverstonetek.com/product-case.htm. The TJ04 is great for the budget.
As for PSUs, there are a lot of good ones out there, and a lot of poor ones, if you really want something of quality look to spend at least $75 or so on your PSU.
Again, if you are overbudget, look into something that comes with its own PSU as well, maybe a Coolermaster or Antec.

**Mehen** · 3 February 2007, 18:38

And make sure you post a quote on this thread before you purchase - there are a lot of MURCers who I am sure can find good deals around Canada which may or may not be better than the price you found.

**RhinoZ** · 3 February 2007, 20:42

Hey GT40,
Do you use Solidworks with your CNC machine??

The older versions were more stable.

3D CAD Design Software | SOLIDWORKS

http://www.solidworks.com/

Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS Corp. develops and markets 3D CAD design software, analysis software, and product data management software. SOLIDWORKS is the leading supplier of 3D CAD product design engineering software.

**gt40** · 4 February 2007, 06:49

@Taz - looks like a great mobo, but at 3 times the price of the P5B, i'm not sure if the price dfference justifies the extra features.
@Mehen at just over the price of a $100 burger, that looks like a good contender.

I think the next affordable board with the 975 chipset (P5W) is just over $200 - but is it work the extra????

RhinoZ, I use Mastercam for my CNC programs and some CAD work. Any work in solids I use Keycreator. Between the two, I can pretty well take any file format anyone throws at me.

**ND66** · 4 February 2007, 12:20

You did not mention how complex CNC programs are you working with, how many axis for example.
Your money invested in workstation relatively depends on the type of work you do.

Anyway, if you do a complex machining, the processor speed is not the only thing to pay attention to.

I know many programmers went to AMD64 chip just to break away from the max. RAM memory allowed (that was before Core 2 Duo was introduced). Also you have to make sure that you application (MasterCam) can recognize more then 4Gb of RAM.
If you have a need to go that high, of course.

Hyper treading wasnâ€™t supported much by the CAD/CAM industry. Dual Core has way more to offer, regardless if itâ€™s AMD or Intel. However, some programs may try to scare you away from it, like MasterCam says:

May run on AMD but untested and unsupported.

One thing for sure, stay away from Vista for now, becauseâ€¦

...OpenGL support was dropped along the way, meaning that Windows Vista currently offers horrible performance for graphics applications utilizing the Open Graphics Library.

Your hard drive donâ€™t need to be big, just nee to be fast. If I did build a workstation, I would go with Raptor.

You already know you need a good graphic card, there s the new PCIe Fire GL â€œVâ€ series card from ATI, check it out.

Also, youâ€™re using a server, this could slow you down a bit as well, like how old your server is, if youâ€™re running on 100 Mb or 1Gig LAN, etc.

You know, if your needs are not as high as for some, you still could build a system around your Fire GL card. Just the increase in FSB, RAM and CPU speed (hard drive has 7200RPM I hope?) may get you where you need to be... .

As a side note for Solid Edge users:

FOR RELEASE Monday, January 29, 2007

PLANO, Texas - UGS Corp., a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services, today announced that its no cost Solid EdgeÂ® 2D Drafting software (a $995 value) is now available in 10 languages online at www.solidedge.com/free2d. In addition to the English version already available, downloads are now available in Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish.

The announcement is part of a continuing effort by UGS to help users around the globe â€œEvolve to 3Dâ€ CAD software by providing them access to no cost 2D design and drafting to begin the transition. There is no cost to download or license the software. Optional support and automatic upgrades are available for a nominal fee......

**gt40** · 4 February 2007, 18:18

Most of my machining is of the complex 3D variety, so alot of time is spent by the computer generating toolpaths, so most of my benefits will come from the CPU.
Infact I do most of my modelling in wireframe mode, and swith to the rendered model only near the end of the session just to verify there are no 'holes', and the end result is smooth.
Because all of my work is one-offs, there is a great deal of prep involved before I can put a tool to the workpiece. The quicker the toolpaths are generated, the sooner I'm making money.
Usually I'm generating the next set of toolpaths while the machine is doing the initial roughing procedure, but as models are becoming more and more complex (and larger) I am finding that the machine may be done before I have finished generating the next operation.
My CPU just isn't up to the task, and I'm sure that adding more memory will help to, just as a a faster hard drive will.
My little 5 year old system just needs to be retired

As for re-using that firegl - it's an AGP card, so it's time has come as well.
I guess I'll have to find someone who's worthy of it

**gt40** · 5 February 2007, 07:59

Thanks for the link to the solidedge s/w - I'll give it a go.
The more tools you have in you toolbox, the better

**spadnos** · 5 February 2007, 10:56

You must have a very fast milling machine

One thing to note is that a lot of CAD software isn't multi-threaded (specifically SolidWorks - I'm not sure about MasterCAM). For the purposes of computer buying, that implies that you want to get the CPU with the highest throughput for a single core, not necessarily the highest total throughput. Of course, dual-core will still help since there will still be a CPU left over for "other stuff".

Out of curiosity, what size NC files are you ending up with? If they're extremely large (in the several hundred meg range), then I think extra RAM will be a big help (I suspect that the path is created in memory, then saved to disk).

I'm not sure that the $750 budget is reasonable for a CAM-specific machine. Going with high quality parts, just a case / PSU will be in the $150-200 range (minimum). 2G RAM will be $250 and up, CPU $150 minimum, MB $100+, and HD $100 or so. Those are the bare minimum devices that I'd consider using, not an ideal system. That also leaves out the keyboard, mouse, OS, CD/DVD drive, and any peripherals you may want. You mentioned video as easy to get cheap, so I didn't include that either. (note: I've been able to get two Quadro FX-3500 cards off eBay for $300-$400 each, and there are more available now)

- Steve

**gt40** · 5 February 2007, 11:55

You must have a very fast milling machine

welcome to the world of hifeed machining. A 3" cutter moving at over 200 ipm removes alot of material very quicly

I normally break my programs up into 4 or 5 sections
A roughing pass with a larger cutter that removes as much material as possible
A 2nd and possibly a third roughing pass with a smaller cutter to bring the material to a point where in the next pass a semifinish cutter will be in a quasi constant material load,
and a final finishing cut where the cutter remove a small controlled amount of material.

The first cuts are fairly quick, and I like to actually verify the individual steps on screen before I cut - this prevents ouches.
The longest cut is usually the last, the cutter only moves over a small amount between steps, and is at a controlled feed rate to minimise cutter deflection.

One thing to note is that a lot of CAD software isn't multi-threaded (specifically SolidWorks - I'm not sure about MasterCAM)

Correct! What can be done thou is changing the affinity of the program to a particular CPU, leaving the other processes the hog the other.
What I can also do is open another instance of the program and dedicate the other CPU to it.
I'm not sure how this will work with dual cores thou???

Out of curiosity, what size NC files are you ending up with?

Most of the final NC programs are filtered (I will typically filter a finish cut with a .0002" tolerance) so the final sizes are relatively manageable. On a larger part with an 8 hour finish cut the file size will be in the 2-10 mb range (depending on the complexity of the part).
There is quite a bit of proccessing involved before this, and Mastercam can and will ballon memory use over 1gb.

I'm not sure that the $750 budget is reasonable for a CAM-specific machine

This would be the budget for CPU/mobo/PSU/HD
I will have to make some compromises at first, but it will definetly give me a good start.
I can probably get another Firegl in a PCI Express version on a favour

**ND66** · 5 February 2007, 12:32

Originally posted by gt40 View Post

Most of the final NC programs are filtered (I will typically filter a finish cut with a .0002" tolerance) so the final sizes are relatively manageable. On a larger part with an 8 hour finish cut the file size will be in the 2-10 mb range (depending on the complexity of the part).

Sounds like a 3 Axis only.

unless if your machine runs on NURBS... .

Hard or Soft milling?

.

**gt40** · 5 February 2007, 12:47

It's just a 3-axis, but the parts can be fairly complex. Filtering will change the final program from smaller lines to arcs/lines. I have typically seen it reduce the final program size by 70-95%.
It's very rare that any of my customers would require 5 axis work - most avoid it if possible.
Most of my work is soft, but I am not shy about hard machining

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