Next after your computer actually blowing up, trying to find a lost file on the server or hard drive has to be one of the worst thing ever!
Last month Jeff Mirisola who runs Jeff’s Tool Shed posted a review for a program called CADFind. It is a Solidworks add-on that somewhat magically using your sketch as a search tool. Reading Jeff Mirisolas post reminded me of Mastercams tracking function. You can’t really compare the 2 function and CADFind is a paid add-on, but with the amount of time people are spending searching and confirming changes to CAD files, you should know about these programs existence if you are a Solidworks and Mastercam user. So learn about CADFind by reading Jeff Mirisolas post here CADFind…ing what you can’t , and then I will explain Mastercams tracking and show how easy it is to set up.
Track Solidworks files with Mastercam You get handed a file with a email attached saying that the hole location in you model has been changed by 1.5mm, costumer don’t want to hear any prize increase because this is of course considered a minor change, and with all this modern CAD and CAM how difficult is it really. But as the email was typed the engineer dropped jelly filling on his shirt, and in the panic of his wife’s anger and his damaged diet, he forget to tell you about the corner radii change he also made. Well the shirt is a lose but your part might not be if you are using Mastercams Tracking function.
Open your Solidworks file in Mastercam, Then File => Tracking => Tracking Options.
With the Tracking dialog open, right click anywhere in the white empty field and you will be prompted to add, now pick your Solidworks file.
After you choose you Solidworks file to track, you will have the change to setup some tracking options.
So next time the your favorite engineer sends you a file, go into tracking options, highlight your file and press “Check Now” and Mastercam will notify you if any changes.
2 pretty neat functions, one for Solidworks that will help you do things once, and one for Mastercam to keep issues from sneaking up on you.
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