Micro 100 Specialty Carbide Tooling company has approached me asking for a branded version of my FSWizard:Online Speeds and Feeds Calculator.

Customer requests for Speeds and Feeds amount for a large portion of their customer support calls.

I hope this partnership will unload their phones AND bring some new users to my commercial products such as desktop HSMAdvisor and FSWizard for mobile platforms.

And here is the link for the custom Speed and Feed calculator i made for them http://micro100.hsmadvisor.com/

PS.

A big. A VERY BIG and VERY GOOD news are coming to those of my users who also use MasterCAM  :)

First of all Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !

There has been a spur in development in the last couple of weeks.
Mainly due to the fact that i took a vacation from my day job.

I also used this time to pay a visit to some businesses operating in the area to get some feedback on my software, hear out their needs and desires.

I have not been able to post about the latest updates, so let's summarize what we have at this moment in the latest v1.110 update

• New 90 Degree metric Flat Head screw reference tool
  
• Ability to use comma sign instead of dot as a decimal point.
  HSMAdvisor will still convert comma to dot, but now it treats input properly
  This was done to accommodate users whose language settings use comma on their numpad
• Fixed scaling for all DPI types.
• Added a bunch of materials like Machinable Wax, Plywood, some Steels etc.
• Improved and made more predictable loading of tools and cuts from the database
• Made improvements to Machine definition window.

Most of the work has been finished on the CAM integration feature.
If any of you, my users, feel like you want the FREE integration with their favorite CAM, please nag your CAM support and/or sales desk!!

........

........

Now did I mention I plan on NOT changing a dime for the integration feature?

If not, then let me repeat it again.

CAM Integration feature will come at no price for my users!

So if i were you, i would file support tickets (make some phone calls, write letters) to your CAM providers and ask them to consider enabling their software to speak with mine.

My contact details can be found here: http://hsmadvisor.com/index.php?page=help&shell_id=241&article_id=4426

Have a nice New Year!

We have changed a Web-Server hosting company

This will translate to much better loading times for our users. Especially those who use the FSWizard:Online Calculator

Thank you for patience.

Our Halloween Sale is now Officially Over

Once again I would like to thank everyone who invested into development of this software.

Each one of you is not just a customer, but a co-creator. Thanks to your contributions our software gets better and better with every release.
And all of it comes back to our users in a form of features they have suggested or asked for.

At this point in time i can see the results of adding the subscription-based floating licensing model.
NOT surprisingly the Permanent License Type is still more popular than the subscription-based one.

Perhaps it is attributed to the fact that most people only use HSMAdvisor on one computer anyway, which most of the time is their CAD/CAM station and relatively few people need to move their seat from one computer to another.

More User Interface Improvements are Coming

I am in the process of re-vising the work-flow of loading a Tool/Cut From the database.

Tool and Cut drop down lists will disappear from the screen. Instead a couple of buttons will be added that would allow loading a Tool/Cut from the database, editing/viewing parameters etc.

This should greatly unload the screen and make things easier to read.

Have a good and productive day!

I have received a lot of praise and thanks for the easy to navigate interface in FSWizard:Mobile calculator.

Those collapsable accordion-style sections that carry some information in header portion come in really handy when having to put so much information on one small screen on your Android or Apple device.

Lately I felt the need to do something like that for HSMAdvisor as well. It has been over two ears since I came up with that design. And since then massive amount of features I believe overloaded the visual part of it.

It seemed very crowded and busy looking.

So, knowing that collapsable accordion panels do work, i moved all UI elements into them.

This has somewhat changed the percieved workflow of the program and at a later time I will release a series of videos showing off major hints on how to use my tool efficiently and achive best results.

For now please download the latest update. Take it for a spin and tell me what you think.

My email and forums are always open for questions and suggestions

Happy April Fool's day!

Seriously though, i have just published another update.

This update adds a floating Speed and Feed mini-window that stays on top and displays most relevant information to help users with populating S&F values on their CAM software.

To show/Hide this window, click the red-and-white "Float" button in the status bar.

Upon right mouse click on the floating window you can choose what kind of information you would like to display in there.

Also one bug was fixed where when no machine was selected from the drop-down list, deflection and torque limits were not firing for milling and drilling tools.

But wait! There is more!

I will not open all my cards, but right now i am working on a massive update to HSMAdvisor's Tool Database.
Keep tuned in.

More goodies for our HSMAdvisor users!

I have just uploaded an update that allows several computers running HSMAdvisor to share the same database.
Please check out Tutorials section for more info on how it works and how to turn it on.

I have been bearing this idea for quite some time, but HSMAdvisor user Kevin E. (koodos!) sent me an email and suggested that i finally implement it.
He has almost a dozen CAM computers in his shop and he and his co-workers frequently change workstations.
Obviousy in this kind of setting it would be hard to keep importing/exporting yout tooling data without loosing anything.

Before you go ahead, however, please make sure you create a backup copy of your database yto prevent possible data loss should anything go wrong.

Also several things were improved and fixed.

First of all, Automatic Registration that allows users with multiple purchased seats request and receive their license key online on-demand has been fixed.
All 2 accounts with keys wrongfully issued this way were fixed :)

I also improved the way Tools and Cuts are loaded into the calculator.
Before there was a bit of confusion when loading tools from myCutDB page- speed and feed overrides would pick up wrong values - now it is fixed.

Thank you to everyone who has helped me with their suggestions and feedback.

Our most recent sale is over and it has been a huge success.

I would like to thank everybody who helped me make this software better with every update.

I just wanted to tell you about an incoming update here.

One of early users- Kevin, expressed his desire to install HSMAdvisor on 9 CAM computers in his shop. Now all computers are connected to the network, so he was wandering if it was possible to make all seats share the same tooling database.

It was not possible back then, so I decided to add that functionality in there.

The testing is almost complete and soon everyone will be able to download an update that lets multiple users share the same tooling database over the network. You could even share it over the internet if you use software like DropBox.

I bit later I will create a tutiorial on how it is done. 

This goes to show how important user feedback is for software makers like me.

So if you have any idea and would like to see it implemented, please let me know.

It it looks stupid but it works, it is NOT stupid!

I have uploaded the latest version of HSMAdvisor today.

It is a minor update that adds in-app registration for existing users with unused seats.

Also have just completed MasterCAM x2 integration profile for the Capture Wizard.

I did not have time to include it into this update yet, but you can download it below.

MasterCAM Mill X2 MR2 SP1 English.xml

This update is mainly a bug fix and has some usability improvements.

New Things

• Persistence in Threads Tab
  Now Threads Page will stay the way you left it when you shut down the program
• Persistence in column selection for Drill Chart for both the Treads Page and Tap Tool on FSWizard Page as well.
• Capture Wizard can now capture target windows with dynamic controls. (Still working on SprutCAM integration profile that required this feature)

Fixed and Improved things

• Tapping tools had a bug in metric mode. Now it is fixed
• Text color for selected row in myCut Database page is now white on blue background. Which makes things easier to see.
• Capture Wizard is now a lot faster and should be less prone to hang ups.
• Improved Machine Limits behavior
  Power Overload now causes feedrate to reduce.

Version v0.735 has just been released.

We now have 2 new tool types: Counterbore and Chamfer Mill.
They were added to match with similar tools in most CAM packages

Also we now have tool simulation graphics in the Results' area new Tool tab.

Here is a simulation of the new Chamfer Tool type:

Capture Wizard now has Tab Name field that allows Wizard to only capture the Target window when selcted tab is active.

Also Detault Tool Type, Tool Material and Tool coating fields were added.
you can now specify which tool will be picked if Wizard fails to recognise the tool type.

Oh pardon me!

Forgot to mention: We now have Surfcam 5.2, BobCAD-CAM v25 and v26 integration profiles.
you can load those from Profile manager tab on Capture Wizard form.

On a side note somebody from SprutCAM has asked me to create a profile for their package.
Looke like they have demo available for download, so i will probably do that very soon.
As far as I know, I do not really have any customers using that CAM.

But hey, Things change!