CimPACK Version 14.1

CimPACK Version 14.1
Cimex Corporation
80 Daniel Shays Highway
Belchertown, MA 01007
USA
Phone (413) 323-1090
Fax (413) 323-1096
www.cimexcorp.com
E-Mail [email protected]
CAD Portion of the Program
File Locking
When you open a design for editing, a lock is automatically taken out on that file. This means that nobody
else will be able to modify or delete that design until you close it. This makes it impossible for two people
to overwrite each other's work accidentally, since only one of them will actually be able to save their
changes, and the other one will be warned that opening the file will be in read-only mode. Hopefully this
will eliminate this potential source of errors for customers with multiple users.
The file dialogs were also improved to tell you the locking status of the highlighted design (including who
has the file locked), and to warn you when opening a locked design
Hot-Lighting
We have added a new concept called Hot-Lighting, which is referred to in a number of places. When we
ask for the closest line for example, in the past it could be somewhat unclear which was the closest line, or
which was the closed shape etc. We now highlight the closest line / shape depending on the situation,
making it clear what you are about to select or give for input. There are several different methods of HotLighting, whether the line(s) is shown in bold, which means basically a wider version of the line(s) so the
same color, or a dotted highlight which uses a dotted line instead. This makes many operations easier to
understand, and also safer and quicker.
New Info Menu
Getting information about a line, or distances between lines and points etc. is a very common operation. A
completely new option controls the six common types of info tools. The six modes are as follows : Line,
Line-Line, Point, Point-Point, Angle, and Panel. There is a new info tip dialog box on screen that shows
you information about the item that your mouse is closest to. All the information in the tip dialog is fully
customizable by you. This information is also displayed along the right side of the screen, in the dynamic
menu bar, along with even more information about the line / entity. The nearest item is Hot-lighted using
the new feature, so you know exactly which item's information you are being shown.
You can create a new set of dimensions in the info menu through the various modes (Point, Line, PointPoint, Line-Line, etc), and these info-dimensions can be either temporary or saved with the design
Here is an example of the listing of a single line.
Here is an example of a listing of a Panel Size.
Now when you ask for a distance between two points, you are also shown all the changes relative to both
the X and the Y as well as the diagonal distance between the two points.
The various checkboxes on the right menu control which pieces of information are shown, and also there
is a configuration dialog to control this feature from a general point of view, and also the Hot-lighting.
File Imports
A significant speed improvement was made to exporting an AI file, on large files typically about three
times as fast, and the larger the file the more drastic the improvement.
You now get an option to explode the subroutines when importing a file, versus previously just making
whether to make them internal or external. This removes the need to then explode them afterwards.
Multi-page PDF files now only ask for the mapping once
When importing DXF files, text strings can now be up to 2000 characters in length (used to be 500).
Batch Convert now asks everything it needs to once, up-front, so you don't have to answer any questions
once it starts processing all the files.
New Module : Amtech Interface
We have created a new module for CimPACK that is available for purchase, and not part of the standard
software as so specific. We now fully support an Amtech interface in CimPACK, allowing for the
information necessary to be transferred from CimPACK to the Amtech software. This new Module
requires the Designer Module on the Cimex side, and also may require additional software from Amtech
which you can contact them about. However, true integration is then possible with the corresponding
modules on both sides. Once the option / module is enabled, you can pick from the various Amtech Fields
offered.
Select Menu
A number of improvements were made to the Selection Menu. To start with, the menu was rearranged to
make room for some more options.
More of the selection modes are now modal (so repeat). As previously mentioned, the new hot-lighting
feature shows you what you'll select. Also, what is hot-lighted directly correlates to your current selection
method (whether item, link, edge, etc.)
One area that is very different is selecting by linetype or selecting by pointage. Rather than getting the
standard dialog showing all the possible linetypes and pointages defined in the system, you now get a
much smaller dialog only showing you the linetypes or pointages found in the current design, so much
simpler and quicker.
Windows 7
Version 14.x of CimCAD / CimPACK is Windows 7 compatible.
Miscellaneous
Continuing the trend of the last several versions, we added some more “engine improvements” behind the
scenes, speeding up some common actions to streamline various tasks, improving the general speed of the
software. The biggest speed improvements affect designs with subroutines when doing interactive
operations (snapping to the closest point, hot-lighting the closest line, selecting lines, etc.)
A number of new File Commands were added, all of which also update the database accordingly :
- Batch Archive allows you to archive a copy of your designs for backup purposes
- Batch Move allows you to move a group of designs to some other location on your system
- Batch Delete allows you to delete a group of designs
- Move moves the file you're currently editing to a new location
- Rename renames the file you're currently editing
- Delete deletes the file you're currently editing (and properly updates the database)
For CimLITE users, Forms / Stamps are allowed as part of the Lite product, however, some data fields
still require a CAD or better license.
Printer & Spooler settings as used / needed by CimCAD / CimPACK were moved out of the Windows
system registry and into Cimex’s own local folder. This was done to eliminate / reduce many possible
registry permissions issues, depending on how our software gets loaded out in the field. However, you
will not have to reconfigure your current plotters & samplemakers because of this new feature, the
settings will be transferred automatically, and then for versions after 14.1 the settings will be inherited
from local as are all your other local settings.
When displaying shapes with the View Dialog > Edges option turned on, the looped shape is now filled
with the same color for easier recognition. In CimPACK this means that displaying a phenolic counter
showing the tool paths for example is now much clearer.
The current pointage is now also on status bar, so trivial to toggle color-by-line-type vs. color-bypointage.
To improve file association handling, there are now separate Product-IDs for DEMO vs. Retail, and CAD
versus PACK versus Boxit.
File Preview was improved, so you have access to the full Info Menu interfaces when verifying the file to
open from the preview interface.
First Aid improved, now adding crosses to help mark lines which are out of alignment.
A hotkey Control-F was added, a shortcut to find in the database.
The conversion of text to vector text was improved, helping with justification and vertical alignment
issues.
Various changes were made so that you can now save and export a selection of lines to all supported file
formats. It used to be that some things worked and some didn’t, but now we have added a real feature
specifically to do that so is properly supported.
There are now separate macros for exporting files versus saving files, so macros for PreSave, PostSave,
PreExport, and PostExport are supported. This alleviates the lack of clarity of when / if Pre/post save
would be called.
CimPACK Portion of the Program
Designer Module : Fefco / Esbo Codes
A full corrugated Fefco / Esbo Code Library was added to 14.1, resulting in the addition of 189
corrugated standards to CimPACK. Although corrugated designs, these can of course be run using microflute calipers so useful for folding carton customers too. Various new categories were added to the
corrugated standards menu to support all the new standards. There is also now a Fefco section to the
bottom of the menu, with each of the different Fefco series. If you click on one of the series combo-boxes
all the different standard numbers are listed, and you can just click on the appropriate number to run that
standard.
However, as CimPACK usually prefers to do things in a visual method, if you do not know the standard
number, or just wish to see a visual of the different box standards, you can also just click on one of the
Fefco series buttons like “0200 / slotted”. This will bring up a second interface to pick from the standards.
You will get shown two or more standards at a time, along with 3D views of them, and can just cycle
through the pages until you get to the one that you want.
All the standards necessary to support the Fefco library were added as regular CimPACK standards, the
Fefco section on the menu is basically just an interface to access all the CimPACK standards, but picked
based on the Fefco / Esbo code numbers.
Designer Module
Changes were made to the corrugated caliper dialog to also separately track the flute of the corrugated
separately to the test, so 175B can still be the caliper, but both 175 and B can now conceivably be
references in forms. Also, the field was converted to combo-boxes to make it easier to change values.
Similar changes were made to the folding carton caliper dialog, along with adding a description field like
".018 SBS" and a separate board grade field for the "SBS" component. S Flute was added to the
corrugated dialog.
An additional filter standard was added to the system.
A setup option was added for the corrugated onepiece, trays, and pizza boxes to have the locks used in
conjunction with a rollover to be made larger to compensate for a non-perfect rollover. An additional
inside loss is added to the height of the lock if so configured, so should improve the locking of the flaps.
An additional cross style was added, a full center cross that extends past the design instead of an amount
short of the edge.
Filled Shapes
As many of you will have noticed, we changed rubber recently to be a true filled shape so easier to see.
We have started to use these filled shapes in more and more places as really highlights different parts of
the design. You will now see this in various places in the software, whether in stripping boards, blankers,
rotary items like boltholes, and adding shapes like hangholes etc. Here is an example of a portion of a
stripping board showing the new filled shapes, and also a phenolic counter showing the tool paths filled,
making them much clearer than just using the outside lines themselves.
Rotary
There is now an option to create a measuring tape for the current job / cylinder. Two different tapes are
created, for the cylinder surface / inside of the shell, and for the wood surface / outside of the shell. These
can be plotted on mylar and used for checking dies etc. Symbols designate which tape is which. A half
shell tape can be created, or a full cylinder tape.
New rotary cylinders were added as follows –
Isowa Falcon
Ward 37.5 Serrapid on center option 2
Hooper 72
Additional boltholes were turned off around the Hycorr Serrapid patterns.
Various improvements were made to rotary stripping rule grids to try and improve the results. Also, when
reporting the length of the actual stripping rules, the total with and without hooks is now reported.
Rotary bridge re-enforcers now have reference crosses added to make it easier to move them around, and
also the sizes and pointage were updated. A new linetype 69 was added for the re-enforcers, and flagged
as ruled lines. The Legard linetype was also changed to flag as ruled so both would be in the ALLRULE
form field.
Slight changes were made to the SR3 serrapid patterns to line up the shell slot base to the bolt, but also to
scale the SHELLSLOTS section if param(502) is set to 1. If the pins are still on the cylinder as opposed to
removed, this should help with any lineup issues if scaling is being done. Also, an option was added to
add drill holes at the Serrapid mushroom locations, so the countersinks can be added by hand later.
If licensed for rotary, dropouts now adds in the shell seam lines even though not machined, as can
highlight dropouts around the seam.
The standard laser optimization macro was improved for rotary dies.
The rotary verify shells option now re-optimizes the shells, and displays the shell lines with direction
arrows so can be run before the laser trim is done to make sure the current shells are correct. This is a
good idea especially with sketched seam or dovetail jobs.
Rotary : Mitsubishi Evol
The overall difference between what 14.0 did and 14.1 does can be summarized in the following screen
shot. In 14.0 and prior we let you position a standard lifter, then alter it by hand. The lifter on the left is a
standard lifter added with the only positioning option in 14.0, the external mouse-trap. The lifter to the
right was added with 14.1 using an internal staple instead of the mouse-trap, just an external route, and
using 2 fingers rather than 1. The software allows you to slide the fingers either way before they are
finalized, below the one on the left has been shifted just in from the left edge, but the one on the right
more to try and center them.
Not only have the finger locations been set and the final shapes determined, but whether the routing is to
be done just outside the shape, or a separate inside route needs to be added as well, various options can be
automatically created. The rectangles at the base of the fingers represent the gateways that need to be
punched in the rule, and can be etched into the dies. The filled rectangle represents the bend area on the
claw.
Here is an example of a lifter added with a perf slot in it, also showing an activating pin.
The new software also has a jig board built into it to help cut the original lifters to their correct shape. It
has an area for left facing lifters, centered lifters, and right facing lifters. The jig board can be lasercut out
of plywood, and looks like the following.
You can elect to have all the lifters in the current design added to the jig board, and each lifter is
automatically rotated and then positioned within the jig as follows.
However, the lifters are not just placed within the jig, but further altered as necessary. The cut edges of
the lifters are extended out past the lifter. Also, when using fingers with bends, the end of the fingers is
extended to allow for the additional material needed to bend the lifter finger. The lifters can then be
lasercut within the jig, or cut with an abrasive waterjet, you just need to develop the appropriate
registration method for your particular machine so the lower left corner of the jig board is positioned
correctly.
Ejection Rubber
When running a From Import in rubber, the rubber cleanup routine is now automatically run on the
design.
A rubber option was added to combine several pieces into a single piece of rubber, and also an option to
edit a piece of rubber, and to clean up a single piece of rubber. Two different shapes were added for
multiple knife windows within another knife profile.
Ejection rubber now looks for rotary boltholes and avoids them for inside panels and windows.
Updates were made to the ejection rubber waterjet output for the Gerber RMC machine.
Stripping Boards
There is now a configuration for the dovetail size for stripping board rails. The auto window detection in
stripping boards can now be turned on and off in preferences. A fixed dovetail to dovetail step can now be
specified when constructing female stripping board rails, allowing for different rails to be switched in and
out for different machines. The angled relief on the back of constructed stripping board rails can now have
a straight shoulder on it before the relief angle starts.
There is now a parameter to flip the text on female support rails, that marks the Y value of the back break
position.
When adding claw/tab and claw/chamfer combos in stripping boards, you can now change the claw being
used on the fly. The default opening was changed from the old simple radius to the new more supportive
shape, although now there is a configuration to pick between the two options.
Carrier rules can now be configured in the advanced section of preferences.
Doing a shorten slot in FSB protrusions now lets you add a claw at the same time as the chamfer as you
can with a chamfer distance for example.
The auto window detection in stripping boards can now be turned on and off in preferences.
The Both Separators option was changed so that you can also do a Bobst SPO combination unit there
instead of having to do each piece separately. When creating a guillotine for a Young Shin there is now a
max size check performed.
Blankers
The Compound blanker bar profiles can now have a section of bar following on the center of a curve for
designs where the common line is an arc, but has to be surrounded by straight segments.
The oneup blanker program has an option for ignoring striprules just for the pusher block, so the striprules
are used when creating the female cavity, but not for the block, such as in the example below.
Miscellaneous
Initial support for the Iberica SRK-144 II was added.
The standard bridging menu now has two new buttons to quickly add default bridging to all the rule lines
as opposed to a selection, and also to remove all bridging from all ruled lines. This is quicker than having
to pick default bridging, then a selection, and picking all the ruled lines as all done in one step.
Improvements were made to the single design steel counter routine for dealing with different situations,
and also for dealing with cutcrease. An option to treat perf the same as knife was also added, and crease /
cutcrease lines are split to the perf lines if that is the case.
An option was added to the gaskets menu to add a bolt pattern around a shape, with the bolts either placed
on the existing lines, or inside / outside, and spaced by a fixed amount or equally. A separate option was
added to add bolts along a chain / link of lines, with the spacing adjusted so the pattern starts and ends
with a hole, and instead of circles crosses can be added at the locations.
The lead edge chamfering in the router module was re-done so can work on multiple lead edge sections on
the same shape.
The number of different nick linetypes / configurations was increased from six to twelve, and various
changes were made to make this happen. Although most new rule machines only have around four
different size wheels on them, typically many more nick widths can be created by double-hitting the
nicks, and six different widths proved to be too few when combining folding carton and corrugated work
on the same machine.
The prompts in the CimPACK sketch menu were changed over to combo-boxes.
The Pull Section option in advanced now displays the section being merged, so you can just select the
lines that you want rather than assuming the whole section, so just some of the vector text can be copied
for example.
An Intersection option was added to the striprules start point menu.
Improvements were made to phenolic counters dealing with cutscore lines making up the equivalent of
cutcrease. If off the plate these now get bowties automatically, and the Tool4 flaps option now deals with
more flaps with these sorts of lines making up the base score. Corresponding changes were made to
rubber for the cutscore / crease combination lines.
The Dieboard Menu has an option for adding quick dimensions to show the size of the dieboard as well as
the diecutting sizes, plus the head knife amount.
DOS / Windows 95 / Windows ME / Windows 98 / and
Windows 2000
Versions 14.0 / 14.1 do NOT support Windows 2000, so require Windows XP at a minimum.
When it comes to DOS, it is now well over 10 years since we went to a Windows platform. Apart from
the fact that we basically can’t remember how to run the DOS version of CimCAD / CimPACK, almost
none of the hardware in our office will even run the DOS version anymore. As such, we have no choice
but to stop support for the DOS version, we are no longer capable of offering any effective support for it.
We would encourage anyone still running DOS to take the plunge and upgrade their hardware and
software. The activators for 14 are also incompatible with DOS, just another example of new hardware
basically being Windows only.
Thanks
Notice to CimCAD / CimPACK Customers Upgrading from a
version earlier than Version 11.0 (such as. 10.4)
Changes made to the Version 11.0 release shipped in July 2004 mean that if you have written any custom
software, changes may be required. If that is the case and you need us to train you on the differences with
11.0 please contact us for a quote on that.
If you are upgrading from any 11.x version to 14.x there are no changes required, but if upgrading from
Windows 10.4 to 14.x for example, then this applies to you.
If you paid us to write custom software for you, it may need some work done on it to function correctly in
the new version.
Standard Laser Drivers and Router Maps supplied by Cimex will be converted free of charge, however
means that we need a copy of your complete Local folder (including all sub-folders etc.) to convert,
before we can ship your upgrade.
If you have any question on this, please contact us.
Thanks
CimPACK Version 14.1 Windows Edition Upgrade Pricing
From
Windows
Version
first user
additional
users
From
DOS
Versions
first user
additional
users
Current
V14.0
Any
V13
Any
V12
Any
V11
Any
V10
$900
$1350
$1650
$1950
$2300
$175 per $200 per $250 per $300 per $350 per
Any
Version
$2600
$400 per
To order the Windows upgrade, please fill out the attached order sheet and either mail or fax it to us.
*** Version 14 only runs on a new type of USB key we have switched to, so anyone
upgrading to 14 from any version of 11 or earlier needs new activators. Even if you
currently have USB keys, we are now using a newer version of those USB keys, they
look similar but are about ½ inch shorter than the original ones. Parallel keys have
been phased out, as have activators that run DOS, these new keys will run Windows
only. The older USB keys no longer used are the HASP4 keys, the newer ones for 12.1
onwards are the HASP SRM keys. If unsure you can go to Help > About CimPACK,
and next to the “Activator :” entry it says which type of USB key you are currently
using.***
*** We can ship new replacement activators providing a purchase order is issued. The
purchase order will cover the additional seats of software should the old activators not
be returned within 30 days from the update. (Subject to credit approval) ***
*** The activator registration forms must be filled in by the end user and faxed back
before we can ship any software. The activator registration form provides the
necessary information needed for us to program the activators with your license
information. ***
Cimex Corporation
80 Daniel Shays Highway
Belchertown, MA 01007
Phone: 413-323-1090
Fax: 413-323-1096
www.cimexcorp.com
CimPACK Version 14.1 Windows Edition Update Form
Company Name _________________________________________________________________________________
Contact Person __________________________________________________________________________________
Address ________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
City / State / Zip ________________________________________________________________________________
Phone Number _________________________________________________________________________________
Fax Number ___________________________________________________________________________________
Email Address _________________________________________________________________________________
Current version of CimPACK
____________________
Number of users
____________________
PO Number being used
(terms are net 30)
____________________
We wish to purchase the following:
CimPACK Version 14.1 Update
$______________
Replacement USB activators @ $65 each
$______________
Please check off the shipping method that you would prefer.
UPS Ground
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UPS Blue 2 Day
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UPS Orange 3 Day
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UPS Red Next Day
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Authorized Signature _______________________________
Date _________________________
Printed Name _____________________________________
Title _________________________